Under and Up Again by Edith Noordewier Foley

Author:Edith Noordewier Foley [Foley, Edith Noordewier]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Xlibris
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Vati’s son, Hein, and his family had come back to the Netherlands after he and his family had been incarcerated in the Dutch East Indies by the Japanese. He had been forced to work on the infamous Burma railroad, later made known by the movie A Bridge on the River Kwai. He contacted Mutti and offered to make arrangements for me to come to the Netherlands. It is 1945, and I am fifteen years old. The decision was difficult for us. But it meant help for Mutti and a possible future for me in my homeland. There was no public transportation. The Dutch consul, Mr. Millenaar, again pulled strings.

I remember a difficult farewell from Mutti and Micaela. I stepped into a Red Cross ambulance with a few others. We were told not to talk and be totally still when reaching the Russian border outside Berlin since this transport of civilians was, of course, illegal to the Russians. At the last moment, a child not much older than two years was pressed into my arms. When the time came about an hour and a half later, at the Russian border, we were dead silent; our lives depended on it. Suddenly, the child began to cry. I had to hold its mouth shut. We made it through. When I arrived in the Netherlands, I was dropped off at the house of Vati’s friends near Hengelo. They owned a resort called the “Waarbeek.” They were the friends who had helped to smuggle Jewish artworks out of Berlin to the Netherlands. I knew them; it was an extensive family, everyone working at the different aspect of the place. Mutti, Micaela and I had visited there in 1941 after Vati had died, and we needed to be in touch with the family. I was making myself useful then; it was summer and I sold ice cream from a small white booth. Now I helped out by polishing all their brass objects, and there were many. I was taught that once the polish is removed, one has to continue rubbing until no more black is found on the polishing cloth. Dutch homes treasure their many brass objects. They are large and are mostly found around the fireplace, buckets for wood and kettles on stands to boil water for tea.

I read the Pearl Buck books I found on the bookshelves in the warm and comfortable living room. Nobody ever was in that room, and I made it my temporary home. After Berlin, this felt like a peaceful heaven. I had no idea what would come next. One day, Mrs. Smit excitedly said that I should have told her that I was supposed to move on to Hein. He was waiting for me to arrive.

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