The Journey Back Read online

  I looked out the glass part of the door. He was striding down the road, his head high.

  I sat down, looked out. Trees, dandelions, daisies. A year ago Sini and I had been here, on this road, on our way back to Winterswijk. Not a bad year, the first one. Just a little difficult. I had said good-bye to so many people— the Oostervelds, Sini, Rachel.

  There was Mother now. She cared about me. Just couldn’t admit it—wasn’t that kind of person. Maybe later she would come straight out and tell me, when she had known me longer. Then I’d be sure. “You’re not going back to Usselo for a long time,” she’d say the minute I came in. “I want you home.”

  I’d ask her about the summer. I had promised Johan I would. I didn’t want to spend all my vacations in Usselo though. Gloomily I stared out the window. What about Walcheren? The first reeds would be up already. And the dikes were sturdy again. I could climb on one, all the way to the top, and look and look. Water, sailboats, sea gulls, sky… But I could see land, too. Hawthorn hedges, gardens, pinks, yellows. And the people, all back, wearing their costumes—pretty ones, long skirts, colorful blouses, lace caps. I could even hear some of the men and women practicing. The annual band concert was coming up. Listen … music: a clarinet, a trombone— new instruments, replacing those that had been washed into the North Sea. Walcheren. Had wanted to go there for so long. I could even go by myself, couldn’t I … when I was old enough. Only fourteen next month.

  And on the bus went, while in the ruins of Nuremberg, Hitler’s closest friends and helpers were still on trial. So many crimes, horrible ones. Deaths. Millions. In so many ways. And places. But other crimes as well, not only deaths, ones you couldn’t even see.

  In Winterswijk the baker would be on his way to Mrs. Menko’s with a fresh loaf of bread. She’d give away the rest of yesterday’s, which she would hardly have touched, but not until he had rung her bell, and she was sure she had a new loaf. “I know it’s crazy, but it makes me feel safe.” She still couldn’t talk about what had happened to her. Only cry. “Does everyone have to go through it personally before people will stop wars? Please, please.”

  On, past woods where signs warned people to stay out— land mines. And on, while in Amsterdam the barrel organ went from street to street, a dog next to it carrying a cup. Coins plopping in. “Thank you.” And the man kept on turning the wheel, quicker, releasing more ting-tingly music. “Thank you, thank you.” On, and on, on, while another railroad bridge somewhere in Holland had just been repaired, and across it, ke-chunk, ke-chunk, went another train, decorated, and crowded with officials wearing suits that were no longer worn-out and patched. Those old suits were on scarecrows now, out in the fields. There, the bus just passed one. Cap, jacket—looking like a farmer from a distance.

  Through a mist of tears, more things flashed by. Had trouble seeing them. Johan. What was he doing now? Home? No, plowing probably. The potatoes. … Just as he had all the other springs since he was eleven.

  “I began work early in life, Annie, not like most other kids. I did play soccer though, a couple of times. You should’ve seen me. I could’ve become a real good player. Damned if it isn’t true. If I could have played more often. But that’s the way it was, with Pa sick all the time. Did I ever tell you I did very well in school? Could have become a teacher—that’s how well. But Annie, you know what I really wanted to be? A vet. I’ve got a special feeling for animals, I guess you can say.”

  Furrows now, in his field. The soil soft, crumbly. “C’mon, horse, come. We’ve got to move on.”

  Me, too. Move on, go places, see things. Maybe Johan was thinking about something pleasant now, too. The secret, Johan, the tractor. Please, Johan, think about that. Please.

  I couldn’t see anything now, too many tears. Later, I’d tell him about it; where I had been, what I had seen. “That island, Johan, Walcheren. I stood on top of the dike … looked … miles of water straight ahead of me. Far away, it was darker. Could be land. A boat. Anything. …” Later, Johan, later.

  JOHANNA REISS’ PERSONAL PHOTOS

  Me, way before the war, while on vacation with my family. My father put me on the horse just long enough to take this picture. I may be smiling, but I was, and still am, terrified of horses.

  Johan Oosterveld, the farmer who risked his life to hide my sister and me from the Nazis when no one else would. He always said, “A handsome guy you’re looking at, right?” Who was I to argue with that? This photo was taken right after the war.

  Dientje, sitting in the good room of the farm house. Note her large hands which, much to Johan’s disappointment, were more often resting than helping on the farm.

  Opoe, Johan’s mother who lived with us in the farm house. You can’t see it in the photo, but she didn’t have any teeth. “I don’t need any,” she kept saying for decades, “I can eat just as well with my gums.” This photo was taken right after the war.

  The Oosterveld farm house in Usselo where we hid for almost three years from the Nazis. Look how close to the road it was. That’s why Sini and I were not allowed to come near the upstairs windows, otherwise people would have seen us. I visited it in 2009 and the house looks the same even though other people now live in it.

  Click to explore the INTERACTIVE MAP.

