Recently, the President of the United States visited the site of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. I am sure he did so in order to learn more about that horrible time when so many good people were slaughtered for nothing. Most of these people were of the Jewish faith.
There are those who deny the Holocaust. I do not understand what their reasoning is, because there is ample proof the camps existed and the media has original films (and other media) taken during that horrible time of speeches and images that attest to the cowardly deeds of the perpetrators.
I would like to weigh in on this subject from personal experience. I do not like writing about this stuff as it brings up too many sad memories, but perhaps the story needs to be told again.
"Anton (Anthony), my father, born in the Netherlands, a devout Catholic, met my mother, Nellie, German born, Jewish from an Orthodox family, while he was working in Germany. In 1936, they decided to marry. It wasn't so easy in those days considering the persecution of the Jews that was evident already at that time. The hatred for the Jews was born in the dusty halls of German universities in 1932 or 1933. Nellie's parents, strict Jews, ultimately gave their blessing but they refused to attend the ceremony. That caused real disappointment but it was understandable. The brothers and sisters were more lenient. The ceremony took place in 1938 in Dresden, Germany, a wedding service in the Marienkirche, when both Anton and Nellie were 36 years old. The belief that late-in-life marriages usually were solid relationships and Anton's total devotion to his new wife promised a long and happy life.
Later in that same year, it was obvious that the Nazi persecution was serious and deadly, and the family decided to return to the Netherlands. Anton made an agreement with his brother Theodore to take over their father's custom tailoring store as granddad was getting on in years, and the move was on. 1939 Was a year of unrest, with threats of war on the horizon, but Nijmegen (in the Netherlands) had withstood many wars and it was believed it wouldn't be so bad. They were wrong, but they didn't know it then. At the age of 38, Nellie gave birth to an only child, a son, Frederick Steven, at the outbreak of the war in Nijmegen on August 28, 1940. I would be raised in the Roman Catholic faith.
I was born in an old 3-story corner house in the center of town, the ground floor, of which, was the new store opened by Anton and his brother, Theodore. The birth was fraught with difficulties, as little Fred was premature and badly anemic, no doubt a result of the lack of protein-rich food and proper nourishment. Nourishing food simply wasn't available during the war, especially to a Jewish mother. The German occupation laws forbade sale of goods to Jews, who were all identified because they had to wear a Star of David with the word "Jude" stencilled in the center of it on a piece of yellow cloth. It had to be worn over the heart. Goods bought by Jews were the leftovers or badly made materials. Dad's sister, Elizabeth, a nurse at the Canisius Ziekenhuis (Canisius Hospital), assisted at the birth and the night of August 28-29 was a heady one. It was a fragile little life but photographs I once had, proved that I would soon recover and look like a healthy boy with gold-blond curls. I recall a photograph where I sat on grampa's knee, a robust and healthy little person.
Unfortunately, the war got much worse. Nelly also had to wear a Jewish star even though she had converted to Catholicism and went to church every Sunday in her life until she couldn't walk anymore. One morning she and I were rounded up by the Dutch arm of the Gestapo, the feared NSB (Nationale Socialistise Bond/Dutch Socialist Party), for a very frightening trip to Amersfoort, a Dutch town with a German detention camp nearby. It was in August 1942, and although I recall very little of this awful time (thank God!); these happenings were related to me later in life when I learned that I had been with her during her time of incarceration. What was significant was that I received no medical attention until long after the war, even though I badly needed it, but everyone was too preoccupied with the problems at hand, and besides, doctors were diverted from private practice to ministry to the war's wounded. As a result of bombings and gunfire, the doctors and hospital staffs had their hands full with more immediate emergencies.
The Dutch detention center at Amersfoort, is notorious because it was the stepping-off point for human shipments to Germany, particularly to Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz, and Dachau. There were other Nazi camps in Holland, I believe three altogether. It is also alleged that Nellie suffered at the hands of her captors, but thanks to an edict then still in effect, we were released since mom was married to a "Dutch national of pure blood" (according to Nazi terminology). That was on the 8th of August 1942, and the release clearly stated "SchaefferImbach, Nelly, geb. [born] 24.7.02 in Ostrowo, würde sofort wieder erlassen da sie in Mischehe lebt. [is immediately released since she lives in a state of mixed marriage]". How 'immediate' that "sofort" was, remained to be seen. Nevertheless, mother was considered a Jew and since the lineage goes from the mother to the son in the Jewish religion, I too, was considered a Jew, and during the war years the German administration had issued a replacement birth certificate for me with the name Aaron. There is a lot of pain and grief associated with this name for me. Discussions with mother long after the war, brought out the fact that she was at Amersfoort Detention Center at the same time that Edith Stein was there, and Edith Stein, recently (1997) was declared a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church. She was a Discalced Carmelite nun. Edith Stein played a significant role in the Schaeffer family, but much later. After mother's release, it was apparent that we leave Nijmegen and hide somewhere because the worst of this mess was yet to come.
I do not precisely recall my stay at Kamp Amersfoort directly from 1942, but I do recall, as early as 1944, certain "dark memories" which I became conscious of, undoubtedly the result of my approx. 2-week stay at the Camp. These "dark memories" manifested itself in the form of terrible nightmares... dreams that always consisted of images of being in a narrow space, a box of sorts, where the floor and the ceiling came closer and closer together... And in those dreams I "was gradually squeezed to death." And then, of course, I would wake up with a shock amid perspiration, a racing heart, etc. Occasionally even now, some 60+ years later, I still have these thoughts but without the perspiration and a racing heart. Nevertheless, thoroughly unpleasant recollections. Psychologically, my childhood and the teenage years were the pits, it was due to my war experiences, not due to my parents lack of leadership.
We did not leave Nijmegen right away. I don't know why, but assume a suitable hiding place could not be found. After all, it was dangerous to one's health to hide a Jewish family: many have died for doing this. The daily shelling got worse and many houses around us were reduced to rubble. We lived in a cellar under the house with some neighbors and friends, a musty smelling coal cellar (that smell I recall vividly, perhaps because it was the same cellar I was born in), with little air circulation, two smelly oil lamps at either end, because the Nijmegen Electric and Gas Works along the Waal River were heavily damaged, some wooden chairs and a bare table. A German tank stood on one side of the block our house was on, and an American or British tank stood on the other side and therefore it was impossible for us to leave the cellar. When there was a cessation in the shooting and moreover in the noise, concerned friends brought us leftovers, the bakery knowing our plight, kept fresh baked bread aside even though Jews would always get the old bread if there was anything left at all, everything was rationed and the Jews always lost out. That I grew up well fed was a miracle, thanks to those unnamed heroes, the shopkeepers of Nijmegen, the butcher, baker and the vegetable storekeeper, who, at risk of their lives helped the Jews. If they had been discovered helping Jews, they would have been shot. I cannot thank these good people enough.
In early 1944, then three and a half years old, it was time to pack up and leave. I'll never forget the scene on that trip. Although the recollection is vague, nevertheless, I recall that I was sitting in a wooden cart which Dad had hammered together, between old blankets, and I must have looked behind me after a particularly loud bomb blast, only to see a city in total ruins and on fire, and a railroad viaduct which we had just crossed, two kilometers behind us, collapse in a tumultuous explosion. This scene and the sight of bodies flung all over the place is etched in my mind as if it took place yesterday and it is the earliest thing I vividly recall. Three-year olds aren't supposed to recall much, let alone this scene from hell. These recollections and the ones from the Concentration Camp were the cause of much frustration I experienced in my teens."
The above section (indented) is from my personal diary and notes. © Fred Schaeffer, 2009
