An Unplanned Roundtrip

Hamilton Books

KLEIN

AN

UNPLANNED ROUNDTRIP

An Unplanned Roundtrip recounts author Arthur O. Klein’s transition from life in a middle class Jewish home in prewar 1930s Vienna to a new life as an American citizen after serving in the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps in 1947. Beginning with the entry of Adolf Hitler into Vienna in March 1938, Klein’s memoir details the subsequent separation of his family in August 1938 as he and his father were forced to leave his mother and sister and flee to Luxembourg

the U.S. in early 1945, where he was immediately drafted into the U.S. Army. His memoir includes a description of his training as a Special Agent of the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps and of his eventual discharge after a serious car accident in West Germany in December 1946. ARTHUR O. KLEIN is a Registered Patent Attorney and the managing partner of the Connecticut Professional Corporation and Intellectual Property law firm of Klein & Vibber P.C. He is a member of the New York and Connecticut Bars. He graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science from New York University in 1952 and with a degree of Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School in 1958. Klein received his primary and high school educations in the following

UNPLANNED ROUNDTRIP

ing through France, Spain, Portugal, and Cuba before arriving in

AN

and their eventual reunion in September 1939. Klein describes mov-

chronological order: Vienna, Austria; Luxembourg; Marseille, France; and Habana, Cuba.

For orders and information please contact the publisher HAMILTON BOOKS A member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 1-800-462-6420 • www.hamilton-books.com

UnplannedRoundtripPBK.indd 1

ARTHUR O. KLEIN

11/28/08 1:37:07 PM

An Unplanned Roundtrip Arthur O. Klein

Hamilton Books A member of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Copyright © 2009 by Arthur O. Klein Hamilton Books 4501 Forbes Boulevard Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 Hamilton Books Acquisitions Department (301) 459-3366 Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America British Library Cataloging in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Control Number: 2008935978 ISBN-13: 978-0-7618-4340-5 (paperback : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7618-4340-X (paperback : alk. paper) eISBN-13: 978-0-7618-4341-2 eISBN-10: 0-7618-4341-8

⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48—1992

Contents

Foreword

v

Acknowledgments

vii

1

Vienna 1927–1938

1

2

Luxembourg 1938–1940

10

3

Occupied France 1940

23

4

Vichy France Fall of 1940–December 7, 1941

34

5

Lisbon, Portugal December 10, 1941–Late January 1942

48

6

Crossing the Atlantic on the Nyassa in January and February 1942

52

7

Habana from February 1942 to the Beginning of 1945

57

8

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

73

Epilogue

105

Index

107

iii

Foreword

I personally witnessed the entry of Adolf Hitler into Vienna a couple of days after the announcement of the annexation (Anschluss). My narration of what followed that day and my recollection of my life following this turbulent period of history, and how this period affected me and my family personally, is the subject of this book.

v

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without my wife, Diane Klein, and my sister, Ilse Rosenberg, whose emotional and financial support were invaluable. Furthermore, my sister also assisted me in retrieving priceless memories from long ago that we both shared. Without such assistance, this project could not have been completed. The text was edited by Ingrid Klein and Barbara Nicolson, who I thank profusely for their efforts.

vii

August 1938–January 1942. (Map by Ingrid Klein, 2008)

January 1942–1945. (Map by Ingrid Klein, 2008)

Chapter One

Vienna 1927–1938

It was March 15, 1938, and what I was witnessing that day is deeply engraved in my mind’s eye. Even though I was only eleven, I had a strong sense that I was witnessing an event of historical proportions that would impact the world for many decades. Hitler had already visited other Austrian towns in the previous two days, but his official entry was to occur today via Mariahilferstrasse, one of the main thoroughfares of Vienna. The streets below were filled with an immense crowd, feverish in its enthusiasm and excitement. Although the annexation (Anschluss) was now only two days old, most of the buildings were already bedecked with long fluttering swastika flags. The window in the living room of my parents’ apartment jutted out like a balcony from the building, and there were smaller windows on each side of the main window. By looking out from the right one of these two side windows, I had a clear view from my parents’ third-floor apartment on the Kasernengasse (today known as Otto Bauer Gasse). From here I had a magnificent panoramic view onto Mariahilferstrasse, one of the main thoroughfares of beautiful, historic Vienna. I had frequently looked out of this window to enjoy the spectacular view of the bustling and cheerful Viennese in the streets below, but what a difference a few days had made. Standing at the window of our third floor apartment, my gaze was fixed on the street below and on Mariahilferstrasse only some forty feet away, where Hitler would soon approach. Crowds of people had gathered on both sides of Mariahilferstrasse and Austrian policemen were stationed everywhere to keep an eye on the frantic crowd. At about midday, the roar of the masses announced the approach of Hitler’s open Mercedes Benz limousine. As his car passed by underneath my window I finally saw him. He was standing upright and dressed in a brown jacket with 1

