3 September 1942

It was late when the bell rang. Father walked downstairs to let the soldiers in before they broke the door down. Mother, Pieter and I remained upstairs.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at Mother. I felt awful – simply awful. It was because of me  Jan was here. Because of me soldiers were going to search our house. My fault that we were terrified half out of our wits.

Their voices carried up to me, as loud and insistent as the bell.

‘Sind sie Juedisch?’

‘Nein,’ I heard Father say firmly.

The soldiers pounded up the steep narrow stairs to the first floor. ‘Any Jews here?’ a voice called up. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I recognized that voice at once. It was Kurt.  I stared at him as he climbed up to the landing, but he didn’t give even the tiniest hint that he’d ever seen me before.

‘Sind sie Juedisch? Are there any Jews here?’

‘Nein,’ we replied.

‘ID please.’ We gave him our ID cards and he quickly flicked through them, and handed them back.

The soldiers were about to climb up to the next floor when  to my surprise Kurt put up a hand. ‘Leave this to me,’ he said. ‘Wait for me downstairs.’

‘If anyone can find a Jew, Kurt will,’ one said laughing, as if it was a joke. At that moment I hated them, really really hated them.

The soldiers clattered back downstairs. Kurt slowly climbed the stairs to the next landing. Whatever checks he made, they were quick. Perhaps he knew where to look, all the tricks, all the vain attempts people made to conceal that someone was hiding in their home.

It was only when he was walking back downstairs to us that I noticed something I hadn’t before. The bookcase that concealed the opening to Jan’s hiding place wasn’t quite straight. Anyone taking a good look at it might wonder why and  investigate further – especially if they’d had a tip off that there might be Jews hiding in the house.

My heart began to pound. What would we do if Kurt noticed? I tried not to look at it. His eyes met mine. I knew then that he’d seen it. Knew what it concealed . . .