The Tal family’s children
@From the estate of Chanan Tal. Original source unknown
@Private property of the Tal family
I, Chanan, was born on 18 April 1930, in the apartment on the second floor of Grandma Tal’s house along the Amstel river. Ruth and No’omi, my twin sisters, were born there on 5 December 1932. The three of us slept in a small room, and one of the first things I remember are the twin beds that our father built. During the day, they closed as boxes, with the bedding in them, so that we had a platform we could play on. It was original planning and precise execution. Father obviously enjoyed building those beds.
@Private property of the Tal family
We lived near the Amstel, a large river that crosses Amsterdam, in a small apartment above Oma Tal’s apartment (Father’s mother). We would look at the ships passing over the water and the bridge opening for them. When we were five, we moved into a bigger apartment. Ruth and I got a big, beautiful room with a light blue set of shelves. Chanan had his own room in the attic. The apartment had a flat roof, where we played… I missed the river.
Oma Netta, our mother’s mother, was a very sweet grandmother. She had curly white hair. I didn’t know anyone else with hair like that... I remember once we went with her to a ‘doll-doctor’ with our ‘wounded’ doll that we drove in a pink straw pram. We would also hang out at the Vondelpark, we in the playground, and Grandma on the terrace of the café. I also remember that the two grandmothers once took us there. We also loved coming to Oma Netta’s apartment. It had a sort of secret place for toys, which was behind a curtain in an unused space designed for a stove.
@Private property of the Tal family
This is a family photo from 1938.
Back then, it was customary to give such pictures as a birthday present to one’s grandmother:
Father and Mother, me and the little twin sisters No’omi and Ruth.
@From the estate of Chanan Tal. Original source unknown
@Private property of the Tal family
In 1938 we moved to an apartment in another part of the city. The large apartment was on the top three floors of a five-story house, starting from the balcony up to and including the attic. The room with the small window under the roof was my room.
Heating was only on the living floor, and in the attic, there was a large storage room for coal that they would fill once a year from above. The coal was taken out through a small window at floor level. Towards the end of the heating season, it became more and more difficult to remove the remaining coal that stuck to the back wall of the crate. I decided to solve the problem and went into the crate to bring the coal to the porthole…
This is where we lived until the day of the expulsion on 29 September 1943.
Grandma Tal lived for another two years alone in the house near the Amstel, but after the outbreak of the war in the Netherlands she moved to our new home, where she died on 6 April 1941 at the age of seventy-two.
@Private property of the Tal family
Chanan, Ruth and No’omi attended the Jewish elementary school, the Herman Elte School.
In the first half of 1939, 43 pupils were enrolled in the third grade at the Herman Elte School.
31 of them and the teacher, Aaltje Fortuijn, were later killed in the Holocaust. That was 74 per cent of the class, the same percentage of all Jews from the Netherlands who were murdered in the Holocaust.
Twelve of the children survived. Seven of them later emigrated to Israel, including Chanan Tal.
The Herman Elte School was established in 1874 in the old Jewish quarter as a Jewish school. In 1935, it moved to Van Ostadestraat 203. During the war, it continued to operate as a Jewish school. In May 1941 it had about 570 students, and the principal was Elias Stibbe. Beginning in November 1942 he worked under the Jewish Council. In March 1943, the school was transferred, by order of the Nazis, to the “Jewish Quarter” in east Amsterdam. On 29 September 1943, when the last Jews were sent to camps, including No’omi and Ruth, the school was closed.
@Private property of the Tal family
In September 1939, Ruth and I entered first grade, an exciting and joyful event that we had been waiting for; we were 6 1/2 years old. We went to the same class and sat next to each other. We wore an apron. We learned to read and write both Dutch and Hebrew. We wrote on a slate board with a slate pencil.
There was a shop called “The Children’s Friend” opposite the school where they sold slate pencils in all sorts of beautiful and colorful wrappers. We loved choosing the most beautiful. There were also all kinds of sweets, and there was a large barrel full of soft drop (Dutch candy). For one cent, you could stick your thumb in, take it out full of drop and lick! It wasn't the most hygienic; no one asked us to wash our hands!
When we were making progress and knew how to write all the letters on the slate, we switched to using paper and pencil. And as we progressed, we got half a notebook where we wrote with a pen that had to be dipped in ink. Whoever wrote nicely and got at least a mark 8 would win a sticker. It wasn’t easy because you had to make a thin line up and a thick line down. I tried so hard, but it didn’t work out for me. Ruth already had a sticker ... finally I got a black teddy bear sticker.
At school, we, the girls, were taught to knit. We had to knit a sock, but I didn’t want to; it wasn’t interesting, and I had no use for one sock. Instead, I asked the teacher to knit a bag for my marbles, and she said yes. I knitted with white cotton, and the bag got dirty really quickly. Even before I finished knitting it, it turned gray.
We also had a painting class. I loved drawing fishes because all shapes turnout successful and beautiful. I once painted a farmer, and I was really pleased, and the teacher added a wart to his nose... I didn’t like the way he interfered with my painting. There was a teacher we called by a nickname behind his back. That impertinence excited me greatly!
@Private property of the Tal family
On 5 December, we celebrated our 7th birthday. We handed out candy to all the classmates as well as the teacher out of a triangular paper bag. Then we were allowed to go up to the fourth grade, where Chanan studied, and to distribute candy there as well.
During the year, we prepared a play according to the Hebrew song “The Pots on the Wall”. I especially remember the rehearsals; I really enjoyed them. I don't remember why we made the show, maybe as part of our Hebrew lessons?
We really liked the school; we enjoyed the breaks as well. We played all kinds of familiar and new games: class, jump rope, new donkey, and marbles. Of course, during the Passover holiday, it was also great fun to be at home, to participate in all the preparations for the holiday and to celebrate Seder night. That year we succeeded in reading more of the Haggadah.