2

Chapter One

a wide leather belt. A thinner strap extended over one of his shoulders to hold the wide belt in place. One of the sleeves of his brown jacket had a red armband with a large swastika in a white circle. Although the Anschluss between Germany and Austria had only taken effect two days earlier with the German Wehrmacht’s (German Army) invasion of Austria, (Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Führer) one country, one people, one leader, what I saw that day as an elevenyear-old was amazing, filling me with dread, fear and, I must confess, a strange excitement. I understood, even as an eleven-year-old that what I was observing on that fateful day was a historical event of incalculable proportions that would reverberate for decades to come. As Hitler’s limousine (predecessor of today’s convertible) was passing by underneath my window, Hitler sort of mechanically extended his right arm repeatedly to give the Heil Hitler (Hail Leader) salute to the masses. He was accompanied by policemen, and Brownshirts (Sturmabteilung). In a few brief moments the crowd below had become hysterical, shouting and returning with fervor his Heil Hitler. I was born, some eleven years earlier, in Vienna on January 1, 1927. During my early years, I frequently heard my mother brag that I was the first baby born that year in Austria. My claim to this distinction was based on her version of what occurred on my birth. She maintained that I was born without medical assistance in a Viennese hospital, shortly after midnight, while the attending nurses were celebrating the New Year downstairs. However, it is well known that mothers are prone to brag about events concerning their children and I doubt to this day the accuracy of the tale. I had a sister, barely a year older than me, who was born in Budapest. We formed part of an upper middle-class family. Both of my parents were what today would be referred to as “Reform Jews.” My father had served during World War I as a Junior officer in the Austrian Army. My parents married shortly after World War I and owned and operated for a number of years a dry goods store in Budapest. This enterprise eventually failed and they then moved to Vienna where my father took a job as a sales executive for a label manufacturer and my mother took a job as an executive in one of the largest department stores in Vienna. With both working, we were fortunate to have an upper middle class life style, which included a live-in cook, and a nanny who were in charge of our upbringing until about 1937. We lived in a spacious apartment in which my sister and I had our own separate bedroom. I recall paintings hanging on the walls of this apartment and Persian rugs on the floors. In those days, central heating or air conditioning was very rare. Our apartment was heated with several coal burning stoves covered with warm colored ceramic tiles (Kachelsteine).

Vienna 1927–1938

3

There were many uncles and aunts, and one grandfather residing in Vienna. Some of my other relatives on my mother’s side resided in surrounding capitals such as Budapest and Prague. My relatives on my father’s side came from Czernowitz, the largest city of the most eastern province of Bukovina of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As was the custom in those days, both of my parents came from large agrarian families. During my childhood in Vienna I was very close to my mother’s family. She had three sisters and four brothers, each one of which had one or more children. It was a tradition in my mother’s family that all of the uncles and aunts living in Vienna, accompanied by our cousins, periodically met for family get-togethers. My sister and I were the youngest of these cousins, who frequently referred to us, during these family get-togethers as the brats (die Fratzen). Some of our relatives of both generations wound up in various concentration camps during World War II and presumably perished there. Both of my maternal grandparents died in Vienna about or shortly before 1938 and are buried in the Jewish cemetery of Vienna. Although it is well known that a diffused form of anti-Semitism and rightleft antagonism existed in Austria before 1938, I did not personally notice much obvious anti-Semitism directed towards me. However, one incident did stick in my mind after returning home from my first day in elementary school (Volksschule). I remember asking my mother: “Mommy (Mutti), what is a dirty Jew (Saujude) and why am I being called that?” When I started to attend elementary school, I was usually attired in the standard outfit worn by most of my fellow students, namely leather pants with suspenders (Lederhosen). As I grew older and started to attend the equivalent of junior high school (Realschule) I gradually changed to more adult clothing, a simple shirt and pants. I have fond memories of picnics and hikes with my parents in the Vienna woods. We initiated such trips by trolley and then began to hike from the last trolley stop. The Vienna Woods could be reached after a short walk from the last trolley stop. My sister and I were also sent to summer camps inside and outside of Austria. I treasure the memories of those summer vacations. Traveling outside of Austria required that children carry their own passport. One of my uncles on my mother’s side owned a summer camp on Lake Balaton in Hungary. Another uncle on my mother’s side owned a large farm in Czechoslovakia (now split after the end of the Cold War into two separate countries, namely the Czech Republic and Slovakia). My sister and I spend several summer vacations in Hungary in my uncle’s summer camp, and in Czechoslovakia, at my uncle’s farm. When I was about nine, I joined the Austrian Cub Scouts. It was not long before I had formed close friendships with several other boys my age. The

