On August 31, 1943, a notary named J.W.A. Schepers was officially appointed to take over Van den Bergh’s notary account.5 Pieter found a CABR file in the National Archives under Schepers’s name, meaning that after the war he was investigated as a collaborator. The file revealed some fascinating information. Soon after Schepers took control of Van den Bergh’s business, he discovered that it was impossible to run the office because of what he called a “Jew trick”： before he had left his business, Van den Bergh had cunningly assigned all notarial files to one of his employees, who had then “conveniently” taken ill. Another employee, who had been assigned the office’s administrative duties, did not possess the legal authority to access the files or transfer them to Schepers. Without access to the files, Schepers was unable to conduct business, though he was still saddled with office expenses. Of course, the pro-Nazi Schepers turned his fury against Van den Bergh.
In his book Cold Mist: The Dutch Notaries and the Heritage of the War, Raymund Schütz described how Schepers set out to destroy Van den Bergh. He turned to the Lippmann-Rosenthal bank （LIRO）， which had been established by the German occupiers to register and loot Jewish property. In a letter dated October 15, 1943, he complained that Van den Bergh was still living in his stately home at Oranje Nassaulaan 60 and did not wear the required yellow star.
A researcher for the Cold Case Team, Anna Foulidis, rooting through the Calmeyer archive, discovered how Van den Bergh managed that. The previous month, on September 2, he had received Calmeyer status, which meant that he was no longer considered to be Jewish or required to wear the yellow star. He had obviously mistrusted the security of the 120,000 Sperres and had traded up. Now that he was no longer a Jew, he was no longer a member of the Jewish Council, and he wouldn’t be deported with other council members. In fact, he escaped deportation by a matter of weeks.
It had been a long process. The records showed that Van den Bergh applied for Calmeyer status one and a half years earlier, in the spring of 1942. He was challenging his identity as a Jew. If he could prove he had just one Jewish parent, by the Nazi system of classification he could be declared as “partly belonging to the German race.”
For the Nazis an essential question was: Who was a Jew and who was not? According to Nazi race laws, one’s Jewishness was determined by a complex table like the one below, which was given to local policemen to use when questioning someone who was thought to be Jewish.6
The Calmeyer office declared that Van den Bergh had had only one Jewish grandparent and was therefore Mischling second degree （zweiten Grades）。7 This meant that he belonged to the German race and was approved to have German citizenship. His daughters were also Mischling second degree, and because he was now considered a non-Jew, his Jewish wife, Auguste, was protected by their mixed marriage. The ruling allowed him to have the J removed from his registration card. It also meant that, now being a non-Jew, he had to resign from the Jewish Council in early September, which, as it turned out, was fortunate timing for him.
CLASSIFICATION
TRANSLATION
HERITAGE
DEFINITION
Deutschblütiger
German-blooded
German
Belongs to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship
Deutschblütiger
German-blooded
? Jewish
Considered as belonging to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship
Mischling zweiten Grades
Mixed race （second degree）
? Jewish
Only partly belongs to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship
Mischling ersten Grades
Mixed race （first degree）
? or ? Jewish
Only partly belongs to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship
Jude
Jew
? Jewish
Belongs to the Jewish race and community; not approved to have Reich citizenship
Jude
Jew
Jewish
Belongs to the Jewish race and community; not approved to have Reich citizenship
Van den Bergh’s receiving Calmeyer status was quite unbelievable, considering that it took place in the middle of a war. The process took almost eighteen months, although while his application was being considered, he was exempt from deportation. First, a letter was sent to the offices of Drs. J. & E. Henggeler, Zurich, Switzerland, who forwarded a search request to a society of genealogists in London on March 7, 1942.8 The society was required to locate church records in an effort to prove that one or more of Van den Bergh’s parents or grandparents were not Jewish. The agency received the request on August 6, 1942, but did not reply until January 12, 1943. It apologized for the delay, explaining that the records that needed to be located were stored in bomb shelters.9 It is uncertain if any of the searches and results were authentic or all were clever forgeries.