Free The Glatstein Chronicles by Jacob Glatstein

Hitler, he stopped in his tracks like a stunned rooster. For a moment he froze, then suddenly let go of the diplomat’s arm. Whereupon the latter, without missing a beat, caught the arm of a passing woman in a motion better suited to the dance floor, and, graciously, with his new companion in tow, continued his stroll around the sundeck, while his erstwhile companion gazed after his departing hero like an orphaned child.
    “How did you know I was Jewish?” he asked, as if some misfortune had befallen him. “Well I am, but not one of those common Polish Jews. I’m Dutch.”
    One of his eyes had a tendency to wander, and kept going into and out of hiding. He was a phlegmatic sort, who spoke English well enough, choosing his words with a slow, deliberate care that complemented his stiffness. His hands hung lifelessly by his side. His step was heavy, and his thoughts, translated from Dutch into his distinctive English, heavier still. He treated our conversation as a fencing match, expecting me to take the offensive.
    “As it happens, I’m a Polish Jew,” I said, rising to the challenge.
    He responded with that great Gentile compliment, “You don’t look it.” When I asked him to tell me something about his ancestry, he was unwilling to discuss even so recent a forebear as his great-grandfather. Not for him, it would seem, the grand heritage of Dutch Jewry—no Spanish Jews finding refuge in Holland after the Expulsion of 1492, no Polish Jews with their own illustrious history, who, in more recent days, had immigrated to Holland, and certainly no Baruch Spinoza. He was a Dutch Jew, pure and simple, a descendant of generations of Dutch Jews—end of story.
    I then tried to steer him to another subject, and asked whether he had ever heard anyone in his own family, or possibly in the Amsterdam Jewish ghetto, speaking the old Judeo-Spanish dialect, Ladino. But he shook off this question too, as if afraid I might suspect him of association with matters that weren’t properly Dutch. He merely allowed that he came from a family of rich merchants and that he was returning home from a three-week visit to the United States, to rejoin his father in the family business. As for the Jews of Holland, he would preface any remarks with the standard lecture that they were Dutch citizens first and foremost, Jews only secondarily. They took a deep interest in politics and were fervent patriots, and only after they had carried out their civic duty to the full, so that no one could accuse them of disloyalty, were they also Jews. But their Jewishness was only a minor part of their identity, the merest tip of the iceberg.
    “What keeps them connected to the Jewish people?” I asked.
    “Nothing!” he exclaimed, delighted by this opportunity to expound on the special nature of the Dutch Jews. “They are an entity unto themselves, a sort of thirteenth tribe of Israel, without a history or traditions. Maybe somewhere there’s buried archeological evidence of their origins.”
    He was an intelligent man, who obviously preferred innocent banter to confronting unpleasant truths. Ultimately, however, it all came out. No less than their Christian neighbors, Dutch Jews detested the Polish Jews in their midst. With their long, scraggly beards, the Polish Jews who shuffled about the streets of Amsterdam in their ridiculous garb were an embarrassment to the Dutch Jews, to say nothing of the Christians, generally patient and tolerant souls. The Polish Jews were doing great harm to their Dutch coreligionists, and their presence was a slap in the face, because no matter how hard the Dutch Jews tried to keep their distance from the Poles, the Christians felt that the Dutch Jews bore some responsibility for the behavior of their eastern brethren.
    “Why have they come to disturb our longtime peace and order?” he said. “I swear, I turn red in the face whenever I see a Polish Jew. Why must they always attract attention to themselves, with their