page 8 of 11
Play MoviePlease report errors to: info@tellingstories.org.
3-Recalling the Anschluss
What do you remember seeing on the first day of the Anschluss?
Yes, I think I did tell that in the first interview, but I'll be happy to tell it you again. I remember waking up in the morning and there was a tremendous amount of noise that I had never heard of in my life. Cheers and yelling and whistling and screaming. All rejoicing sounds, but it was thunderous. We all were terrified. We ran outside and looked out the door from the compound. Even in the compound, we suddenly saw, from every window, there were these huge banners with the swastika on it. It was the most terrifying site, and outside, when we looked outside the ghetto - the ghetto, that was a slip - the compound, everyone was out of their houses and they were - the soldiers - invading. The Austrians like to feel, at this time in history, beginning to admit that they were complicit partners with the Germans. They greeted them, they knew they were coming; they were not invaded and taken over by the enemy. They were greeting their friends.
So, there was this great welcome for the Nazis and you heard the booming scream of a whole city, except the Jews who were frightened and hiding. So it was very terrifying, there were so many people, that we dared to walk into town and there was this huge parade of the Nazis and people throwing flowers at them and it was absolutely terrifying. And of course as a young child, my older sister would have of course known a lot more. At this time, I'm about eight years old or seven and a half and I'm just terrified by the vibes of what's happening, and I know what the swastika is all about and I know what Nazis are all about, but not as much as my sister did and my parents did. So, I was more curious, a little more curious than terrified as they were, but that's it.
Did you parents explain all of this to you?
No, no there was no such thing. You see, that's what we're supposed to do as good parents and we do that all of us who are good parents. That we explain things to our children, we tell them about the good things and the difficult things in life, and that's what you do. It wasn't as though they took us to the side, and tried to comfort us or anything like that. They were horrified, they were weeping, they were listening to the radio, there were worried, they wondered what would happen. So the children would just listen in, you know, that's the way you learned.
What did you learn? What was the information that you had at that point as an eight year old?
That they would be dangerous for Jews, that they would hurt them. And very soon after, I learned that they had killed Jews, very soon after, because my parents started talking out loud, and Jews were being roughed up already and we were told to be careful. I'm very curious that this walking to the school, as I mentioned before as a child, walking along, without parents watching over you, continued. I wish I could meet someone from that period who could tell me, how was it possible that we could walk to school and not be hurt by our neighbors.
Of course I was hurt, because on that same morning, that we went out to see the parade of the Nazis coming into Baden, my best friend, who was a little boy that I played with all my life, you know, since I had been big enough to play. His mother threw a bucket of garbage on my head and called me a "filthy Jew." Just like that and then of course, we stayed indoors all the time, and I learned to be terrified and not to move away from them and stay very close to them. I'm sure things happened in school and maybe that's why I forgot all about it, I didn't want to remember. That’s the only reason I can think of that.
Do you remember overhearing anything that your parents were saying about the Anschluss, on the day of it?
Oh, I remember, I was listening to them. We were all listening to them, because that's how we learned. It's not that they talked to us, but they talked to each other, my mother and father would talk and we heard everything. Talking about "What are we going to do? We have to get out of here, it's very dangerous for Jews, we don't know what's going to happen, Jews are a minority in Baden." And they were.
This was a spa town. It was a town that - it was a medieval town where the Hapsburgs would have a summer palace. These were during the previous years before the 1900's that I'm talking about. When the royal family would come out to Baden and go to the palace and go take the mineral baths, and that's what the town was famous for, for mineral baths. There was a casino, it was very fashionable, rich people would come for summer vacations. So, they were no Jews, they were probably rich Jews that would come into town and be tourists, just like the others.
But it wasn't a shtetl, a little city, like in Poland, you know, where all the Jews lived together. It wasn't like that, we were the only Jewish family in this compound. So we felt very vulnerable, and there was a lot of talk of "What are we going to do? We have to get out of here." Right away there was plans that my mother would write home to her parents who lived in Poland and she knew that there were some relatives in the United States, to get addresses. So that they could quickly do this and they did, they wrote - my mother - wrote to her parents, her father mainly, asking who were the relatives in the United States that we could ask for an affidavit.
Do you remember your parents interacting with other Jews outside the compound?
Yes, I do. Yes, they did, because aside from what I told you my father did, he was also a scholar. He was a Jewish scholar. They would have very often- the chief Rabbi of this community, he lived in a very fancy, fine house- they would have like gatherings on Sabbath afternoons, where Jewish families would come, and they would invite different guests to talk. My father was a frequent guest there, where he would talk on a Talmudic subject, and give a whole big drusha, which means speech, and we were of course taken to that. I don't particularly remember the interrelationship, but I know that that happened. They also had friends that came to visit, and I remember just a few, very few. But they did have a little bit of a social life, and of course they would attend bar mitzvahs, you know, of the other children, or the synagogue would have celebrations for different holidays, where all the children were especially given treats. I remember very little of that, but I know about it because I was told about it.
Do you remember if the other Jewish people were scared as well?
Absolutely. They were terribly scared. And you have in the other interview the story,about how my father learned, that Jews were running, rushing to Vienna, the capital, and lining up at the American embassy to file for a visa number. I think you must know that story. So people were talking about that.