4

Chapter One

Cub Scouts frequently held competitions in the Vienna Woods among various troops. I very much enjoyed those competitive meetings. At least in my case, the emotional intensity and the pace in forming friendships with other boys of my age was strong and quick. I do recall meeting a number of boys of my age whom I considered to be close friends in a relatively short period of time. All of these friends were gentiles. My favorite reading material in those days was the series of Karl May books about the American West. I remember my mother forcing my sister and me to periodically consume cod liver oil (Lebertran) and a vitamin rich syrup called Biomaltz. In order to induce us to drink these horribly tasting concoctions we were virtually bribed with permission to see a movie on Sunday. The movies we saw were generally of the cowboys and Indians type. The cowboys were generally the “good guys,” whereas the Indians were portrayed as the “bad guys.” Whenever the Indians would gain the upper hand in their skirmishes with the cowboys, the U.S. cavalry would rush to the rescue, their sabers unsheathed, their flag flying high and their bugle blowing loudly. Since coming to the United States, I have learned a different version of this centuries long struggle in this country between the white settlers and the American Indians. While living in Vienna, I was hardly aware that there existed races other than the white race, The appearance of non-whites in the streets of Vienna was extremely rare. However, we periodically crossed the path of one particular black man. His appearance was so unusual that you could see heads turning and hear tongues wagging as he walked by. One day, on a dare, I actually approached him and shook his hand for the purpose of testing whether his color would rub off on my skin. I was, of course, too young to be involved in political discussions with my parents regarding the political landscape in Europe. However, by the year 1937, the rise of Hitlerism in neighboring Germany started to make an impact on our childlike world. I began to notice swastika buttons appearing on more and more lapels of pedestrians and the passengers in tramways. The newspapers and the radio were constantly pointing to more menacing behavior from Hitler, his ambition to annex Austria, and the rising power of Germany. The word Anschluss was mentioned more and more frequently by commentators in newspapers and on the radio. During these political discussions, I frequently overheard radio commentators predicting that the coming of the Anschluss was inevitable. In 1937, my parents began to seriously discuss the possibility of our emigration to America. My father had two sisters living in Brooklyn, N.Y. and my paternal grandfather had lived for one year in the United States shortly after the end of World War I. My father had contacted his two sisters for assistance

Vienna 1927–1938

5

to emigrate to the United States. We also applied at that time (early 1938) for an immigration visa to the United States with the U.S. Embassy in Vienna. We usually ate in the dining room of our well-appointed apartment. I recall an electric device with a button hanging down from the chandelier over the table, which illuminated the entire room. This electric device was part of an electric bell system that rang in the kitchen to tell the cook that she was needed in the dining room. We were instructed by our parents to cease any political discussions after my mother had risen to signal the cook to serve the next course. After the cook had retreated to the kitchen we were free to resume our discussions. The atmosphere of fear of the Nazis had begun to poison all of our relationships with our gentile neighbors and friends. My parents knew that our only hope of remaining in Vienna was based on the outcome of the election, announced by Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg for March 1938. My parents were hoping that the election would be lost by the Nazis and this would then restore some normalcy and independence for Austria and avoid the “Anschluss,” which was championed by the local Nazis. After Schusschnigg had courageously announced new elections at the beginning of March, the moment of truth had arrived. Just a few days before the Anschluss, during a weekly Boy Scout meeting, it was announced that the Jewish Boy Scouts would be segregated into a new Jewish Boy Scout group. I recall saying goodbye to my gentile Boy Scout friends some of whom had tears in their eyes at that occasion. A few days after Schuschnigg’s announcement, Hitler countered on March 12, 1938 by ordering his troops to invade Austria. Not a single shot was fired, and Schuschnigg was forced to resign. Almost overnight swastika flags appeared everywhere. Virtually all male pedestrians I now encountered on the streets wore a swastika button in their lapel. A large number wore a swastika armband on the sleeve over their civilian attire, shortly after the announcement was made on the radio that Hitler had entered Austria by motor car and that he was approaching Vienna. The excitement of the announced visit was palpable in the streets. Just a few days later, an announcement was posted on the bulletin board of our school that all students of Jewish origin would be transferred to special Jewish schools. I also remember that signs appeared in all of the many parks in Vienna informing the public that Jews could only use specially designated park benches on which the words “Only For Jews” (Nur für Juden) had been painted with bold yellow or white paint. I remember having to take a complicated daily commute on the trolley to reach the designated “Jewish school.” Prior to moving to the “Jewish school,” I was constantly physically and verbally attacked by my fellow students, including my former friends in my old school, so that I was actually relieved

6

Chapter One

when transferring to the new “Jewish school.” Two incidents of that period remain particularly strongly engraved in my memory. Our apartment had several windows overlooking an inner courtyard which formed part of a charming café, the main entrance of which was located near the corner of Mariahilferstrasse. Shortly after the Anschluss, I happened to look down on this courtyard. I noticed two baldheaded men sitting at a table drinking coffee. I suddenly recognized them as two of my uncles (two of my mother’s brothers) residing in Vienna. Then, I suddenly heard increasingly loud shouting and the word “Dirty Jew” (Saujude) repeated several times. Then two or three uniformed brownshirts (Sturmabateilung or S.A.) suddenly entered the courtyard below and began hitting my two uncles on their heads and shoulders while shouting: “Outside! Outside!” (Raus! Raus!) until my two uncles had run out of the courtyard of the café. The other incident involved my new Jewish Boy scout troop, After an afternoon meeting, we were walking home at dusk escorted by a young adult group leader who, as I found out later on, was about nineteen or twenty years old and turned out to be quite courageous. A group of Hitler Youth had spotted us, and quickly surrounded us. They cursed and harassed us by throwing stones and vegetables. Soon, quite a rowdy crowd of about a hundred jeering adults had also joined the Hitler Youth to participate in this humiliating harassment. I recall our group leader instructing us to stay close together in a group, to look straight forward in the direction we were now rapidly walking at a steady pace, to ignore the stones and vegetables raining down on us, and generally pretend that nothing was happening. After about ten minutes of such harassment, the jeering crowd and Hitler Youth apparently tired and stopped following us. These two occasions were not isolated, and my sister, parents and friends all experienced similar incidents. One black humor joke was spreading through the Jewish community in Vienna during these dark days. This black humor joke went somewhat like this: Reform Jew A meets Reform Jew B on a street in Vienna. Reform Jew A is dressed inconspicuously in an ordinary suit. Reform Jew B is, however, dressed as an orthodox Jew, with a wide brimmed black hat and a long black overcoat. Furthermore, Reform Jew B has a beard and side locks—in other words he looked like typical orthodox Jew. Reform Jew A says to reform Jew B: “Are you crazy walking around on the street in this kind of an outfit? Are you looking to get yourself killed?” Reform Jew B answers: “You don’t understand. I have a new job and make an excellent living. I am working as a model for “The Stormer” (der Stürmer) which was the leading anti-Semitic newspaper of that time in Vienna. Our attempts to emigrate to the United States had suddenly become very urgent. Repeated phone calls and visits to the U.S. Embassy in Vienna

