A Chosen Few - Mark Kurlansky [63]
In 1945 the Dutch government asked all non-Jews with Jewish children to report them to the Committee for War Orphans. Reports came in from 3,942 homes. In 1950 the Dutch, still passionate for lists, published the outcome: 1,902 had been reunited with their parents, 199 were placed with Jewish guardians immediately, another 1,004 were given Jewish guardians by a judge later, 11 died, 151 emigrated to Israel, 316 came of age… the list continued. When the items were carefully tabulated, one could see that 368 Jewish orphans had remained with Christian families. This was only among those who were reported. Logically, people who did not want to give up their children would not have reported them, but in that Dutch tradition of filling in forms and registering, 368 non-Jewish families who had Jewish wards whom they refused to give up still obligingly registered with the government.
ISAAC LIPSCHITS wanted his only relative back, but at 15 he did not have much of an idea of what to do about it. He went to the Committee for War Orphans, but they seemed to feel that in such cases the child was better off with the new Christian family than with an uncle, aunt, or grandparent, much less a teenage orphan brother. Isaac continued to try to persuade the family in Zeeland, but they seemed to regard Alex as their own little Christian boy. Isaac did not know exactly how to respond to these religious and well-meaning people who were stealing his only surviving relative.
Then there was a change. Isaac received a letter from them in which they suddenly agreed to turn over Alex—on condition that the Jewish community pay back every cent the family had spent on him. Now Isaac got very upset. It had been disturbing enough to him to hear his little brother talking about Jesus. But he had thought that the family was trying to teach him what they thought was right, according to their beliefs. Suddenly it was all looking very different. Isaac took the letter to the Committee for War Orphans, which sent him to a social worker, who told him to come back in a week. At last, Isaac thought, he would get some help. But when he went back, the social worker informed him that the committee had examined the letter and found it to be “a primitive expression of love.”
At this point young Isaac's expressions of love were also getting primitive. He went to Zeeland and asked the family if he could take Alex for a walk. Alex was now seven and had gotten to like very much the attention that this fifteen-year-old who said he was his brother was giving him. As they went walking into the countryside, Isaac said, “Alex, guess what. I've planned a trip. You want to come with me?”
Alex's eyes widened. He had never been on a trip to anywhere.
I'm going away forever,” Isaac said with breathless excitement. “You want to come?”
Alex nodded his head eagerly and said “Yes!” and fifteen-year-old Isaac Lipschits took off with little Alex to join the Haganah and fight for a Jewish state.
Their first stop was Putte, a Dutch town on the Belgian border that has a Jewish cemetery for the Antwerp community. The Belgians dig up graves when enough years have gone by and the relatives have all died off, whereas the Dutch don't. Because Jewish law requires that graves remain undisturbed, the Antwerp Jews bury their dead across the Dutch border in Putte. Between 1945 and 1948 the Haganah led recruits into a house in Putte, through the house, and out another door, and then they were in Belgium, from where they took a tram to Antwerp. Isaac and Alex stayed overnight in Antwerp's Jewish orphanage, which was also a Haganah center. They spent the next day there as well, too excited to do anything but talk. That night, they were taken by train to Kortrijk. On the way they passed through Brussels,