Page 21 of Who We Think We Are

W hen Kate’s plane descends over Amsterdam, she appreciates the lush, flat beauty of the Netherlands in the early morning sun, so different from Vancouver.

But this time, she imagines Grandad flying over “targets” and bombing them.

She can see why he had to think of it that way: to obey orders and be able to live with himself.

There were different rules during the war. He was right about that.

Kate catches the train to The Hague and walks to her usual hotel, stopping by the market for her favorite cheese, bread, salad, and fruit. When she gets to her room, she closes the blackout curtains, takes a hot bath, and goes straight to bed. She wants to be alert when Mikelia arrives.

Four hours later, Mikelia tiptoes into the room. “Hi, Mikelia. You can turn the light on; I’m awake,” says Kate, who woke up when the door opened.

“Hi, Kate. Welcome to Europe! Do you want some tea?”

“You know I do. I brought my own. It’s on the kitchen counter.”

“I would expect no less.” Mikelia opens the curtains, letting in the afternoon sun, and pours water into the kettle. “We’ve traveled together a time or two, and I was your roommate at uni. I know you and your relationship with Earl Grey tea.”

Kate gets out of bed and gives Mikelia a hug. “Thanks for coming,” she says and heads to the bathroom. “Hey, Mikelia?”

“What?”

“I’m Euro-peein!”

“Is that still funny, Kate? I mean, it was funny twenty-eight years ago.”

Kate laughs. “Yup! Timeless jokes are always funny.”

When Kate is dressed in sweats, she curls up on the couch under a blanket. Mikelia gives them both tea, takes her place in the chair opposite the couch, and says, “I’ve been doing some research.”

“Me too. What have you found out?”

“There’s one Lebensborn home in the Netherlands. Let’s start there,” says Mikelia.

“I agree. And if that’s not the place, we can branch out from there.”

They look up the train schedule for The Hague to Maastricht the next morning.

“Now, let’s go for a walk and go out for Indonesian food,” says Mikelia. “There are a few restaurants within a few blocks from here.”

“But I bought cheese and bread …”

“To hell with cheese and bread. We can take that for lunch tomorrow. We always go for Indonesian food when we meet here.”

“I’m getting sick of it. But OK, one more time.”

The next morning, Monday, Kate and Mikelia take the three-hour train ride to Maastricht, enjoying the Dutch countryside.

“You know, for a country that’s so densely populated, there sure are a lot of fields,” says Kate.

“There’s something that’s been on the news here in Europe for the past six months that I want to tell you about,” says Mikelia. “Have you heard about it? The accountant of Auschwitz?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well, it was big news on German television.

A ninety-four-year-old man named Oskar Groning was just on trial in Lüneburg, Germany, for being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people at Auschwitz.

He was the guy who took inventory of the belongings that were stolen from the Jews when they arrived at the camp: money, jewelry, eyeglasses, clothing, suitcases, and so on. He was found guilty.

“For you and me, World War II and the Holocaust seem like history, but it is still in the present for many people, especially in Germany. Lots of people don’t want the secrets of their past or their family’s past brought out in the open.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“That we may encounter obstacles, and it may not be that easy to find what we’re looking for.”

“Good thing we’re smart and persistent, then.”

When they arrive in Maastricht, they walk to Villa Kanjel, a nineteenth-century manor overlooking a pond. The Villa appears to be empty. They walk around the grounds, and a gardener asks, “May I help you, ladies?”

Kate asks, “Do you know the history of this building?”

He tells them, “It used to be a maternity home and a clinic, and it is going to be renovated to be a hotel and restaurant. If you want to know more than that, you should go into Maastricht to the Historisch Centrum Limburg.

“Thank you, sir,” says Kate.

At the museum, Kate and Mikelia learn that, during World War II, Villa Kanjel was a Mütterheim, a maternity home for Aryan women, wives of German soldiers, and NSB members. But it was not a Lebensborn home. There was no Lebensborn home in the Netherlands.

“No wonder some websites said there was a Lebensborn home in the Netherlands, and some didn’t. It’s a bit confusing,” says Kate. “Wherever Oma had her baby, this is not the place.”

“Oh well, at least we had a nice day in the Dutch countryside,” says Mikelia.

On the train back to The Hague, they discuss what to do next.