Vienna 1927–1938

7

brought no results despite the fact that my father had two sisters living in the United States. My father, however, had also a close friend living in Luxembourg. He entreated his friend to help us obtain at least a temporary visa to enter Luxembourg. After a prolonged exchange of correspondence and frequent phone calls extending into July 1938, my father was informed by his friend that he had succeeded in obtaining just two temporary visas for our family. In July 1938 my parents made then the wrenching decision of selecting to send me instead of my sister to Luxembourg with my father. My passport had to be validated by the now German authorities, who made several entries with prominently displayed swastikas in the converted passport (from Austrian to German). I still have this passport. Around August 15, 1938, we were ready for departure. My Mother and sister accompanied us to the Western railroad terminal (Westbahnhof) in Vienna which was just a walking distance from our apartment. We were walking in pairs, carrying our suitcases down Mariahilferstrasse toward the Westbahnhof, my sister and I in front, followed by my mother and father. I recall all of us crying during this about ten minute walk. We all knew, deep in our hearts, that we would probably never see each other again.

Passport Pages

Passport Pages

Chapter Two

Luxembourg 1938–1940

My father and I had an uneventful trip by railroad to Luxembourg. I remember that the trip took the better part of a day and night with frequent stops and changes of trains. I also remember that, although World War II had not yet officially started, I could observe many soldiers on our train and each of the railroad stations we passed. In fact so many, that I worried that my parents were right—Germany was indeed preparing for World War II. After passing through the last large German city of Trier, we arrived at the LuxembourgGerman border. I noticed there for the first time, some custom officials and border guards on the Luxembourg side of the border, who wore much darker uniforms of a different style than the now familiar green style, and their hats were of a completely different style. The German soldiers I observed saluted, stood at attention, and clicked their heels frequently when being addressed by their superior officers. In contrast the Luxembourg custom officers and border guards had a much less militaristic and more relaxed demeanor. These impressions gave me a newly found sense of security and a feeling that my days of terror had ended. I knew that a very different kind of life was about to begin for me. I had never heard of Luxembourg until my father mentioned this country over dinner after the Anschluss. I decided to research the country in a local library in Vienna in order to learn as much as possible. Its official name is the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The ruler of Luxembourg in 1938 was Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, who had the reputation of being a benevolent and kind woman who made all the important decisions affecting her country. Luxembourg is one of the smallest countries in Europe. It is sandwiched between the much larger countries of Belgium, France and Germany. I recall it to be a very clean country, with a population in 1938 of about 10

Luxembourg 1938–1940

11

250,000. I never observed any slums in Luxembourg, nor do I recall any overt expressions of anti-Semitism. Luxembourg had a very high standard of living in 1938 compared to other countries in Europe, and still has today the highest standard of living in Europe. Nevertheless, the country had a difficult history struggling to maintain its independence from its larger neighbors, particularly the neighboring larger countries of Germany, France and Belgium. All three of these larger neighbors had, over the preceding centuries taken territory from the tiny Duchy of Luxembourg. During World War I, the Kaiser’s troops jointly invaded Belgium and Luxembourg, which apparently did not have a standing army at that time. Judaism was an officially recognized religion in 1938 in this primarily tiny Catholic country. In fact there was an impressive looking synagogue in Luxembourg City, in which I was Bar-Mitzvad at the beginning of 1940. Luxembourg was a bilingual country in which all citizens spoke fluently French and German. In addition thereto a local dialect (Luxembourgerish) was spoken, which was mostly derived from German with a few words in French interspersed. It took just a few months before I became fluent in Luxembourgerish and French, based on my knowledge of German. The most prominent topographical feature in the city of Luxembourg, that I still vividly recall, is the unusual deep green valley cutting through the middle of the city. I have never encountered such an unusual topography in any other capital city of Europe. Several bridges span this valley, so that one can easily move from one half of the city to the other. Perhaps a thousand Jewish refugees had filtered into Luxembourg prior to the official beginning of World War II on September 1, 1939. These refugees arrived from various European countries including Austria. They soon formed a social club, which was not far from the apartment I lived in. I spent a lot of my leisure time in this social club. The first three days of my sojourn in Luxembourg were spent in the somewhat expansive house of my father’s friend, while my father looked for an apartment for us. The best he could find, with the limited financial resources available to us, was a tiny garret located in the gable of a house. The only source of heat in this tiny room was a gas stove for cooking. The next step was to enroll me in the Luxembourg school system. Once this was done, my father gave me some money and left for Belgium to explore the possibility of earning a living there. After he left, the grim reality of my situation sunk in. I daily roamed the streets to familiarize myself with that beautiful city. I truly felt like an orphan abandoned in a strange land without a single relative, acquaintance or friend. Although it still was summer, the nights in this tiny room were cold. Perhaps it seemed even colder because I was lonely and scared. My father finally returned

