Hero

martha attema

Copyright © 2003 martha attema

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Attema, Martha, 1949-

Hero / Martha Attema.

“An Orca young reader.”

ISBN 1-55143-251-X

I. Title.

PS8551.T74H47 2003    jC813'.54    C2003-910877-5

PZ7.A8664H47 2003

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:
2003107505

Summary: In the last cold winter of WWII, Izaak is sent from hiding in Amsterdam to live on a farm in the north of Holland.

Teachers' guide available at
www.orcabook.com

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support of its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.

Cover design by Christine Toller
Cover illustration by James Bentley
Interior illustrations by Stephen McCallum
Printed and bound in Canada

IN CANADA
Orca Book Publishers
1030 North Park Street
Victoria, BC Canada
V8T 1C6

IN THE UNITED STATES
Orca Book Publishers
PO Box 468 Custer, WA USA
98240-0468

05 04 03 • 5 4 3 2 1

In memory of Jan Hoogterp, my great uncle and
proud owner of Held (Hero)
.

Acknowledegments

Many people have encouraged me to write this story and I am grateful for their suggestions and ideas.

Thanks to Marla J. Hayes for her honesty as a friend and fellow writer; to Betty Jane Wylie for “walking” me through the difficult part; to the members of the North Bay Children's Writers' Group for their insight and suggestions; to Jan de Vries for his invaluable comments and for sharing his real-life, war-time experiences as a young boy on a farm in Friesland; to Maggie de Vries, my editor, for her patience and expert guidance during the revision process; and to my father, Willie Hoogterp, for providing the detailed information about his war experience and about Held; and to Albert for always being there for me.

Vroom! Vroom!

The sound of engines startled eight-year-old Izaak out of his world of make believe. He was pretending that he was the milkman, delivering milk bottles to the houses along the canal. Every chair was a house. First, he loaded his metal wagon full of imaginary bottles from the dairy. Bessie, his metal horse, pulled the wagon. Izaak chatted with the people along the way. “How is the war going? Did you hear the Allied troops have liberated the southern part of the Netherlands?”

Izaak pretended to ring a bell. “Ding, ding. The milkman is here.”

Outside, brakes squealed.

“Quick, Izaak, take your horse and wagon and run upstairs!” Mama stood in the doorway. The doorway of a small, gabled house. A house in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. A house that was not Izaak's.

Izaak picked up the brown, metal horse and scrambled to his feet. He thrust the little wagon in his pocket and glanced at Mama, his eyes dark with fear. Not again, he thought, and ran as quietly as he could up a second flight of stairs.

Mama was right behind him. They slipped into a room in the attic and Mama closed the door without a sound.

Izaak heard a loud knock on the front door. Footsteps sounded in the hallway. The front door creaked open.

Voices traveled up from downstairs, loud voices that made Izaak cringe.

Along the wall of their attic room
stood a large, mahogany dresser. It had been moved away from the wall. In the faint afternoon light, Izaak and Mama crept behind the dresser, through a hole cut in the wall into their secret hiding place. Together they dragged the dresser against the wall to hide the opening.

The space was just big enough for a mattress. In the corner stood a bucket that they used for a toilet. Izaak did not like the smell of that bucket.

Mama pulled him down beside her on the mattress. Her arms wound tightly around him. Izaak wriggled. He could hardly breathe.

“Shh. Not a sound,” she whispered.

He felt the cold metal of the horse in his left hand. He pressed the little wagon in his pocket with his other.

Izaak and Mama sat still, as still as they could. They waited.

The sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs made Izaak shiver. Mama held him.

Her head rested on his. He smelled her warm skin. The pounding of Izaak's and Mama's heartbeats filled their small hiding place. Izaak felt the tight-ness of her arms.

The voices grew louder. He tried not to listen.

Now the voices had reached the room in the attic, their room. He heard the door open.

“Who are you hiding in here?” The voice of a German soldier cut through the wall.