“We can’t go to every Lebensborn home,” says Kate. “And neither of us has even been able to find a full list of them.”

“But we can go to the ones closest to the Netherlands. It makes sense that they would send Oma to a Lebensborn home close to home.”

They agree to go to the Friesland Lebensborn home near Bremen, Germany, the next day because it is the closest to the northeastern Netherlands, where Oma lived when she met Grandad.

Tuesday, they check out of the hotel and take their luggage along.

Once they go to Germany, they may be there for a while.

They have no luck finding any trace of Oma in Bremen, but they get valuable information from a volunteer named Greta at the Bremen City Library.

“You are not going to have any success going to Lebensborn homes to try to find records of your grandmother having a baby. There is an archive in Bad Arneson, Germany, that has some records on Lebensborn. So many records were destroyed that there is no comprehensive collection at this time. Historians collect documents as they conduct research, so it should improve with time, but that won’t help you now.

If I were you, I would go to the Arneson Archives.

It will be much more efficient than what you’re doing now. ”

“I can’t thank you enough,” says Kate. “We are all about doing this as efficiently as possible.”

“You and your sister can save yourself a lot of time,” says Greta.

Kate and Mikelia both laugh. “Oh, we’re not sisters,” says Mikelia. “But we hear that a lot. But I’m more Aryan-looking than her, with my natural blonde hair and blue eyes.”

“Apologize to Greta, sister. Not funny and not appropriate,” says Kate, laughing.

“I’m sorry, Greta. I meant no offense. Thank you for your help. You’ve saved us a lot of time.”

“Oh, I’m not offended,” says Greta. “We must laugh at the crazy world sometimes. Good luck in your search.”

When they walk away, they hear a quiet voice say something that sounds like “Heil Hitler!” They turn around and look at Greta, who winks and laughs.

“Cheeky girl!” says Mikelia.

Wednesday morning, Kate and Mikelia take the two-hour train ride to Bad Arneson. The German countryside is lush, with autumn leaves turning color and green rolling hills. Picturesque. Today, they know where they’re going and what they’re going to do, so not much planning is involved.

Mikelia is doing something for work on her laptop, and as Kate looks out the window, her mind wanders to everything that has happened over the past few months.

When she looks at it all at once, it can overcome her, so she just keeps looking at the progress she’s making and the next step.

An image pops into her mind of one time when she was in her late teens and was pretty new to skiing.

When she was at the top of the hill and looked down, she was terrified.

But she managed to ski down part of the hill, stop, and take stock.

When she looked back at the hill she’d already skied down, she was proud of herself, and it gave her the confidence to ski the rest of the way.

She feels like she’s been skiing this particular mountain since Oma blurted out her secret, but she’s done OK so far, and she knows she can do the rest, even though she has no idea how. She is grateful for Mikelia.

“Mikelia?”

“Mmmm?” Mikelia pulls her eyes from her laptop.

“Thank you for doing this with me. I don’t know how I’d do this without you.”

“You’d find a way. You always do. But you’re welcome. I’m enjoying myself, so it’s good for me too. Plus, we get to hang out, which I always love.”

Pretty soon, the train pulls into Bad Arneson, and they walk directly to the Arneson Archives, which are housed in a concrete building as nondescript as the National Archives in The Hague.

A very helpful staff person named Carole Messer assists them.

She checks Kate in as a researcher, scans her passport for identification, takes a picture, and gives Kate a badge with her photo on it.

Mikelia is admitted as a visitor. Once they’re in the archives, they have a seat at a large old wooden table.

Around them are dozens of metal shelving units that move back and forth on rolling racks with something that looks like a big steering wheel.

Kate tells Carole everything she knows about Oma and shows her the translation she did at the archives in The Hague.

“What are you hoping to learn?” asks Carole.

“Ultimately, I want to find Oma’s baby. But anything you can tell me will help. As you can see, this record doesn’t say if the baby lived or died or which Lebensborn home my grandmother went to.”

“Well, that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?” says Carole. “There is not much information to go on. Let me see. The information you have is that the birth mother’s name was Katrina Van Dijk. The baby was born in a Lebensborn home in December 1942. Anything else?”

“No,” says Kate, her mouth dry and the color rising in her cheeks. “I feel embarrassed now. How on earth would you be able to help me?”