Return to Amsterdam

I was unaware of these events in real-time, but I did feel the general expectation around me that they would soon help us return to the Netherlands. 

As the days went by without anything happening, I felt disappointment and impatience rising and getting stronger. 

Then came the day that trucks appeared…the beginning of the journey we called “return home”.

The next day we were disinfected with DDT powder against lice. Officers from the Dutch army were in charge of the Dutch group. The food they provided in the Dutch kitchen was not tasty and there was not enough. Due to malnutrition, some people suffered from oedema again. That’s why we went to Luxembourg’s kitchen where the food was better.

In the five days we were in Leipzig, No’omi and I took the tram even though we had no money. We just said we didn’t have any, and the conductor accepted it. He must have figured out who we were by our thinness and the state of our clothes.

These houses looked like dollhouses, without facades. They were probably destroyed in the blast from the bombs. Furniture still stood in the rooms, and pictures hung on the walls. 

From the city of Dortmund, I remember another image: a wide field with railway tracks and, in the middle, a pillar with a sign dangling in the wind that read “Dortmund Hauptbahnhof” (Central Station) with no other nearby buildings; evidence of the destruction of the war. 

It is interesting to see that in the “Desired Destination” section, we are asked to register the address where we lived in Amsterdam before being expelled. We had no idea how great the distance was between requests and reality. 

They couldn’t take us there by train because the railway bridges across the great rivers, which divide the Netherlands between north and south, had not been repaired yet. 

We were received in a large waiting room at the train station. 

They checked the “Displaced Persons cards”, conducted a final medical examination, and filled out a card for us as “Returnees to the Homeland”.  

Since we were still underweight, they gave us double coupons for food, and we also received slips for clothing and footwear. The coupons allowed us to purchase goods with money: food products, clothing and footwear. All well and good, but the tricky thing was that, at this point, we didn’t have any money, and you couldn’t wear coupons as shoes. I don’t know whether, in addition to the coupons, Mother got some kind of loan or grant.

The house was rented and there were other tenants living there now. She called a friend and asked if we could stay with them. With his permission, Mother filled the form using their address as our address. They welcomed us and housed us upstairs, on the third floor, in their big home on Mozartkade 9.

It was no more than a week, but apparently, our stay at their home caused tension. When Mother was asked how long we were thinking of staying with them, she announced on the spot: “Until tomorrow morning,” and so it was. 

Most of the family, friends and acquaintances from before the deportation were no longer alive, and we missed them. We still didn’t have a house, and there was no money. 

We had to rebuild a life. 

To establish an economic basis for the family, Mother decided to revive and restart the family trading house for picture framing materials, which Father had run, and which was robbed and destroyed by the Nazis.

At the same time, some of the Dutch were affected by antisemitic Nazi propaganda and not everyone was happy to see us back. The authorities did not recognise our special and immediate needs very much, and the reception was bureaucratic and chilly. But we must not forget that the Dutch had also suffered badly during five years of Nazi rule with terrorism and looting.

Marion enrolled in a course for secretaries and worked with Mother in the business, Chanan went to a special high school that allowed him to bridge the gap in his studies, and I attended a Montessori school where I was allowed to prepare for high school within one year. I felt foreign there, very different from everyone else after the war.

That is where I studied and managed to fill in the blanks. Another unexpected advantage was the atmosphere among the posttraumatic group of youngsters at the school. Many had a strong need to talk about what they had experienced; a sympathetic ear was always found, and the conversations that took place were a kind of “do-it-yourself” psychotherapy.  

When the officer saw Joost, he said: “This should be photographed, because otherwise no one will believe me!” The officer[’s] name was Benjamin Elzas, a Jew who knew the Levenbach family by name. Officer Elzas was exceptionally good to us. He knew that the situation in the Netherlands after the war was much worse than in Belgium, so he took us off the train.

