The Heart Has Reasons (38 page)

Rut Matthijsen remains sharp at the age of ninety-one; he continues to read widely, including World War II histories. He has downsized to an apartment in Oss where he lives close to downtown. “I’m not hopping like a kangaroo,” he explained cheerfully, “but I still get around.” When we spoke in July, he was pleased that his daughter was taking him on a weekend excursion; he told me that she has driven him to several Resistance reunions where he saw old friends, including Gisela.

Gisela Söhnlein is ninety years old and also living independently. When her husband died in 2006, she wrote me, “I must not complain, but we all miss him. We were married nearly sixty years!” We spoke this July at which time Gisela told me she had moved to a nice apartment in Eindhoven where she is happy to be living closer to her children and grandchildren. But the best news came in an email I received from her several months later: she has had a great grandchild. Wecome to the world little Inés, and a big mazel tov to Great Grandmother Gisela!

I spoke to Clara Dijkstra in May and she was overjoyed that her children and grandchildren would soon be coming over for Mother’s Day. She also expressed gratitude that she has not had to move from the apartment where I first visited her in 1996. Her only lament was that she has not heard from Nettie in a long time.

When I called Kees Veenstra in May at his extended-care facility, a nurse explained that he can no longer leave his bed or speak. Yet she assured me that he is mentally sound and offered to hold the phone to his ear. For five minutes I filled him in on details of my family and how much the readers of this book have been moved by his stories. I could hear his gentle breathing, but that was all.

COMMENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In crafting the profiles of the rescuers, I used my initial interviews as a base but over time incorporated material from our further conversations, both face-to-face and on the phone, as well as correspondence via letter, e-mail, and fax. I also occasionally included information supplied by other sources, such as the rescuers’ spouses, their children, or those they rescued. Along the way, I shared the work-in-progress with my subjects and made changes based on their comments. Thus, over the course of nine years, what began as oral history interviews evolved into literary narratives, or something approximating “as told to” memoirs. An additional layer to the rescuers’ stories became available when I gained partial access to the transcripts of interviews that Dr. Bert Jan Flim conducted during the 1980s with some of the same individuals. With his kind permission, I have included a small amount of his interview material in the narratives. After this book was first published in 2006, I donated all my interview materials, both recordings and transcripts, to the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum where they can be accessed upon request.

In order to avoid provoking “Sylvia Bloch” (chapter five) and “Doris” (chapter ten), I gave them false names. All other names are factual. On a more scholarly note, in referring to what happened to the Jews during the Nazi years, I prefer to use the word
holocaust
rather than
shoah
, or the lesser-known
hurban
. Some object to holocaust because its original meaning in Greek traces back to “burnt offering,” and such a connotation is deeply troubling. They prefer
shoah
, because, as James
Carroll points out, when the genocide is referred to by this Hebrew word meaning “catastrophe,” “a wall is being erected against the consolations and insults of a redemptive, sacrificial theology of salvation.” However, Amos Oz cautions, “I never use the word
shoah
when I want to refer to the murder of the Jews of Europe. The word
shoah
falsifies the true nature of what happened. A
shoah
is a natural event, an outbreak of forces beyond human control. The murder of the European Jews was no
shoah
.” In the end, I chose to use the word
holocaust
, simply because that’s what I grew up with, and, for me, it holds the appropriate resonance of terror.

In composing this work, I have relied on several historians (see page 235), especially the aforementioned Bert Jan Flim at Friesland College in Leeuwarden, whose Ph.D. dissertation documents four rescue networks that saved Jewish children. The dissertation was published in Holland with the title
Omdat Hun Hart Sprak
. A condensation of that tome has recently appeared in English with the title
Saving the Children
.

In writing the historical introduction, as well as in the conclusion and elsewhere in the text, I have relied on several major Dutch historians of the previous generation, especially Louis de Jong, who has been studying World War II since the time he lived through it, and whose works on the subject could fill a small library, and Jacob Presser, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust in the Netherlands who devoted fifteen years to his poignant masterwork
Ondergang
. De Jong’s most accessible book is
The
Netherlands and Nazi Germany,
based on a lecture series he gave at Harvard, and Presser’s
Ondergang
is available in English as
Ashes in the Wind
.

Another valuable resource has been the work of British historian Bob Moore, who is generally recognized as the outside expert on the Netherlands during the occupation. His book
Victims and Survivors
authoritatively explains why the Jewish survival rate in the Netherlands was so low, despite the country’s history of tolerance, and the pro-Semitic attitudes held by most of its population.