As a little girl, how did you deal with having this tremendous amount of fear inside you?
Well, I think, just to survive that kind of fear, as I already explained to you, much later on, when I was in America I had this capacity for fantasy, and living other lives. So it was easy for me to try to just block it all out, and play with my boats, or play with something in the house. I remember bringing leaves in and cooking a whole meal with them, you know, fantasy games. So, I don't have that feeling in me. Like when I tell certain stories that I experienced a little later on, I'm taken into the scene, and I become terrified again. But as I tell you this story, I'm in this state of fantasy, as I was then.
Kristallnacht and Father Jailed
Could you talk more about Kristallnacht? What happened on that day, and what was going on in your family?
Well, in your research you probably learned why the Kristallnacht even happened I'm sure. So, the Nazis announced that throughout Vienna and Germany, throughout Austria and Germany, there should be a pogrom. Windows should be broken, synagogues should be burned, and that’s what happened. They set the synagogue on fire; they burned books; they dragged out all the Jewish men and humiliated them in the most horrible way. Now, here again, I personally didn't see what was going on in the center of town, but Nina my oldest sister told us about it. Where the men were humiliated, often their pants would be pulled off and some of them, they took off their underpants, and they gave them toothbrushes. The Nazis painted white stripes all over the street, and they made them wash it, clean it off.
She even told me the horror story, which I can never forget, that one of the men, one of the Jewish men they especially liked picking the religious men with beards who wore skull caps, or black hats they had ripped off his pants, and a woman, she wasn't a military person, just one of the local people living in Baden, had a lit cigarette, and she went over to him, and put it on his penis. My sister told me this years, years later. She wouldn't want to use that kind of word at the time. But so I say that I knew some things which happened personally in our house. That my father had been arrested that night, and then he was released in the morning, and he came back home. It happened the next day, when the Nazis came to our house. A few Gestapo people came, and they arrested him again, this time put him into a jail, and I think you have the story of that in the other interview, of what happened to him in the jail.
Why was he put into the jail and not in the camps?
Right, they had three major centers. They established two, where they would imprison the Jews. One I think was a major auditorium where they just herded Jews, and threw them in there. And there was another very big public place, and then they had a prison already for criminals. My father was lucky enough to be put into that place.
After the Anschluss, was your daily routine affected?
Oh yes, absolutely. As I said, apparently I continued to go to school, but we didn't go to the Kurpark any more, because there were signs in all parks: Yuden and dogs, not permitted. Jews and dogs are not permitted, and they would have, in benches all over the city that were near sort of a little garden area where you could sit. Jews didn't go to coffee houses anymore, they kept a low profile. My mother would go shopping very early in the morning, and be home before it was popular for people to come out and go shopping. That’s about as much as I can say of a routine, because I went to school and to the Kurpark. I didn't have my friend anymore of course, so I stayed in the house.
Do you remember how that felt?
You know, things happen very quickly. Things were moving very rapidly, and I just remember hearing stories. I heard my parents talking about such and such a neighbor's husband had disappeared during the Anschluss, and so days after--this is between the period of the Anschluss, which is March, and Kristallnacht, which is November-- during that period I heard all kinds of terrifying stories, like that family got a box of ashes, and she was told that that’s her husband. I'm sure it wasn't, they just did it to be sadistic. They wouldn't go through the bother of doing such work, you know, they just picked out somebody. I heard that a Jewish woman's body was found floating down the creek. The creek in some places was large as a river, and in other places would come to a very soft running water.
So, it was very scary, and the correspondence was going on. My mother received the information she had looked for, and she got the name of a family that lived in Chicago, who supposedly was a cousin. She wrote to them, telling them that we had applied for, we had a visa, and we hadn't gotten it yet, but my father had applied for a visa, and that would they be able to give us an affidavit? You know what that means? You do know, alright. Which is to guarantee to the government, the United States, that we would not become, you know, like welfare cases, that they would provide for us, the family taking us in. This family, it was just the most unbelievable thing in the world. These were Jews, who should have been helping us, and they wrote back a letter and told my mother that, ignoring the question, ignoring the whole situation of what was going on with the Jews, but saying: is it possible, I know that in Poland they make the most wonderful wigs, do you think it’s possible that you could send us a couple of wigs?
So, my parents discussed it, and they said well, we better do it you know, it’s our lives. So my mother wrote back to Poland very quickly, and they sent out two wigs, and this was sent to the United States, to Chicago, and nothing happened, silence. So my parents, my mother wrote again, and with tremendous politeness, you know, bending over backwards: we hope you like the wigs, do you remember our request, and that sort of thing. Then the answer that came back was, "do you think its possible that you might be able to send us a fur jacket. Well, then we all realized that these were scoundrels; these were absolute horrible people. So they never answered, but my mother wrote back, again to her parents and told them about this. Then they found another name, another cousin, and they wrote to him.