Women came there directly from Auschwitz and other camps, and of course, they talked all the time about their terrible experiences. Not exactly what I needed at the time, I was very unhappy and lonely. 

During the day, I went to foster care. The man, Mr Reintis, spoke Flemish and was very nice and empathetic. His young wife only spoke French and probably didn’t know what to do with me. She tried her best, but she had no understanding of the war and the camp. I didn’t like being with her. In the afternoon, I went to the hospital to visit Joost. In the evening, I returned to the refugee centre.

Joost contacted a notary in Amsterdam, as Mother had instructed us to do should we be left alone. This is how the friends of my parents, Greet and Karel Edersheim, who fled to Brussels at the beginning of the war, learned of our existence and how they came to pick us up. They had hidden with their 12-year-old daughter, Jet, in Brussels and had not yet returned to the Netherlands at that time.  

Aunt Bertha could not have been more helpful. After the war, there were so many arrangements to be made and everything was still so difficult: Joost had to go to the sanatorium, a school had to be arranged for me, a flat had to be rented, and also many administrative arrangements, for example settling the parents’ estate. It wasn’t easy with me either; I was a teenager and had gone through many difficult years.

He ended up staying at the sanatorium in Doorn for two years, until he recovered from tuberculosis. 

On Sundays, we took turns, me or one of the aunts, visiting Joost at the sanatorium. Near the end of the war, the trip took a whole day. The shortage of trains and buses and a scheduling mismatch extended the journey.  

During the other two years that we lived with Aunt Bertha, we went to our different schools together. There was again conversation around the table, Joost played the piano, and we heard a lot of music. Since we had been in the camps together, we shared many sad memories and were very close.

There was a bureaucratic mess: Father had Austrian citizenship that changed to German citizenship after the “Anschluss” (annexation). He refused to get a German passport and instead applied for Dutch citizenship. The war broke out, and we were left without citizenship. Now we appeared on a list of those whom the Dutch authorities wanted to check for their civilian status. This matter caused a lot of frustration and anger. 

We were allowed to get out of the camp a little bit... 

One day I bought Mother flowers on a visit to a nearby village... I wanted to make her happy. The flowers were red. Happy. Mother was not happy with them. She couldn’t be happy. 

We knew that Marco would turn thirteen in June, and so was a Bar Mitzvah. We celebrated the Bar Mitzvah. 

At the moment of truth, it was a very sad event. For all of us, but especially Marco and Mother, this status was very difficult and painful. The Bar Mitzvah ceremony was kind of a return to normal life. Almost normal. Like walking, but with a limp. 

She was not the only one; there was a great contrast between the expectations of those returning from the camps or hiding places and the cool reception they received, especially from government officials. 

Of course, there were some who understood our hearts and tried to help. Another neighbour who had been keeping Mother’s favourite coat gave it back to her. Other neighbours gave us back a picture and we even got back the Meccano, our assembly and construction game. I remember carrying the heavy boxes to our new apartment.

We were waiting at the funeral home in Muiderberg cemetery when Father’s coffin arrived, and a very respectable funeral was held by the Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam. I don't remember any eulogies. Sol, Marco and I said Kaddish and then drove home with other people who joined us. 

There were rumours. We were afraid she wouldn’t come back. That there was no one to wait for. We knew very little about what had happened to her since the day she was taken to Westerbork. We knew she was sent from the camp to the East six months later, in May 1943.

At these meetings, we found each other, young Jews. Everyone had their own story from the war. The talk of what everyone had gone through was short and factual. It was enough that we knew we were carrying a similar scar. 

There was no need to elaborate, and the stories were limited to general details. We also recounted funny anecdotes from the old days, and after that we had fun. We were life-hungry young people. We wanted to commit ourselves to routine, to what life has to offer.

On weekends we gathered and met friends. We heard lectures from leaders who came from Israel and sometimes from soldiers who served in the Jewish Brigade and were stationed in the Netherlands. We attended seminars and went to the movement’s summer camps.