Izaak stopped breathing. Mama stopped breathing.

“I told you, there is nobody in here,” Mrs. Waterman answered.

A white line of light appeared on the floor. The beam moved from left to right and back. A flashlight, Izaak thought. Someone opened the dresser drawers, one at the time, and closed them with a bang.

The heavy footsteps trooped out the door and down the stairs.

In a long gush, Izaak and Mama blew out the air that had been stuck by fear. Izaak knew he wasn't allowed to move until Mrs. Waterman came upstairs and told them it was safe.

“Mama,” he whispered, “are they gone?”

“Not yet.” Mama's voice was very soft.

Izaak felt trapped, not just in his mother's arms, but in this house. In this city. In this war.

For over a year, Mama and Izaak had been in hiding at Mrs. Water man's house.

Izaak, his twelve-year -old sister, Sarah, and their parents had lived in their own gabled house along one of Amsterdam's canals. The house had big, bright rooms. Izaak and Sarah each had their own room with sunny windows on the third floor. Izaak's room had a high ceiling and creampainted walls. Beside his bed stood a wooden chest full of toys. Oak-stained
shelves held his favorite books and his collection of metal and wooden horses. Izaak often thought about his room and wondered if he and his family would ever go back there to live.

Since the war started four years ago, things had gone from bad to worse for Izaak's family. Not just for Izaak's family, but for all the Jewish people in the country.

First, the German soldiers had closed his father's jewelry store. Izaak remembered how angry Papa had been and how Mama had cried. Then they'd moved from their bright house to a small apartment above a warehouse. Living in the apartment became too dangerous when the Germans had ordered them to live in the ghetto. The Jews were forced to live together, so it was easier for the Nazis to hunt them down. From the ghetto, Jewish people were sent to camps in Germany and Poland. Papa said the people were herded onto trains like cattle.

“We are disobeying this order.” Papa
had ripped up the paper and thrown the pieces in the stove. “We are not going to live in the ghetto. We are not going to be sent on trains to the camps. We will go into hiding until this war is over. I have contacts.”

Izaak trembled. Friends from school had left on those trains to camps in Germany. He was glad his father had suggested they go into hiding.

“Mama,” Izaak whispered now, “tell me again about the yellow star.”

“Oh, Izaak.” Mama dropped a kiss on his head. “A man named Hitler, the leader of Germany, wants to rule the whole world.”

Izaak nodded. He knew, but didn't understand how Hitler could fight all the countries in the world. He had seen the soldiers though. He'd watched them march in the streets. Every day, he saw military trucks loaded with soldiers. And here, Papa had told him, in the city of Amsterdam, were thousands and thousands of soldiers.

“Hitler doesn't like Jews. He wants to lock them up.” Mama paused. “Or send them away.”

“Why Jews?”

“Because Hitler blames the Jews for all the bad things that happen in Germany.” Mama sighed; her eyes filled with tears.

Izaak found it hard to believe that the Jews could cause so much trouble that Hitler wanted to get rid of the Jewish population in all of Europe.

“He also wants to make sure everybody will recognize the Jews. That's why we all have to wear the Star of David on our coats.”

Izaak nodded. Papa had told him he should be proud to be Jewish. But he was scared to be recognized.

“Can we leave now?” Izaak whispered.

“Not yet. We have to wait till Mrs. Waterman comes upstairs. She'll tell us when it's safe.”

Izaak wriggled in his mother's arms. He closed his eyes and tried to think
of Papa and Sarah. He remembered his father's strong arms. When Izaak was little, Papa had carried him up the stairs every night. At first, when he closed his eyes tight, he could see his father's face: those dark eyes that sparkled when he laughed, the bushy eyebrows that frowned and made a straight line when he was cross. Lately, Izaak found it harder to remember what Papa looked like. He hadn't seen his father for over a year. Not since the night they had to flee the apartment.