Page 31 of Who We Think We Are

K ate shows up at Cobus’s office at eight the next morning with coffee for him, tea for herself, and pastries for both of them.

“Thanks, Kate. You didn’t have to do that. How did you know how I like my coffee?”

“I paid attention yesterday. If I’ve learned anything from my family here, it is that you always bring treats when you show up at someone’s place.”

“Well, I certainly won’t say no. Come in. We can take Ursula and Carole’s call on the phone at my desk. Sorry about the mess. This is what a historian’s office looks like.”

The office is in a historical building, and the furniture is part Ikea, part garage sale, and part antique. A laptop and two monitors dominate the desk, and piles of papers and books are on the filing cabinet, shelves, and basically any flat surface.

At 8:15 a.m., Ursula and Carole call. Kate kicks off the conversation. “Hi, Ursula. Hi, Carole. Cobus says that I can trust both of you, so thank you so much for joining us on this call today. Carole, I don’t know if you remember me …”

“Of course I remember you, Kate,” says Carole.

“Yesterday, when Ursula told me that we would be having a call with you this morning, I went into our database to look at your grandmother’s record to see if there had been any developments, and the entire record had been deleted somehow.

That was so strange. I distinctly remember creating a record when you came to the archives with your grandmother’s name, as well as your passport number, phone number, and email address.

Then, when you called me, I changed the record to Anneke Van Dijk, the name your grandmother’s baby was given at birth; I entered the date of birth and that the baby was a girl with red hair, born at the Luxembourg Lebensborn home.

I also have the information written down on paper, so I will start a new record when I get to the office. ”

“No, please don’t, Carole. Let’s keep this on paper for now. Let me explain.” Then Kate tells Carole and Ursula everything that has happened since she contacted the archives and they started a record.

“But no one at our archives would do anything like that,” says Carole.

Cobus steps in and says, “We are not accusing Arneson Archives of anything, Carole. We believe you are completely innocent and are doing a fine job. Your archive’s database is connected to the national database, correct?

We think the baby’s or mother’s name was flagged, so whoever is doing this to Kate would be notified if they were searched for or entered into the system.

You would have no way of even knowing it happened. ”

“This is most alarming,” says Carole. “Our records are confidential.”

“Yes,” says Cobus. “They’re confidential within the national database, and someone who has access to the database doesn’t want Katrina or Anneke Van Dijk’s names in there.”

“This has never happened before,” says Carole.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. Alright.

I won’t put anything on the computer, but I will talk about it at a small staff meeting with people I trust so a few of us are aware and keeping an eye on that name.

I will let you know if there are any developments. ”

That afternoon, Kate gets a call from Cobus. “Hello, Kate. Carole Messer called and asked if we could have a call with her at my office tomorrow morning at nine. Can you make it?”

“Yes! I’ll be there. Thank you, Cobus. You don’t have to be doing this.”

“Are you kidding? This is far more interesting than most of the work I do on a daily basis. I’m having fun. Don’t bring pastries. My wife is baking bread today. I’ll bring breakfast. Arrive fifteen minutes early so we can have a bite to eat before our call.”

“Great! I’ll bring coffee and tea.”

At 8:45 a.m. the next morning, Cobus and Kate have homemade bread and the most delicious Gouda cheese she has ever tasted. “We get the cheese from my wife’s uncle, who’s a dairy farmer.”

“I would weigh three hundred pounds if I had access to this bread and cheese every day.”

At 9:00 a.m., Carole calls and starts right in. “I spoke with the staff yesterday and want to confirm a few things with you. You said Anneke Van Dijk had red hair, correct?”

“Yes, she did.”

“And she was born on 19 December 1942 at the Luxembourg Lebensborn home, correct?” asks Carole.

“That’s correct.”

“I may have something for you,” says Carole. “I’ll get back to you soon.”

“I’ll give you my cell phone number. What do you have for me?”

“I can’t say more than that right now,” says Carole. “But I’ll be in touch.”

As Kate is about to leave Cobus’s office, he says, “Please let me know what happens. I’m invested in your story now.”

“I will let you know what happens, Cobus,” says Kate. “Thank you for everything. I don’t know what I would have done without you. Actually, there is one more thing I wanted to ask you about. Do you have a few more minutes?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“Whenever I try to research the Hitler Youth in the Netherlands, I bump into a dead end. The websites just talk about the Hitler Youth in Germany. As a historian, maybe you’ll have better luck than I’ve had. Would you be able to look into that? I’ll pay you, of course.”