12

Chapter Two

two long weeks later to inform me that his friend had introduced him to a wealthy local Jewish family which had an expansive apartment and owned the largest department store in Luxembourg. Their apartment was located next to their department store and was overlooking a large square fronting the main railroad station. There were three children, two girls and one boy, all close to my age. I was happy to have a room of my own and tried hard to participate in their social life. While the parents treated me gently and kindly, the children were quite cruel to me. They never accepted me as an equal, referring to me as the refugee. They treated me as a second class interloper who had come uninvited to disrupt their lives. Generally speaking, those were very unhappy days for me. Not only did I resent this treatment, but I also missed terribly my mother and sister. For the first time I began to really appreciate the quality of my former life in Vienna, which now appeared to have been lost to me forever. My father, who was working in Belgium, occasionally visited me, and my mother would frequently send letters from home, which I eagerly read several times as a new one arrived. The tales she related to me of what life was like in Vienna during the months from August 1938 to September 1939 were truly terrifying to me. One day, after a series of insults from the children of the benefactors, I became so unhappy that I packed my single suitcase, determined to travel somehow back to Vienna to rejoin my mother and sister. I crossed the large square facing the railroad station, suitcase in hand. I prayed that I had saved enough money to buy my ticket as I walked toward the counter. I did not get far before I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw the familiar face of the local policeman who usually had his daily beat in this area. I crossed this square every morning to get to school and he immediately recognized me. He grabbed my by the ear and marched me across the square, scolding me along the way. He deposited me at the apartment of the Jewish family, who apparently had instructed him to bring me back. Six years later I revisited Luxembourg in the uniform of a Special Agent of the CIC (U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps) and deliberately engaged him in a conversation. While at first he pretended not to recognize me, it was obvious that he remembered this incident very well (see Chapter 8). I read the French and German newspapers daily, so I immediately knew what had occurred in Vienna and the rest of Germany on the night of November 9, 1938 (the Kristallnacht) and continued the next day. I no longer remember the discussion of this bad news with my father in Belgium, who had, of course, also heard the same news. I do recall, however, that he would heighten his efforts to obtain an entry permit for my mother and sister. Sometime in late November 1938, I received a letter from my mother and sister describing to me in detail the terror of that famous night in Vienna and the day that followed. She described how my sister had hidden under her bed

Luxembourg 1938–1940

13

Certificate confirming that I attended the Hollerich-Gare Elementary School

in our apartment during the night while listening to the noises rising from below while the riots (pogroms) were raging in the streets below. My mother described how she and my sister expected at any moment for members of the S.A. (Sturmabteilung) or S.S. (Schutzstaffel) to storm into our apartment. She also told us the sad fact that our Synagogue was burned down that night. I was enrolled at the Hollerich-Gare Elementary School. I recall that my school year commenced on September 16, 1938. The Luxembourg school system was quite different from the Austrian school system. Two classes were simultaneously taught by the same school teacher

14

Chapter Two

Monsieur Maedernach in one class room. Each class was arranged into two rows with about 25–30 students in each. The lower class was arranged at the right side of the class facing the teacher. In the fall of 1938 my class was the lower class. The following year my class was the upper class, now arranged on the left side of the same class room facing Monsieur Maedernach. Occasionally, during my first year my teacher would call me out of the blue to step forward and face the two rows of students of the upper class just after they had been unable to answer correctly a question or solve a problem. He would then ask me the same question. I generally would give the correct answer after which he obviously gloated that he had succeeded in humiliating the higher class. In the Luxembourg school system the teachers were authorized to use corporeal punishment. Our teacher would have the unfortunate student extend his hand palm up. Monsieur Maedernach would then take a flat ruler and slam it down with all the force at his command on the outstretched hand. This would, of course, cause a sharp burning pain in your hand, which you were supposed to communicate to the rest of the class by making appropriate howling noises. If you did not vocalize a sufficient amount of pain, the procedure would be repeated. I was the frequent recipient of such punishment. However, over time, I had developed a technique, which almost completely averted the pain. This technique required razor sharp reflexes and split second timing. A fraction of a second before the ruler hit the palm of my outstretched hand, I slightly but not noticeably, moved my hand downward so that it would, to a large extent, neutralize the impact of the ruler. This movement had to be very slight and very sudden so that it would go unnoticed by our teacher. Further, this technique also required a certain talent for acting because, after the clacking noise of the ruler on the hand, it was necessary to increase the volume of your yell to falsely confirm to the teacher that the blow was effective and that he had inflicted sufficient pain. After I had perfected this technique, I started to teach it to both classes in the school courtyard, Soon after, everyone had practiced enough my technique to use it effectively. After that, both classes started to take a liking to the “refugee.” One day our teacher announced that he had learned about a new sport very popular in America. He produced some leather mittens, a number of wooden bats, a ball and other paraphernalia required for playing. He taught us the rules of the game and soon we were playing this game in the school courtyard while Monsieur Maedernach functioned as the umpire. During the times I spent in the social club, I met a number of other Jewish refugees who also had somehow managed to enter Luxembourg, although the public policy of Luxembourg at that time was strict neutrality and not to admit any political (primarily Jewish) refugees. The daily conversations among

