The Arc Of Time
Neufchateau, France 1910
Alfred Overslagen rubs his fingers over the inscription he has carved into the back of the silver pocket watch. For months, the apprentice watchmaker has been crafting the time piece, forging each of the tiny turning gears and arms that move the hands. He reads the inscription again, “Neufchateau 1910, made by AA Overslagen, for my brother Louis.” He closes the back, snapping the cover over the inscription and winds the watch. It ticks away the time as designed.
Louis received the gift on his 18th birthday, unaware the watch will have a long and most unusual life and unaware he will only be with it for a few decades.
Rotterdam, Holland, July 1942
For two months, Nazis have occupied Rotterdam, Holland following a five day siege of the city in early May. During their invasion, the Germans nearly fell to the Dutch. Facing the tough resistance, they bombed the city to ashes and finally took control. By July, Rotterdam became another occupied city subject to martial law and forced extradition. Able bodied Dutch men and women were shipped to Germany on a daily basis to work in factories. Anyone of Jewish heritage suffered constant persecution, identified with stars patched to their coats, forced to live in separate ghettos, stripped of religious celebration, harassed, executed and expunged as the Nazis reign of anti-Semitic terror spread through Europe.
Alfred and Louis walked through the rubble of the city, probably discussing how they could survive the occupation, the Star of David stitched on their coats. They were stopped by Nazi soldiers who have been ordered to round up the Jewish citizens and put them on trains to Poland. As the soldiers arrested Alfred and Louis, one of them found the watch Alfred made. He took the watch as he crammed the brothers into the Sonderzuge (special train), telling them they were being resettled in the East to work, like so many of their neighbors.
After four days in the cattle car with no water or food, crammed together with 100 of their countrymen, a single small window giving the only light, Alfred and Louis exited the train, unaware they were in Poland. They were separated from the women and walked through iron gates, over which a sign read Arbeit Macht Frei. Alfred survived a year behind the gates of Auschwitz before being murdered on January 21, 1943. Louis was killed shortly after. Neither of the brothers saw their homeland again.
Molenstede, Flanders, Belgium 1942
Gustave Janssens watched the Nazi soldiers share laughs in the field just outside his farm house. Under occupation, he was forced to host them in his home. Unhappy with their presence, he compelled them to use the cornfield as a bathroom. One of the soldiers walked off to defecate in the field. As he finished and pulled up his trousers, the watch he stole from Louis Overslagen in Rotterdam fell from his pocket, ticking still. Later, Gustave was working the field while the soldiers still hovered, waiting on orders. The sun glanced off something shiny in the grass. He picked up the pocket watch and ran his fingers over it. He opened the back compartment and read the inscription and the Dutch name. He deduced the watch fell from one of the soldier’s pockets, but he also knew this timepiece did not belong to them. Gustave slipped the watch into his own pocket. Back inside his farmhouse, he opened the wall clock and put the pocket watch into an empty hidden space, where it would stay for the next 80 years.
Molenstede, Flanders, Belgium 2022
Pieter Janssens sifts through the last of his grandfather’s belongings outside the Belgium farm. The new owners have taken occupancy of the farm, but for inexplicable reasons have left behind a wall clock. Pieter examines the clock and opens it up. In the vacant compartment, he finds the silver pocket watch. He remembers the story of the pocket watch his grandfather told him. He turns it over in his hands, winds it up and it ticks away. He opens the back and reads the inscription etched 112 years before by Alfred Overslagen, “Neufchateau 1910, made by AA Overslagen, pour mon frere Louis.”
Pieter takes to the Internet to seek out the family of Louis Overslagen. Through the Jewish Heritage Rotterdam website, he finds historian Rob Snijders who specializes in seeking out Jewish heritage around Rotterdam and returning it to its rightful owners. Snijders isn’t sure how he will find the family, if any still exist. He posts on Twitter and Facebook looking for anyone related to Louis Overslagen.
Within 24 hours, his search uncovers a name: R. van Amejden. Snijders goes to LinkedIn and finds the first results for R. van Amejden. Richard van Ameijden, born in 1954, is the grandson of Alfred Overslagen.
One day, Richard opens his email to the query from Snijders and is in complete disbelief. He and his two sisters, Joyce and Monique, have hardly any stories or memories of their grandfather and now a watch he made has miraculously resurfaced. They had never heard about the pocket watch.
Rotterdam, Holland, April 10, 2022
Joyce Overslagen’s white hair is pulled back. In a blue sweater, she stands in the middle of the room as Pieter Janssens, Snijders and her siblings look on. She holds the silver timepiece, resting gently in a velvet lined box, her grandfather crafted for his brother in both of her hands home again.
Pieter pulls the shiny timepiece out; it sparkles as if brand new. He pops open the back cover to reveal the inscription to the Overslagen family, the first time anyone from their family had viewed it in eight decades. The siblings pose with Pieter for a photo with the fragile connection to their ancestry—nearly lost forever—still ticking.
This narrative was inspired by a story that originally appeared in the New York Times.