  INTERVIEW WITH JOHANNA REISS

  An Exclusive Interview with Johanna Reiss

  Are the events in The Upstairs Room actual events that occurred to you as a Jewish girl growing up during World War II?

  Unfortunately, yes. The book is entirely true. Even the names are real: I am Annie—it was my nickname as a kid, Johanna is my adult name. And the Oostervelds would have been upset had I given them a different name. This way, Johan said, "People will know how brave I was." (As was his habit, bleeping over his wife and mother). As a matter of fact, if you ever were to go to Usselo, you'd see what Sini and I had chiseled into his tombstone, knowing he'd like that: "JOHAN, OUR HERO. Sini and Annie."

  In your book, you tell about the two years and seven months that you spent in hiding with your sister Sini. How did it feel to be separated from the rest of your family for that length of time?

  It was long, endlessly long, and we had no idea when it would be over or—the biggest fear—that we'd never get to see each other again. Each night, when we went to sleep, all we could do is hope that not only we'd live through it, but that the rest of our family would too.

  When did you first start writing? Who or what inspired you to write your first book?

  The Upstairs Room was my first book. It was my husband who suggested I'd write about my childhood for our daughters, who were then seven and nine. They were old enough, he said, they'd understand at least some of it. I had no idea how you write a book, I had never written anything longer than a shopping list to take to the supermarket. When the book finally was done and got published, and my editor introduced me to somebody as the author, I turned around to see who it was, still not believing I had been the one.

  Describe the hiding place which Johan built for you and Sini in the upstairs room of his house. What was it like?

  It was inside a closet, deep enough so that Johan was able to put a partition in. He also cut an opening into it that got covered again by either Opoe or Johan or Dientje—after Sini and I crawled in and waited until Johan said it was safe again to crawl out—often after we had spent an entire night hiding there.

  You were in your hiding place when the German soldiers came to the Oostervelds' house to search and were only a few inches away from them. Talk about this experience.

  Picture yourself behind a partition, knowing that if you were found, you'd be hauled off, thrown into a truck, and taken to a concentration camp—a most horrible thought. I was lucky. Unlike the many other Dutch Jews who hid—25,000—I survived.

  Describe the time when you had to completely change your appearance to go into hiding. How did this make you feel?

  Well, I was wearing a sailor suit, something more suitable for boys then. That wasn't t
he bad part: What if anyone in Winterswijk would recognize me anyway? Jews were not allowed to travel, and here I was walking to a bus and getting onto it.

  You spent New Year's Eve, 1942, in a cave with your sister Sini. What was this experience like?

  It's not something I recommend. I still don't like New Year's Eves—maybe, who knows, because of that night Sini and I sat inside a hole under the ground.

  When the Germans first took control of your town of Winterswijk, you were only a child and found many of your freedoms slowly stripped away. Which freedoms did you miss most at that time and why?

  I was not allowed to visit my sick mother in the hospital—that hurt terribly. I went to the mayor of Winterswijk, asked, and was given a special permit. Imagine that you can't visit somebody who is very sick, your own mother...

  Before she died, your mother gave you a coin to buy some candy. Did you save the coin, and, if so, do you still have it?

  I still have it and at every school visit when I bring Opoe's lace cap, and slides of that time, I also bring the coin my mother gave me, including the little blue purse she put it in.

  It seems clear from your book that the Oostervelds became a second family to you. To what do you attribute the strong bond that was formed between you and them?

  The Oostervelds were all we had. They took care of Sini and me, kept us till the end of the war, knowing very well that if we had been caught they too would have been hauled off. This family of farmers with a primitive lifestyle, who had never seen us before, took us in and were actually sad when the war ended. They had liked having us. "A nice little war we had," Johan would say.

  In the Postscript, you return to Holland with your children to visit the Oostervelds. How many times have you gone back to visit them over the years?

  Quite a bit. Sometimes I went alone, as the time when Opoe was in a nursing home, and another time when Johan, very sick, was in the hospital in Enschede, the city close to Usselo. I had come from New York, taken a taxi all the way across Holland to make sure I'd get to him while he was still alive. When I gave myself an hour off from sitting next to his hospital bed, to buy some chocolates for my daughters, and he saw from the bag that I had been to an expensive address, he had the nerve to say, "You're so reckless with money."

  Rachel, your oldest sister, was the last to go into hiding, and she left Winterswijk only a day before the Germans came to search your house. What made her wait so long before leaving?

  Rachel is a very loyal woman. She did not want to leave until Mother had died and she could no longer do anything for her. Not until after the funeral did she go to her place of hiding, the last Jew in Winterswijk to still walk around. When soldiers came to the house to grab her, she had just left.

  After the Canadian soldiers liberated Usselo and the surrounding towns, it took you and Sini over a month to leave the Oostervelds and go back home. Why did it take both of you so long to return?

