Treasured letters that stood the test of time

LIONEL SLIER

I was only nine years old. My mother explained that the letter contained the names of all his brothers and sisters, their wives, husbands, and children. And next to each name was the ominous word “Treblinka”. Or “Auschwitz.” I didn’t understand. I remember saying that I was going to play football. To this day, I regret that.

My father’s family were Dutch. Holland was invaded early in the war, in May 1940, and so it was easier for the Germans to keep precise records of what they did at the death camps.

One of my first cousin’s name was Flip. He was named after our grandfather, Philip, who was a diamond polisher. Grandfather Philip passed away in 1937, and he was afterwards referred to as “the lucky one” in the family as he missed the war and the German occupation of Holland.

Cousin Flip was in Holland for both these events, and wasn’t so “lucky”. He was arrested by the Germans for the crime of being a Jew, and was sent to a German labour camp in Holland when he was just 17 years old. There, he became friendly with local Dutch farmers who took letters from him that he had written to his parents in Amsterdam. In return, they gave him the letters his parents sent.

The letters are quite remarkable. And the story of how they were found half a century after being written is even more so.

In 1997, Flip’s parents’ home in Amsterdam was being modernised, as was the whole area. A Dutch demolition expert was working on the ceiling of the bathroom when a tin box fell down. He examined the papers to find 86 letters written by a young Jewish man, Flip, to his parents that had remained untouched all these years. He gave it to his foreman who passed it on to The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation which was impressed by the content, and passed them on to a Dutch-language newspaper that published them. A family member in Holland sent copies to our family in South Africa.

Flip’s father, Leendert, and my father, Izaak (Jack), were brothers. There were nine siblings in total. Jack came to South Africa in 1922, leaving 32 close family members behind in Amsterdam. Like his father, Jack was a diamond polisher, recruited to teach locals the trade as it had just started in South Africa.

For Jack, 1922 to 1940 were years of consolidating and settling down. He opened a diamond cutting factory, nostalgically calling it the Holland Diamond Cutting Works. He married a girl from Belarus, had four children, and lived in Johannesburg.

He had little contact with his family in Holland. The post was slow and tiresome. The deteriorating social situation in Europe, especially with the rise of Nazism in Germany and the promotion of anti-Semitism, was worrying, but there was little that my father could do from so far away.

In 1939, war broke out when Germany invaded Poland. France, Russia, and Britain were all against Germany, and Holland declared neutrality, hoping it would escape the hostilities as it had in the 1914 to 1918 war. False hope indeed!

On 10 May 1940, the Germans attacked Holland and Belgium as Nazi armies swept through the countries on their way to invade France from the north. Holland became a Nazi state under German regulations and laws. The Germans made a list of all the Jews in Holland.

I was growing up peacefully in South Africa when my first cousin Flip was forced to live under German occupation. He was sent to work and live in a German controlled work camp, but because it was in Holland, there was some optimism. In his first letter dated 25 April 1942 he wrote to his parents that conditions were satisfactory.

“Have arrived in the camp. Fairly comfortable. Reasonable bed. Three blankets. Send me a windbreaker as soon as possible.”

In one of his later letters, he tells his mother that it will be okay if she hides the letters in the bathroom roof. In another is his thumb print from where he attached a soap coupon. His letters are full of hope and optimism. He repeatedly encouraged his parents to “keep chin up”, and often signed off with “before winter, I’ll be back” and “totsiens in Mokum” (see you in Amsterdam – Mokum is the affectionate name by which Jews call Amsterdam).

Flip was always positive. He wrote, “Remember Israel – Jews will never go down.” At another time, “The tommies [British soldiers] will rescue us”.

But Flip’s optimism turned out to be false. After Molengoot labour camp, he was sent to Westerbork transit camp where most of Holland’s Jews congregated before being sent to the death camps. From there, he was put on a train to Sobibor where he was gassed on arrival. His parents and the entire extended family, aside from six, met the same fate.

My sister, Deborah, is a publisher. She had the letters translated into English, and published a book called Hidden Letters. She dedicated it to all victims of genocide.

In his fourth-last letter Flip writes, “Dear pa and ma, if this is really true, and it seems so to me, of course, there’s no use in me coming to you in Westerbork to be separated over there. Write back to me about this in great detail, pa! You must understand that if we could be together, I would not hesitate for one moment. On the contrary, it would do me good [and also the other way round] to be able to support you. On the other hand, I don’t know how long I may still stay here in the camp. Dear parents, I end this letter expressing hope that soon, very soon, we can be together in freedom and health, and I end with warmest greetings and big kiss from Flip. Be strong and totsiens!”