TINA STROBOS TELLS HER STORY (Continued)
LOU: In July, 1942, the Germans began periodic raids on the Amsterdam ghetto, seizing tens of thousands of Jews in house-to-house round-ups, shipping them first to Westerbork concentration camp in Holland, and from there to other destinations, most often Auschwitz. As the Jews were emptied out of the ghetto, new ones from other parts of Holland were forced to move in.
Family friends asked Tina to go to the ghetto to bring out a fourteen year-old boy named Lou, to find a safe place for him. But finding a family to take him in proved difficult because of his age. He was too old to elicit the protective sympathy commonly extended to younger children, too young to be on his own, too big to go to school, and too conspicuous to be out on the street.
TINA STROBOS: I talked to ten families before I got a place for him; it was one of the few addresses I found on my own. They were not at all eager to take him, either. I had to talk to them three times, in the company of a mutual friend, before they agreed. They explained to me, "We have a Nazi living in our apartment building, so the boy will have to stay home at all times. He must always wear slippers, and can not make any noise at all when we're away. He must remember to not flush the toilet when we're gone." And they were concerned about how to buy food for him with only their own ration cards. So I replied, "We'll provide you with money, food stamps, and a very fine passport. He'll pass as your boarder. He doesn't look Jewish."
They asked me to show them his picture. Luckily, he didn't look too Jewish. But this boy happened to be rather shy, not somebody you would easily take to your heart. He was standoffish. I guess fourteen year-olds are strange people anyway, but Lou couldn't afford to be like that.
All his rebellious instincts had to be suppressed. He had to be a good boy and a perfect boarder. They weren't such warm people, either. They took him in from their sense of duty, and maybe because the extra coupons helped a little bit with their expenses, although they wouldn't get rich from it. Partly they did it because they were pressured by us. We told them it was their job as good citizens to save a life, which kind of appealed to them. We told them that he was quiet and wouldn't cause them too much trouble, they'd be fairly safe, and it wouldn't cost them any extra money.
I had to find money for him, plus all the documents, as well as talk to this couple three times, which altogether took a good week's work--one placement. Meantime, he's staying in our house.
So I got this not-so-fine place for him with people who didn't really care all that much. They weren't the warmest people, and they never opened their hearts to this lonely kid. I know he had a hard time there because I would visit at least once a month
bringing food cards and things like that. The bikes were so awful, it took an hour to get there--all the way to the other end of Amsterdam. Pneumatic tires were not available by then, and peddling the heavy, solid tires over cobblestone streets was hard work. On one occasion, when I arrived, these people took me aside and said, "All right. He's a very good boy. He doesn't give us any trouble. He's obedient, but he eats so much!"
Well, after all, he was a growing adolescent. I would try to get some extra food coupons for them. Then they told me that his feet smelled terribly. I said, "Why don't you tell him? Let him bathe and powder his feet once or twice a day."
"Well, we're embarrassed to talk to him about it."
"But you must tell him, otherwise you'll start hating him." They wanted me to tell him what was bothering them. That's the kind of job I had! Isn't it pathetic?
They were decent people, in a way, or else they wouldn't be keeping him, and they didn't want to embarrass him or hurt his feelings. But they weren't doing him or themselves a favor, because they started disliking him and disliking being with him.
I explained to Lou that he had to wash his feet and wear clean socks every day and that solved the problem. They suffered for nothing all that time. But it was true; after she told me, I noticed an odor when you came into their small apartment. It's an example of how these relationships weren't always very comfortable.
Lou's mother was a person who never attempted to find a hiding place. She couldn't accept the idea of hiding. She also couldn't accept the horrible truth that it might be the end of her life if she went to work in a "factory," the myth that the Nazis held up to the Jews. She was one of those who didn't return.
Lou stayed with them until after the war. By then he was eighteen. He found a job in a printer's office and a little room to rent somewhere. He made a living. He was handy and smart and he did a good job, but he was awfully quiet, still. I think his sojourn in this house with these uncommunicative people didn't do him much good. I felt I should have visited there every day. But it was an hour one way and an hour back and I had a lot of other things to do. And anyway, it was hard to have rapport with this child.
After the war he got meningitis and died. I felt a little bit cheated. Look at all the things we went through--he went through. Then he dies. I really think that life was just too hard for him. I can't help but think that.
The De Leeuw Family: My mother went to the ghetto one day to see some good friends and was caught in a raid. When she came home she looked like a ghost, trembling from head to foot. She never forgot what happened that day, nor will I ever forget what she said. She was on her bike in the ghetto, starting to leave. On a loudspeaker they were saying, anybody who doesn't belong here, doesn't live here, if we catch you, you will be transported to Germany too. We didn't know they were going to Poland. We didn't really know about the concentration camps.
As my mother was leaving the ghetto, trembling with fear and with misery, a couple of times people stopped her to ask, "Would you please take my baby on the back of your bike?" She told them, "Do you have papers for him, otherwise he will be
stopped at the gate, and I will be too, for trying to get him out.
If you know a way I can meet him outside, a place where you can get him through the barbed wire, then I can help." But lined up every ten feet were flares and lights, plus machine guns on the roofs, and on every street corner. There was really no way she could do that. It would certainly have endangered our own lives. There was no question about it, because we knew the risks we faced and we knew that if Jews were found in our home, we were going too. We didn't believe in the "factories," but we didn't know about gas chambers until after the war. I can swear to it. It wasn't in the underground press. The Jews didn't know. Many went willingly.
The next morning my mother went back to the ghetto to see her friends--De Leeuw was their name. Arriving at their home, she called out to them. It was deathly quiet. They were a family with seven children. Five were registered in that home, and those five children had been caught. But visiting them was a married daughter and son-in-law, Siegfried and Suze Pekel, only 17 or 18 years old, who were registered at another address in the ghetto. This young couple had hidden in a closet and were not found by
the Gestapo. My mother brought them home.
They were so bereaved and upset, we felt we had to keep them awhile. They stayed in our house, I guess, for a couple of months, but then we had a warning that we would be raided ourselves so I found a place for them very quickly, in one of the hothouses in Aalsmeer where they were growing tomato plants and flower bulbs. I brought them by train. They were hiding there from 1943 until 1945, sleeping on mattresses beneath the flower beds. It was a warm place to hide and they were together. They were lucky.