Eva's Story Read Online Free PDF

arrangements with Mutti, then signalled us to follow her up three flights of stairs to the attic which had been partitioned off into two rooms. One was a small bedroom where I was going to sleep. The other was a living room with a cupboard, table and three chairs. There was also a floral patterned sofa where Mutti would sleep.
    Down a few steps was a long room that was a bathroom with a toilet at the far end. We had no cooking facilities but we were to use her kitchen downstairs and Mutti had agreed to cook her dinner as well.
    â€˜You cannot use either the bathroom or kitchen whilst I am out,’ she warned. ‘If the neighbours hear any noise they will become suspicious. You will have to take great care to keep your presence here secret.’
    â€˜How safe are we?’ Mutti wondered aloud.
    â€˜The Germans make frequent raids to search out hidden Jews,’ Mrs Klompe said. ‘They are like ratcatchers intent on exterminating vermin,’ she continued drily, ‘but we in the underground are equally intent on protecting the innocent.’
    She smiled at me reassuringly but I began to feel the sickening contraction of fear in my stomach.
    That same evening our underground contact, a Mr Broeksma, visited us. He was a teaching colleague of Mrs Klompe and they worked closely together. Being a Frieslander – one of the hardy outdoor people who took part in skating races in the midwinter along miles of frozen canal water – he was a fine and true Dutchman with fire in his belly against the invaders. He was intelligent, tough and reliable and, like the other underground workers, extremely resourceful. We were in his hands and he knew our peril, but we trusted him completely.
    He took some time to survey our hiding place and then advised us that we would still need to have another secret place within its walls where we could conceal ourselves if searches were made on our block.
    Of course, he had to organize everything. He found a builder and brought him the following evening when they both went over our tiny living space to determine how we might best be hidden. They finally decided that it would be safest to partition off the toilet from the rest of the bathroom.
    They agreed to make a tiled wall which would have a kind of trapdoor in it so that it could be fitted back from the toilet side. From the outside it would simply look like a solid tiled wall. That meant we would have to climb through a hole every time we needed to use the toilet but we could hide in there in cases of emergency.
    All the materials had to be found then brought to the house during darkness, piece by little piece, but the two men managed to start work within a fortnight.
    On the third Sunday of our hiding they worked all day until it was nearly finished. Only the trapdoor needed to be tiled. They were both tired but they decided to stay late into the evening to complete the job. When they asked Mutti to try it out she climbed in, sat herself on the toilet and lifted the heavy tiled trapdoor into place, disappearing behind a seemingly solid wall.
    The two men looked at one another in approval and shook hands. When Mutti re-emerged they then shook hands with us and went away satisfied.
    I was sound asleep by midnight so that the noises of vans in the street below and the heavy knocking at the front door only slowly penetrated through my dreams to bring me back to reality. Germans were downstairs shouting, ‘Are there any filthy Jews hiding here?’
    â€˜Mutti?’ I was terrified as I felt Mutti grab hold of me.
    â€˜Quick, Eva, cover the bed with the counterpane,’ she whispered as she pulled me out of bed and helped me smooth down the covers as quickly as we could so that the bed did not look as if it had been slept in.
    We ran into the bathroom and pushed ourselves into the tiny toilet compartment. We lifted the heavy trapdoor back into position and waited in the pitch dark. I could feel Mutti sitting on the