AN EARLY WATERCOLOUR
Straight after we were liberated Uncle Herman began to teach me the gentle art of water colouring. Six weeks later I thought I was doing all right for a twelve-year-old. However, being sent to Switzerland put a stop to my serious art studies until I entered the Rietveld Academy. I didn’t really mind: Switzerland would give me plenty of memories to work with later on.
A few weeks after liberation the authorities organized a so-called spontaneous sing-in. All ten schools had to assemble in the playground and sing some carefully selected psalms and patriotic songs. We all thought it was stupid, but we had no choice.
I had got more than a little interested in a girl in my class, Lucie Rinkel, and she came to stand next to me during that sing-in. Like Greetje earlier on, Lucie sang beautifully, even those boring psalms. I always felt attracted to musical girls with dark hair. Anyway, some weeks later all the sixth-year kids from those schools had to assemble in the gym and our names were read out one after the other. Some were told that they had to do the last year once more, but to most of us, the man said: 'You have now passed the entrance exam for High School. Congratulations.' And we were allowed to go home.
Just like that. I didn't know anything about exams; I had hardly been to school at all those last years. But I had passed an exam which none of us had ever sat. Things were crazy then. Lucie passed her exam too, but I never saw her again.
I spent a lot of time at Uncle Herman's apartment. He had taught himself to do little oil paintings while he was in hiding, and he showed me how to do watercolours.
He had an air rifle, so I did hours of target practice in their bedroom.
And I sang. The old folk songs, school songs, anything I could think of I sang. The Dutch national anthem 'Wilhelmus' has 15 verses. Most people knew only the three verses which were sung on official occasions, but I knew them all. Another favourite song of mine was 'It's a long way to the prairie,' as I had learned it from the Canadians. I only knew the first two lines and fitted those to the whole melody.
I know now it's 'to Tipperary', but at the time I didn't speak English, only a few words I picked up from the soldiers. And I knew the word prairie from a book by Karl May. You know, about those Indians like Winnetou.
It was a time of enormous contrasts. At times we felt pretty good. Especially after we got a letter from Oma that she was alive and healthy and that she would come home as soon as public transport was restored. 'Not long now, maybe only a few months,' she wrote.
But the list of people who were confirmed dead was growing. My friend, who had been picked up in a razzia, was on that list, and Dad's cousin Dries, whom I had visited in his hiding place, and Oma's brother Uncle Henri Polak, and the chemist lady who had hidden Oma and Uncle Herman.
Nowadays, sixty years later, I come close to crying for the misery of other people, and sometimes music makes me cry. I never cried for my friend, or for any of the others. I never could. When they died in the gas chambers, my ability to cry died with them.
Tom was still in the hospital in a special room with several more babies, and I was only allowed to look at him through the window in the door. It would be at least six months, they told us, before they could give any real hope that he might survive. By then I would be in Switzerland.