Joop

(Dad making calls)
Between a wonderful late night in Utrecht and jet lag, wakefulness was in short supply come Sunday morning. Dad and I got up. had the hotel’s pricey breakfast buffet, ran some local errands, made some calls and then proceeded to fall asleep again for a notable chunk of the afternoon.
The main errand was a search for a camera adapter that I couldn’t find in my video bag after we arrived and that I really needed. The search was fruitless but of course a few days later, I found the stupid thing tangled up in a dark corner of my bag.
The calls were all to arrange meetings with my local relatives all of whom had been e-mailed explicitly about my film project and most have whom had committed to at least some kind of get together. Of course now that I was here it was quickly starting to become like herding cats. People were away, people were coming back, people were leaving soon. ... and I don’t mean leaving the house, leaving the country!
It’s easy as you get frustrated to start laying blame for this stuff on everyone else but one of the major problems was in good part my fault. Our visit crosses over the Jewish holiday of Passover. I had this romantic notion of a sort of Hebraic Norman Rockwell scene unfolding as my father returned to the old country to be welcomed with open arms, and I would film it all! ... but like any holiday from any background, everyone was very busy cooking and cleaning and arranging to see family and very short on time.
Two particular family members had a much bigger problem to face. My fathers cousin Joop (pronounced like YO with a “p” on the end) and his wife Bettina had found out recently that she has cancer. It sounds like the diagnosis is comparatively optimistic but she was to start treatment the next week. As well they are fairly Orthodox so once both treatment and passover start overlapping they were just going to be overwhelmed. But they still wanted to see us before things got crazy, so late Sunday afternoon Joop picked us up to take us to his home on the south end of Amsterdam for dinner.

(Joop comes to pick us up)
Along the way he stopped off at the first home where my father (Hans) was reunited with his parents after the war, a place dad didn’t even recall. Finally some filming!
The reason Joop knew the location so well, My grandfather also took in Joop because he was a nephew and had been orphaned by the holocaust. They all lived there together. Which is why I wanted so badly to interview him. Plus it seems Joop has a much stronger sense of recollection than my dad.

(Dad's first post war home)
Funnily when I pulled the camera out to film the house, Joop moved the car to a new parking spot. He was nervous that his car would be targeted by thieves if they saw me pulling out expensive equipment. We thought he was being a bit over zealous but Dad and I just rolled with it.

(Bettina)
After that it was a very pleasant dinner with Joop and Bettina. I had brought my video camera hoping we could squeeze in a quick interview that night, figuring it would be my only chance. I found myself in the tough position of trying to balance sensitivity for a tough situation and trying to do what it takes to do the job right.
Interestingly I found a strong ally in Bettina. It wasn’t going to happen Sunday night because they had plans after dinner but she made Joop agree to do it Wednesday. It made a kind of sense to me. Bettina had the treatment, it gave her something to do but all Joop can do is wait and fret. I think she wanted to give him the distraction.
So after tea and some proper Dutch apple pie, Joop put us on a tram back to the hotel and I finally felt like the engine of this project was starting to pick up some speed.

(Joop)