There was all this horrible tension of waiting, writing, and getting letters, and not getting letters, and waiting desperately for an answer. Finally the answer came, and that’s how we got out: that a cousin, again, who said that he himself was too poor to give them an affidavit, but he found someone who was also related, who had money, and that they were sending an affidavit immediately. So that was one of the high notes, you know. It was a great period of angst because my father was arrested. He was sitting in this jail. We had learned, we knew, everyone knew, everyone knew it for years, that you couldn't trust the Nazis for anything. Maybe they would ship him out; maybe they would send him to the other center, maybe this, maybe that. So there was constant high, intense worrying, and anxiety of everyone.
How was your mother dealing with this?
Well, she was extremely worried, and also she couldn't speak German, and so my sister Nina, who was then, as I said, lets see she was then fourteen years old, she had to turn into an adult overnight. She became like twenty four. Because she spoke English, she would go to the prison, she would go to Vienna, take the train to Vienna, bring warm clothes and food, and that was unheard of in the other two places. You could never do that, but these were policeman, and maybe they weren't Nazi sympathizers. Maybe they were compassionate even. The fact that they took the warm clothes, the fact that my father was allowed to write home, and that there was a correspondence. But my mother suddenly became the fourteen-year old child, as my sister was. She became dependent on my sister; we all became dependent on her. She became the leader, the adult of the family. Finding lawyers, making contacts, she figured all this out. She would discuss it with my mother, and made very important decisions, and was very instrumental in saving our lives.
Did your role change as well?
No, I don't remember that it did. I just remember being a frightened child, and then I got very sick, during the winter. In January of that year I got pneumonia, and there was no penicillin in those days. I just remember being very sick, that’s all I remember. But I was told that they were terrified to look for a doctor, our own doctor. But Nina went during the night, went to his house, and told him and he came. I was running a very, very high fever. He gave her very good advice. Aspirin there was, and he told her to put--this must sound like folklore--to put pieces of ice cold potatoes on my forehead, all over my forehead, and that helped to bring the temperature down, and so I survived. You know, I became an additional problem to this already overtaxed family.
Do you have other memories of other people being mean to you besides the garbage?
That's about the only thing I remember. I was so horrified and so terrified, and puzzled of why this happened to me. It was a little abstract to me, the whole thing was abstract to me. Why this was being done to Jews, I didn't understand it. So the best thing was just to stay home close to my mother. Of course, I soon learned that my sister was going to be the mother, the one who was going to be the other mother. And, I mean, there was a younger sister too. She was four and a half years old, she was four years old. She was just a tiny little baby. So I would sort of just be with her, cuddle up with her, and stay home, and go to school, which I was told but I don't remember. I wish I did. Maybe if I had had more interviews, by now it might have opened up, but I can't recall. I'm not going to be hypnotized to pull it out of me either.
You were saying that your older sister was like the mother, but was she comforting?
No. That's a very good question. My mother continued to be the comforting source. She wasn't very demonstrative person, but we certainly felt that she loved us and cared for us. The way that she would do it was by giving you food, by taking an apple and cutting little pieces of it and feeding her children, like a big mama bird feeds the children, you know, practically putting it in your mouth. That gave a message of somebody really caring for you, and watching out for you. She couldn't promise anything. She couldn't say, you know: "everything is going to be okay children. You don't have to be worried. We're going to go, we're going to leave, we're going to go to a wonderful country, and life is going to be." She didn't know that this was going to happen. We didn't know what was going to happen to us.
Did any of your family think that it would get to be that bad, the Holocaust?
You mean, what finally happened, like concentration camps? No. No, well let me put it in a different way. Dachau and Buchenwald--Dachau was a camp in Germany, and Buchenwald was in Austria--they were built very early. Dachau was built way before the Anschluss. So those were concentration camps, and there were a lot of rumors going around, and we children picked it up from our parents, that they talked about Jews who were being murdered in those camps. But we didn't know what was going to happen: full scale annihilation of a people, of whole cities, and populations in the thousands, and then millions. Nobody had that premonition.
Who explained to you what it meant when your neighbor threw garbage on your head?
Well again, if I remember correctly, it's something that the whole family, because when we went out, and I told you we saw all those banners, those huge red banners with the swastika in it, we knew that all of our friends were enemies. They were never our friends! They always hated us, and now they were given overt permission to be destructive, to hurt us. So it was just being talked about you see, it happened. We should have expected it, we should have known that something like this would happen. I would hear conversations like that going on between my parents, but they wouldn't come and explain to me. They wouldn't know how to. It would have been a rare thing that my mother or my father would take one of us at a time, and spend time and talk in a sense, on a level, that a child could understand. They didn't know how to do that. They talked among themselves, and we were just listening.
Did you have any non-Jewish friends?
That little boy. That was my only friend. Maybe I had friends in school. Maybe they did terrible things to me, I don't know.
When you talked about getting sick, was sickness common?
Well, we of course didn't know what was going on in other families, maybe my parents knew and didn't talk about it. But getting sick is a common thing for everybody. But getting pneumonia was not a joke in those days. It was a very, very serious disease, and if you did get pneumonia, you would be put in a hospital, where I don't know what on earth they could do for you, but they would probably mainly work on getting your temperature down, so that you wouldn't lose your, you know, brain fever of the brain, or should I say, I don't know slashes.
