The sentinel in the sky.










The Zuider Toren (The South Tower) in Amsterdam

A tourist couple cycling trough the green fields of Holland stopped near a fence, behind where a farmer was milking his cow. The tourist asked the farmer if he could tell him what time it was, whereupon the farmer lifted the udder of the cow and said," it is 4 oclock and 40 minutes", answered the farmer. The tourist was astounded and exclaimed to his companion, "did you see that, he can tell the time by lifting the udder, how amazing", he promptly asked the farmer again for the time. Again the farmer lifted the udder and answered "4 oclock and 45 minutes", unbelievable said the tourist, How do you do that, "Well said the farmer if I dont lift the udder I can not see the church tower clock in the distance"






When I grew up, all we had to do was move the curtains aside and I could tell the time by the Tower clock. The Tower was part of our existence, The Tower clock bells told us the full hour and the half hour. We woke up by it, went to school and came home by it. It was the first thing I saw in the mornings and the last thing at night before going to bed.
We were surrounded by Towers in the centre of Amsterdam. The Westen Tower, the Munt Tower,the Zuider Tower, the Montelbaans Tower and this is not counting the various church spires also in the centre of the city. Untill I was 15, I never lived further then 500 yards away from one of these Towers.


The Zuider Tower was built in 1612. On Monday mornings someone regularly played the bell organ and old Dutch songs would ring out over the city untill noon.
In our class rooms we listen to it.
During the second world war this old Tower reigned aloof over the Amsterdam Jewish quarter and watched silently while the Germans placed barbed wire in a mile circle around this Tower. This sentinal in the sky had seen it all before in its 400 year history, the French, the Spanish,.....






It was the first time ever that I awoke because of the silence of the Tower. Looking out of my third floor window, I watched the Germans roll out their barbed wire in front of our house right across the bridge. All the exits of the jewish quarter were being closed off. They then emptied all the houses of their occupants. I can still see the long line of them, hundreds of them, including some of my school mates, walking slowly with their bags and cases and bundles, accompanied by a half dozen Germans with rifles on their back. I walked beside the line with them, along the Gelderse Kade to the Central Station, passing the Schreiers Tower, (the crying tower) and waved to my friends as they were bundled into cattle rail trucks. Never to be seen again.




My family were in the diamond industry and had space in Aschers diamond polishing factory. Grand father, uncles and aunties, nephews and nieces all worked there. They were the only Christians in an otherwise Jewish industry. It used to be an experience to go there, a floor with about two hundred lively, singing, joking diamond cutters, who never forgot a face and would always call you by your name. Now the floor was nearly empty except for my family, silent with sorrow for their departed Jewish workmates.






The Tower remained quiet for a long time after that. In the mean time the houses of the departed Jews were stripped of doors, staircases, flooring, beams and anything made from wood untill only empty brick walls were standing erect.
The Tower must have cried when the seating and benches of the 400 year old nave under the Toren were also removed to be burned for fire wood , for heating and cooking.
Now the Tower, church and surrounding houses were very empty and still.


Slowly they were brought in, by handcart, picked up off the streets where they had dropped and died. It was the famous hunger winter in Amsterdam. No food, no water, no electricity. At first only a few a day and then the handcart had to make more and more trips a day. He had trouble pushing the cart over the bridge in front of our house and always asked me to help him get over the bridge. They were laid side by side on the empty church floor, there was no wood for boxes or material to cover them with.










There was no food, no water, no electricity, no heating, no freedom, this was the
Amsterdam hunger winter 1944
The old Toren was starting to smell!!
I was 14 going on for 40

John Kars