Luxembourg 1938–1940

15

these Jewish refugees invariably were focused on the deteriorating political and military situation in Europe. During the months following the Anschluss, Hitler was threatening to invade Czechoslovakia on the pretext that their large German speaking population was being oppressed. The Czechoslovakian government was desperately trying to avoid a war with Hitler’s Germany. During a meeting in Munich between Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier, Great Britain and France agreed on September 29, 1938 to have the Wehrmacht (German Army) occupy Czechoslovakia’s German speaking region (the Sudetenland). These developments were the subject of daily conversations at the social club. I recall that the Jewish refugees were particularly relieved when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared, after signing the agreement in Munich, that this meant “peace in our time” and this development could potentially benefit the Jewish refugees in Luxembourg. I personally was hoping that this development could somehow enable me to return to Vienna and be reunited again with my sister and mother. We soon found out that this was a pipe dream when Germany invaded the now truncated Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland under a staged pretext. France and Great Britain first gave an ultimatum to Germany to cease this invasion immediately and, when this ultimatum was ignored by Hitler, they declared war on Germany two days later, thereby officially starting World War II. Then on April 9, 1940, unprovoked, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. My father now was redoubling his efforts to have my mother and sister join us in Luxembourg. His efforts involved enlisting Chief Rabbi Serebrenik of Luxembourg. Chief Rabbi Serebrenik was a youngish tall, slender, handsome man who reminded me more of a movie star than a Rabbi. My father also applied, of course, again for a U.S. immigration visa with the U.S. Embassy in Luxembourg as we had previously applied in Vienna. Contacts with the U.S. Embassy were, as usual, useless. About September 18, 1939, we received the wonderful news that a temporary visa for my sister and mother had been granted by Grand Duchess Charlotte. To the best of my recollection the date of arrival of my sister and mother in Luxembourg was September 20, 1939. I was so eager to see them again that I decided to meet my mother and sister at the Luxembourg-German border. I bought a railroad ticket and took the half hour ride to the LuxembourgGerman border. While waiting for the train from Germany, I impatiently walked around the neighborhood and noticed the scenic valley of the river Mosel which formed the border between Germany and Luxembourg. There were mostly vineyards on both sides of the valley dividing the two countries. On the German bank of the river I could see several hundred fully armed German soldiers, who were dressed in their distinctive green combat uniforms

16

Chapter Two

and the steel helmets of the German Army (Wehrmacht). These German soldiers were lingering around their side of the river and were closely following my every move on the other side. On the Luxembourg bank, I could spot about two or three Luxembourg policeman. I saw a train arrive at the German side and remain there for what seemed to me an eternity. Finally the train started to cross the bridge over the Mosel. When the train pulled into the Luxembourg border railroad station, my mother and sister jumped from the train before it came to a full stop, yelling with joy while being followed by a Luxembourg custom officer. After we had embraced, kissed and cried for a couple of minutes, my mother said something in German I still remember to this day: “Otto, I hardly recognize you; you have grown so much.” Then, during the train ride back to Luxembourg City, she started to criticize my attire and general appearance as she typically would. I recall her observing that I looked like a bum, because I needed a haircut and had used a safety pin instead of a button to keep my jacket closed. I absorbed this criticism, which enveloped me like a warm shower. This sudden warm feeling was attributable to the presence of my mother, whom I had not seen for over a year, and whom I thought I had lost forever. A few days before September 20, 1939, my father had found an apartment for us, which we were supposed to share with another refugee family by the name of Blumenthal. My mother arranged our few belongings in this shared apartment and I was elated to have my family together again, despite the crowded circumstances. The Blumenthal family included two daughters. The older one of the two sisters was sort of an ugly-beautiful (“belle laide”) young woman who, unfortunately for me, practiced playing the piano all day, every day. I remember teasing her frequently, as any twelve year old is prone to do. I recall her taking my teasing in her stride. She never really got angry or cross with me. After World War II, this young piano player became the world famous pianist Felicia Blumenthal. My father had found a job for me. I was to assist a milk delivery man, who had become too old to handle the physical labor required for the job by himself. He had a two wheel cart drawn by a horse. The cart supported a large tank which was filled each morning with fresh milk. We started the delivery route at dawn, by filling the hundreds of milk bottles that had been deposited on the doorsteps of his customers the night before. I filled the milk bottles using a ladle or by opening and closing a spout near the bottom of the large milk tank. Towards the end of his route, the delivery man invariably observed that he did not have enough milk for the rest of his customers. He would stop at a place where he could partially replenish the milk tank with water. He then innocently resumed his delivery route. I questioned him about this procedure and he told me to mind my own business. I then decided to quit and explained

