‘Of course she wouldn’t,’ said my father. ‘You don’t shout that sort of thing from the rooftops.’

‘Imagine,’ said my mother, ‘leaving all your things behind.’

‘When you go on holiday, you also leave your things behind,’ I said.

‘In that case at least you know when you’ll come back,’ said my mother. ‘And they’ve got four children,’ she continued, ‘just think of all you’d need to take.’

‘Going into hiding,’ I said to my father. ‘It strikes me as a kind of retreat from life.’

‘Maybe they’re right,’ said my father. ‘Who’s to say?’

‘I wish I could have shown them the photos,’ said my mother. ‘There’s no telling how long they’ll be gone.’

It happened

Slaves rule over us;

there is none who frees us from their hand.

Lamentations 5:8

I had always thought that nothing would ever happen to us, which is why I initially had trouble believing it was true. The morning the telegram arrived from Amsterdam, my first thought had been: someone has made a mistake. But that was not the case.

To get more information, my father and I went to the home of an acquaintance to make a phone call. This acquaintance was married to a midwife, who was not Jewish and was therefore allowed to keep her telephone for her work. She was in a dark backroom packing a small suitcase while my father was trying to get through to Amsterdam. I couldn’t make out much of the phone conversation. My father gave short answers after long pauses, as if the person at the other end of the line were telling an elaborate story.

Meanwhile the midwife walked up and down the room, looked for something in a cupboard, went into another room, and came back. She was tall and blonde. She wore flat-heeled shoes that creaked at every step.

‘They started taking people out of their homes on Merwedeplein,’ said my father when the conversation had ended. He stood for a moment, still holding the receiver.

‘I’ll see you out,’ said the midwife. She closed her suitcase, put on her coat, and led us into the hall. ‘These are horrible times,’ she said. ‘And I’m up to my neck in work. It’s all I can do to stay on top of things.’

‘At nine o’clock in the evening they drove up to the front door in police vans,’ said my father. He remained standing in the doorway, as if hesitating between the street and the room with the telephone.

‘Is it your other daughter?’ asked the midwife. My father nodded. The midwife pulled the door shut.

‘How much do I owe you?’ asked my father.

‘Sixty cents,’ she said. ‘Most of them are daughters. People always think they’re going to have a son, but it’s usually a daughter.’ She said goodbye and quickly got on her bike.

My father and I walked slowly in the other direction. He stared vacantly into space.