Eva's Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

toilet grasping her knees while I squatted down next to her.
    We heard the sound of soldiers’ boots stumping up the narrow stairs next to our wooden partition. I crouched in terror, my heart beating so loudly that I was sure they could hear it.
    Suddenly the bathroom door was thrown open and Germans were tramping into the room shouting to each other. There was a pause and then we could hear them stamping noisily all over the house. Finally they gave up and we heard them close the front door with a slam.
    Mutti pulled my head against her face. I could feel that she was crying with relief. If they had raided the house two hours earlier they would have found us. God in heaven and our Frieslanders had watched over us.

3. IN HIDING
    From the time Mutti and I went into hiding, I entered a seemingly protected world. My days were spent entirely in the company of my mother and I remember them as full of warmth and love. During the next two years, hidden in our attic, she taught me German, French, geography and history out of books brought in by Mrs Klompe. Once or twice a week Mr Broeksma came to teach me Dutch and maths. I wanted to learn and occupied my time well but, unlike Heinz, I was not extremely bright and it did not come easily to me. I struggled along on my own, missing the company of other pupils intensely. Sometimes I would lie on my bed yearning for the old times in the square when we raced around like mad things on our bicycles. In my tiny attic cubicle I would kick my legs high into the air and fling my body around in an agony of pent-up energy and frustration at being young and imprisoned.
    But occasionally, very occasionally, there were days of joyful reunion with Pappy and Heinz. Their hiding place was in the countryside at Soesdijk and it was truly perilous when we visited them because we had to travel by train. Oddly enough, we would never have dared to go out to the local shops for fear of being recognized by locals but we did venture farther out by pretending that we were ending our visit to Mrs Klompe.
    Pappy’s landlady, Mrs De Bruin, allowed us to stay for the weekend and we would return to Amsterdam on Monday morning with the commuters. On the rare glorious Fridays of our visit we would leave the house carrying our small suitcases and walk to the railway station. It was a strange sensation being outside again. But since we were both fair-skinned and looked like any other Dutch mother and daughter, with luck we could walk incognito in the crowd. Nevertheless, it was extremely risky: we were scared all the time, especially as we were occasionally stopped by police or soldiers at the station barrier when Mutti had to show her false identity card. As I was still under sixteen I was not required to have one but I did have to have my story off pat if I was asked questions. I never was; I must have looked too authentic to arouse suspicion.
    Invariably the trains were full of soldiers, and the SS often made searches during the journey. We tried to look unconcerned whilst having to rub shoulders with our bitterest enemies. This journey was always harrowing, but it was worth it all just to be with Pappy and Heinz.
    As soon as we were united in Mrs De Bruin’s attic rooms my parents would shut themselves away to be alone, and Heinz and I would be left to ourselves to talk. Overnight, Mutti shared Pappy’s room and I lay on a mattress on the floor in Heinz’s room. In the darkness I would creep over to his bed and climb in next to him for a cuddle. We started kissing and hugging with the joy of being together again, until all our suppressed energy and budding sexuality began to arouse us. The kissing and cuddling became more and more furtively pleasant. We would start to pet each other, feeling blissful surges of adolescent love. We did not really do anything wrong and we were very scared that our parents would find out what we were up to, but we could not help ourselves. We only had each other to