Luxembourg 1938–1940

17

to my father why I had taken this step. My father explained to me that sometimes in life you have to ignore the dishonesty or corruption of others in order to get along. Unfortunately for me, I have never fully accepted this advice from my father or fully learned this lesson. My aversion to corruption has disadvantaged me greatly later on in life, particularly in the U.S.A. But this subject matter will hopefully be covered in a second book. The winter of 1939 has been referred to by the historians of World War II as the “Sitting War” (Sitzkrieg). During that period, the French were securely ensconced along the Rhine behind what they thought was their impregnable “Maginot Line.” Sporadically and ineffectively, the German and French armies fired at each other over the Rhine to remind the people that their countries were at war. Belgium. Luxembourg and the Netherlands were relying on their neutrality as a security blanket against the war around them. As it turned out, the enormous expense incurred by the French of having built their “Maginot Line” was wasted. The expected carnage as occurred in 1914 never happened. In the winter of 1939–1940 I studied with Rabbi Serebrenik who prepared me for my Bar-Mitzvah. It was scheduled for the week following my 13th birthday on January 1. My voice had not yet changed and I remember singing the Hebrew prayer that had been assigned to me by Rabbi Serebrenik in a clear melodic voice. I received a beautiful watch from my parents which I considered the most beautiful present a thirteen year old could ever have received. I frequently and proudly showed off this watch to my schoolmates, who studied it carefully while complementing its beauty. In those days we were closely following the war at the social club by daily following the news in the foreign papers and French or British radio stations. The news was then endlessly discussed at the social club. I recall the devastation I felt when the Germans invaded Denmark and Norway on April 9, 1940. Then came the news of the quick surrender of these two Scandinavian countries. The world now waited for the next shoe to drop, while at the same time hoping that this day would never come, but it did. It was May 10, 1940, when I heard some strange noises barking orders in German from the street below. It was about two or three o’clock in the morning, but I got quickly dressed and went outside. I saw hundreds of German troops in full battle gear, steel helmets, rifles and some with machine guns, jogging through the streets toward the Luxembourg railroad station. Since I was dressed as a civilian they paid little attention to me and the other curious residents who came out to see what was going on. All of the German soldiers were armed to the teeth and wore their German steel helmets and the high black leather boots so characteristic of the German Army. Frequently, tricycles (two-soldier motorcycle

18

Chapter Two

with a sidecar attached) preceded the jogging files of soldiers. The officer in the sidecar continuously would bark orders and with hand signals, directed the soldiers who followed him, telling them which streets to enter. Generally speaking, most of these soldiers were heading in the direction of the Luxembourg railroad station. I also saw a few tanks and trucks among this unending flow of humanity. When dawn arrived, the jogging soldiers had been replaced by soldiers in long columns of marching detachments. They were also heavily armed each with several hand grenades. The typical German hand grenade consisted of a metallic cylinder holding an explosive charge. This cylinder was affixed to a coaxial wooden handle. What I found particularly odd was that each of the soldiers carried several hand grenades by inserting the wooden handles into the top end of their boots. When it was full daylight, I proceeded to the large square in front of the railroad station, where I noted that a few detachments of German soldiers had erected some tents. By then, a few of my schoolmates had also gathered in the square, and we jointly carefully observed every movement of the German troops. They were studiously ignoring us, even though we were standing in a small group barely 20 feet away. The officers frequently shouted orders at the various soldiers. They would immediately come to attention, click their heels, and loudly answer back to their commanding officer. The officers were usually personally quite insulting and demeaning to the soldiers. Given the fact that we all spoke German, we could understand every word and generally felt sorry for them. At least on two occasions that day, I observed an incident which I felt was particularly humiliating for the soldier. After having received a litany of insults, one soldier was ordered to do pushups in front of us and his comrades, while the officer was resting one of his boots on the soldier’s back. My schoolmates discussed this incident at length and some forcefully expressed the opinion that they would make sure never to become a soldier in the German Army. At about 10:00 A.M. that morning, we noticed some unusual activity at the railroad station. German soldiers had aligned themselves single file along the rail as far as the eye could see. Each soldier was carrying his rifle armed with a fixed bayonet. A long cattle car was slowly moving through the railroad station, filled with hundreds and perhaps thousands of soldiers dressed in Khaki uniforms. Some of them still wore the distinctive round metal helmets of the French and Belgium armies. As we approached the train, we shouted out questions in French over the row of German soldiers and they shouted back at us that they were prisoners-of-war and warned us in French not to get any closer because we could get into trouble. Some of the prisoners made hand gestures, signaling us that they wanted cigarettes. We pooled our meager financial resources and ran as fast as we could to the nearest tobacco store to purchase some “Gauloises” for them. We then quickly ran back to the railroad

