The Sisters of Auschwitz by Roxane van Iperen

Author:Roxane van Iperen [Iperen, Roxane van]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Published: 2021-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

8

Autumn Song

Each time she returns to Amsterdam, Janny finds the city emptier. When she takes the tram from Centraal Station and looks out of the window, it seems as if nothing has changed. The stately canal houses, the bridges and the awnings with names of old familiar shops – it is all still there. But the people are gone.

It is like passing through a ghost town; dark memories everywhere. The family with three daughters she was at school with – gone. The cheesemonger and the butcher – gone. The wealthy businessman and his family in the house with those heavy burgundy curtains – gone. All the market people she knew through her father – gone. Sometimes their places, curtains and all, have been taken by strangers. Her stomach churns as she watches a mother feeding her child on a chair that is not theirs. A former classmate used to live there, a girl Lien danced with used to live there. And ‘used to’ is only one year ago.

When she has to pick up something in the old Jewish Quarter, Janny walks along the Amstel river and Waterlooplein. The streets are deserted. It feels like walking in an architectural plan of the city, the cobbles clean and untrodden as far as her eyes can see. Nothing reminds her of the roaring, busy life that made this area so beautiful, the life she and her parents, her sister, her brother so fully enjoyed. In this version of the neighbourhood, houses seem empty, curtains are closed and the only people she sees are policemen. All life is drained from the Jewish Quarter; hundreds of years of heritage have been destroyed.

One day, in the spring of 1944, Janny returns to The High Nest after another day in lifeless Amsterdam. Even before she has walked around the house, she is welcomed by the chatter of women fluttering through the kitchen door. She instantly relaxes. Further down the garden, at the gazebo, the children are playing with their doll’s house and the sounds of a piano well up from deep inside the house. Boys are playing marbles on the terrace. As she approaches, Mother waves at her through the kitchen window. Janny wipes her feet and when she enters the kitchen, she realizes their neighbourhood is not dead. They have brought a little Amsterdam to The High Nest.

British aircraft pass overhead at night, more and more of them. The next morning, they listen to the radio and tell Mother: see. Things are looking up at the Eastern Front. The Red Army is gaining ground and the Allied Forces will land soon. It won’t be long now.

In Joseph’s room is a large map, where he marks the progress at the Eastern Front after each news item. When someone at the table says anything about the troop movements that is not right, he corrects this person and drops names of places they had never heard of before the war: Kursk, Vyazma, Bryansk. Joseph closely followed the Battle of

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