Finally, I owe a great professional debt to U.S. historian Christopher R. Browning, whose book
Ordinary Men
explores the chilling parallel universe of the perpetrators, and whose most recent book
The Origins of the
Final Solution
has been hailed as a definitive volume by scholars worldwide. In writing my book, I have been most fortunate to have Dr. Browning as a historical consultant. The responsibility for any errors in the text, however, rests entirely with me.
It takes a village to write a book, at least in my case. For my initial research undertaken as an undergraduate at Cornell University, I am thankful for the help and support provided by Steven T. Katz, Alison Lurie, Susan Tarrow, and the staff of the Institute for European Studies. In the Netherlands, Anne Dunkelgrun, Director of Cultural Affairs at the Israeli Embassy, was a great help, as were Monique and Rob van der Wel, Taas van Santan, and Minka and Jörn Bos. When I returned to Cornell and began to work with the interview material, Ann Boehm, Jennifer Krier, Helena Viramontes, and, later, James R. McConkey helped me to formulate my thinking and direction. As I continued this process in graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was aided by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Glenn Hinson, Alicia Rouverol, Joy Salyers, Patricia Sawin, Bland Simpson, Tracie Sloop, Kathryn Walbert, and Terry Zug. An angel appeared at this time in the form of Barbara Jacobson, who volunteered to transcribe my interview tapes and went on to help in many other valuable ways with the project.

When I returned to Ithaca, New York, to begin work on the book, Jim and Gladys McConkey helped me immeasurably. Thanks also to Ellen McHale at the New York Folklore Society and to my supporters at Kendall of Ithaca, especially W. Jack Lewis and Roy Unger. Jack was a great champion of the project from the beginning, and I will always be grateful to him for that and so much more.

Several people were kind enough to help with translation, especially Martinja Briggs at Cornell University, who gave generously of her time and expertise. A big thanks also to Ingrid Blom, Galit Smilansky, and Carl Whittaker. A number of Holocaust institutions helped me as well: Yad Vashem, the Ghetto Fighters’ House, the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Thanks also to the libraries and CIT departments of Amherst College, Cornell University, Smith College, Springfield Technical Community College, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The reference desk at the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts, also was a great help.

I started to show the nascent manuscript to friends and colleagues and benefited from the comments of Gary Cartwright, Craig Com-stock, Annie Corbett, Mike DeHeer, Amy Denham, Rob Early, Stephen Fantina, Deb Fitzpatrick, Paul Frost, Kevin Ginsberg, Julie Heath, Lamar Herrin, Edward Hower, Brian Muszynski, Jan Nigro, Rabbi
Jonathan Rubenstein, Joy Salyers, Albrecht Strauss, Maurice van der Pol, and Mark I. Wallace. I also brought onboard Alice Truax, who full upheld her reputation as being one of the best editors in New York. Other publishing professionals who offered valuable advice and suggestions include Matthew Carnicelli, Donald Cutler, Jane Gelfman, Duncan Murrell, and Renee Sedliar.

During the final stage between completed manuscript and published book, the Pilgrim team stepped in and offered their expertise: thanks especially to Ulrike Guthrie, Aimée Jannsohn, Pamela Johnson, Michael Lawrence, and Timothy Staveteig. A big thanks also to Paul Rogat Loeb for his valuable advice, and to Gail Leondar-Wright for helping to get the word out. Thanks also to Kristin Firth for her diligent copy editing and Kati Roessner for the artful design and typography in the updated edition. Other people who have provided valuable assistance include Lynne Abel, David Cecelski, Ron Coleman, Janet Ellis, William Ferris, Bert Jan Flim, George Gibian, Phyllis Janowitz, Rabbi Harold Kushner, Julius Lester, Theresa Mailand, Daniel Mendelsohn, Elizabeth Salon, Pete Seeger, Tzvetan Todorov, and Hans de Vries. Thanks also to the rescuers’ families and friends, especially Anneke Burke-Kooistra, Rietje de Haan-Kooistra, Liesbeth Hes, Aad Kuenen-Dutilh, Nino Pereira, Suzanne Rodrigues Pereira, and Michael Schlejen.

And through it all, my wife Cara Sophia kept things together when they surely would have come apart. A special thanks also to my mother, Miriam, for doing all that she could to help me. Finally, thanks to the rescuers one and all, for making this book possible, and for performing those deeds that keep the world turning.

ENDNOTES

BEGINNINGS

v
Hitler took them all
Readers may hear my grandmother tell stories and sing snippets of Yiddish songs from pre-WWII Poland in the documentary
Image Before My Eyes
(New York: YIVO Institute Axon Video Corp., 1981).

vi
“a strange interweaving”
Daniel Mendelsohn,“What Happened to Uncle Shmiel?”
New York Times Magazine
, 14 July 2002.

vi
“hinge generation”
This expression is used by Eva Hoffman in
After
Such Knowledge
(New York: Public Affairs, 2004).

vi
“wound without memory”
Nadine Fresco uses this expression in “Remembering the Unknown,”
International Review of Psychoanalysis
11/4 (1984): 418–19, 421.