“I will look into that for you. Now I’m curious, too.”

A few hours later, while Kate is walking around The Hague doing a bit of sightseeing, she gets a text from Carole Messer: “I will be calling you in about 30 minutes. Will you be available?”

Kate replies: “Yes!”

Kate heads back to her hotel room, excited to find out what Carole has for her.

Kate’s phone rings exactly thirty minutes later, and she answers, “Hello, Carole.”

“Hi, Kate. I took your family’s case to our staff meeting yesterday, and we had a very interesting conversation.

We are going to investigate how to protect the privacy and security of our records more effectively.

” She laughs and then adds. “But I’m sure that’s not what you’re interested in, and that’s not what I called to tell you.

“One of our staff members, Ingrid Becker, would like to speak with you. Do I have your permission to give her your number? She is very trustworthy.”

“Sure. Thanks for asking.”

“You’re welcome. Ingrid has reason to believe that it would be worth your while to have a conversation with her. Because of confidentiality, I can’t say more than that. Will you speak with her?”

“Yes, of course. I’m dying of curiosity, but I do respect confidentiality, especially after what I’ve experienced recently.”

When Kate gets off the phone, she is so excited she feels like she has to talk with someone. It’s 3:00 p.m., 6:00 a.m. in Vancouver. Too early to call Jake and the girls, so she texts Mikelia: “Can you talk? Here’s a Zoom link.”

Mikelia replies: “Give me five minutes. I’ll get a conference room.”

Kate is waiting when Mikelia appears. “Hi, Mikelia. Guess what?”

“What?”

“We may have found Oma’s baby. Well, she’d be a seventy-three-year-old woman, but you know what I mean.”

“Really? What’s happening?”

Kate fills her in. “I’m going to hear from someone named Ingrid Becker. I don’t know what will happen from there. I had to tell someone, and you’ve been with me right from the start.”

“Oh my God, Kate, this is so exciting!”

“I’ve got to go! Someone’s calling me. Maybe it’s Ingrid.”

“Stay on Zoom. I want to hear the call. Put it on speaker!”

Kate answers her phone, putting it on speaker. “Hello, this is Kate Hathaway. May I help you?”

“Hello, Kate, this is Ingrid Becker from Arneson Archives. I was very interested when Carole Messer told us about your grandmother and the baby she had in the Lebensborn program. You see, someone reached out to me a few weeks ago. She knows I’m a historian at Arneson Archives and thought I might be able to help her.

Her story and your story have enough similarities that I think you might want to meet each other.

“I can’t say anything more until I’ve spoken with her.

I’m going to see her tomorrow morning. I need to verify some information.

If everything lines up, which I expect it will, I’ll tell her about your grandmother and you and ask if she’d like to meet you.

Would you be able to meet her and me on Sunday?

If she says she’ll meet you, we should move quickly before she changes her mind. ”

“Yes, I’m available. Just let me know.”

“Great,” says Ingrid. “You can come to Lüneburg, the town she lives in.”

“I’m sorry, Ingrid. I won’t go to Germany.”

“You won’t?” asks Ingrid.

“No. I had some negative experiences with someone there recently, and I promised my family I wouldn’t go back.”

“Alright then. That makes it a bit trickier. Let me think. Hmm. There is a lovely town in the northeast Netherlands called Winschoten. We could meet you there. Driving there and back and meeting you will be too much for her for one day. I’ll tell her we’re going on a little two-day holiday and that we can meet you for lunch or dinner. She loves to go for a drive.”

“Wonderful. But Ingrid, we are planning this like it’s happening. I thought you needed to check the documents and talk with her.”

“I do. But my memory is very good, and this lady did say she wanted to learn more, so I’d say there’s a 99 percent chance that we’re on for Sunday.”

“Excellent. I’ll book a few hotel rooms and wait to hear from you tomorrow morning.”

“It’ll be closer to noon. Talk to you then. Bye for now.”

Kate hangs up. “You heard all that, Mikelia? What do you think?”

“I bought my plane ticket while you were talking. I’ll arrive in Amsterdam tomorrow morning at eight. There is no way you’re going to do this without me!”

“Excellent! That will make Jake happy, too. I’ll meet you at Schiphol at eight. I need to return my rental car.”