  The Oostervelds were upset that we'd be going back to Winterswijk and neither Sini nor I were eager to leave them. Besides, the roads were dangerous and we did not go until Johan had gone to Winterswijk himself, to make sure nothing would happen to us on the way. That's who Johan was: a big, loud boaster, cursing when he got upset, but also very caring.

  A very exciting part of The Upstairs Room is the time when you came face-to-face with a German soldier in the Oosterveld's kitchen. What was it like to know that any minute the soldiers could come up and seize you?

  I was too terrified to feel anything. That didn't happen until later, when I rushed back upstairs and realized the danger I had put all of us in because I was reckless and went down the stairs and opened the kitchen door... What I did, it sounds so innocent, but it could have had awful consequences. And even though I was only 12, I was aware of that.

  Is there a sequel to The Upstairs Room? If so, what is the title of the book and tell us briefly what it is about.

  There is a sequel, yes, called The Journey Back. It picks up where The Upstairs Room left off: We were liberated by Canadian soldiers who had come to Usselo, small as it was. We were free again, which was actually scary. I did not know how to be with other kids. I had to start school again. Would everyone look at my legs that buckled under me, from not having been used for two years, seven months and part of a day? Miraculously, my father and Rachel had also survived. Life started again, in Winterswijk, our hometown, where we had to learn all over again how to get along. Sini left, Rachel left, my father remarried. And I had to get used to a stepmother. It's interesting that the Dutch version of The Journey Back is called Geen slecht jaar, (Not a Bad Year). It wasn't bad, just difficult.

  The Upstairs Room is a very popular book here in the United States. Is it read in other countries?

  Yes. To mention some: China, Holland, Italy, Spain, South America, Germany.

  How old were you when you first came to the United States? Did you come by yourself or with other family members?

  I came by myself, when I was 23. It was in 1955. I meant to stay for no more than one year...and although I'm not very good at math, it seems to me I have way overstayed.

  Do you visit schools to speak to students about your books and your life's experiences? If so, approximately how many schools have you visited, and are they only in the U.S.?

  Yes, I visit schools. I haven't kept track of the number I have been to—a lot. Even as far as the American School of Taipei in Taiwan. I have also talked in Germany, and just last year I spoke at a few schools in Holland—there, of course, in my native tongue: Dutch.

  Which member of the Oosterveld family were you most attached to as a child, and why?

  Opoe was my favorite. She was a real cutie in whose eyes I could do no wrong, except for the one time when I put War and Peace, that heavy book, on top of her lace cap. Now, in Manhattan, where I live, her cap sits on a special stand, where it stays until a school visit when I carefully pack it up, to show.

  You once said that Johan, the Dutch farmer who saved your life during the war, saved you a second time. How did he save you twice?

  The second time was when my husband had died and I was left taking care of my two little daughters. At night, after I had tucked them in and began to write The Upstairs Room, I became the little girl again I was during the war, when Johan was my protector. It somehow made me feel safe.

  Did you have any other careers besides being an author?

  I used to be a teacher in Holland. After I came to the U.S. I had more jobs than fingers on several hands, every one one of them awful—or, rather, I was awful at them. What I seemed to be best at was writing and talking, both things I still do.

  It is noted in one of your biographies that you once taught a monthly writing class to inmates at the Sing Sing prison. What was it like teaching prisoners to write?

  Each time after the class, when the prisoners went back to their cells and I was able to go home, for a split second I was back in hiding, when I too was not allowed out, for a different reason. Still, it choked me up.

  For more information about Johanna Reiss visit her website: www.johannareiss.com

  LOCATIONS FROM THE BOOK THAT YOU CAN EXPLORE

  My family’s home in Winterswijk, Netherlands. (The one with the street lamp in front of it.)

  Click to explore the INTERACTIVE MAP to see what this looks like today.

  From my home in Winterswijk, my father moved us to this house that he said would be safer. It’s also in Winterswijk but a little outside of town.

  Click to explore the INTERACTIVE MAP to see what this looks like today.

  The Oosterveld farm house in Usselo where my sister and I hid for almost three years from the Nazis.

  Click to explore the INTERACTIVE MAP to see what this looks like today.

  The Market in Winterswijk, Netherlands.

  Click to explore the INTERACTIVE MAP.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JOHANNA REISS is the author of the classic young adult book The Upstairs Room, which Eli
e Wiesel praised in The New York Times Book Review as an “admirable account . . . as important in every respect as the one bequeathed to us by Anne Frank.” She is the winner of the Newbery Honor, the Jewish Book Council Children’s Book Award, and the Buxtehuder Bulle. Her other books include The Journey Back (The Sequel to The Upstairs Room); A Hidden Life; and The Fatal Night. She lives in New York City. Her website is www.johannareiss.com.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 1978 by Paul Zindel

  Cover image © 2011 by Julie Zeisemann

  978-1-935169-62-8

  This edition published in 2012 by Graymalkin Media

  www.graymalkin.com

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