Luxembourg 1938–1940

19

station where the train was still moving. We began to throw the packs of cigarettes toward their outstretched hands. The row of German soldiers guarding the moving train did not chase us away, so we continued throwing the packs of cigarettes until our supply was exhausted. Most of them missed their targets. Some packs of “Gauloises” were caught and the prisoners yelled back “Merci” to express their gratitude to us. As we turned around we saw that sandbags had been placed on top of a tall building near the station. I observed that they had somehow transported an impressive looking antiaircraft gun onto the roof of this building. Suddenly we heard the noise of an approaching aircraft. One adult from our social club instructed us to immediately move single file with our backs flat against a building and enter the nearest door. He had apparently obtained some military training and experience from World War I. Before I could enter the building the aircraft started to spray the railroad station with machine gun fire. Simultaneously, we heard the “ack ack” of the German antiaircraft gun firing back at the plane. Other antiaircraft fire was simultaneously being directed from other German batteries across the city. We followed the path of the plane and noticed a trail of smoke behind it when it disappeared over the horizon. Rumors spread like wildfire and soon the consensus in Luxembourg City was that this had been a British plane and was shot down just outside the city limits. Our curiosity of what was going on around us was so intense that we had to find out more, so my schoolmates and I started walking toward the probable crash site of the plane. However, before we could get anywhere near it, we were turned back by German soldiers. In the following days, there was less and less military activity with fewer soldiers present in the square and in the streets of Luxembourg City. No other British or French planes appeared over Luxembourg City in the following days. However, the prisoners of war trains kept coming and we saw many more thousands of prisoners in khaki uniforms passing through the Luxembourg railroad station. Each day following May 10 became successively more depressing. The newspapers now contained only German-controlled news. Other radio news became less frequent and more difficult to receive. The local cinemas showed propaganda newsreels extolling the conquering German troops with battle scenes showing their military victories. These newsreels were, of course, designed for building up the morale of the German people, and not for our consumption. In every one of these newsreels long lines of British and French prisoners of war were being marched back from the front, sometimes with their hands resting on their helmets, while newscasters announced one new victory after another. The British prisoners were easily distinguishable from the French and Belgian, as they wore the flatter helmet.

20

Chapter Two

I recall in particular one battle scene because it was shown repeatedly on German newsreels and remains etched in my mind. Several pieces of German artillery were firing at a British frigate or destroyer from the beach and the British warship was firing back. The German announcer pointed out that the beach was out of range for the guns of the British warship because the shells it was firing back were all landing in the water, as evidenced by the plumes of water rising from the sea as each shell landed in the water near the beach. The announcer then described that the German artillery shells had found their target and had caused the British warship to flee. No one seeing this newscast could, of course, confirm the accuracy of the newscasters’ description of what was really shown on the movie screen, Later I realized that this firing duel probably occurred in or near Dunkirk. In another newsreel German troops were marching into Paris. Gossip was rampant during those days at the social club. We soon became aware that Holland had surrendered only five days after the Blitzkrieg had started and after the Germans had firebombed Rotterdam. Belgium then surrendered about a week later. The news on the radio and from the now Germancontrolled newspapers gloatingly spoke about one continuing series of military victories after another by the advancing German armies. In mid-June, the news about the fall of Paris became official. We also learned that Fascist Italy’s Benito Mussolini had joined victorious Germany in the “Coup de Grace” by declaring war on Great Britain and France. The Italian army then actually invaded France by penetrating into France a few kilometers and occupying a narrow strip of France along the Cote D’Azur near Nice. Shortly after that, the German-Italian alliance was dubbed the “Axis.” This name was retained even after Japan entered World War II to form an alliance with Germany and Italy. The continuing stream of bad news in the following days included the news of the nomination of Maréchal Pétain as president of France (now called l’état Francais). He was the hero of World War I who had commanded the French Army during the battles of Verdun. Sometime in late June we received the bad news that France had signed an armistice treaty with Germany. This armistice treaty split France along a diagonal line thereby dividing France into an occupied northern part and a non-occupied southern part. The city of Vichy was selected by the Pétain government as the capital of non-occupied France (Vichy France). The northern occupied part included a piece of land which extended south all the way past the Atlantic port of Bordeaux and “les Pays Basques” to the Spanish-French border town of Hendaye. “Vichy France,” shortly after signing the armistice agreement with Germany, broke diplomatic relations with Great Britain, which then established, in short order a French Government in exile, headed by General Charles De

Luxembourg 1938–1940

21

Gaulle. The “neutral” U.S., however, continued to maintain diplomatic relations with “Vichy France” and even established a U.S. Embassy in Vichy. There was consistently a gloomy atmosphere at the social club. All kinds of ideas were discussed as to how to escape the menacing presence of the Nazis. After we left Vienna in August 1938, my father had made number of personal contacts in Belgium, where he spent extended periods of time. My father left again for Belgium with the intention of trying to obtain an immigration visa for one of the South American countries. Sometime in mid-July or early August 1940, we received a letter from my father in Bruxelles informing us that he had successfully contacted a Cuban official there and had hopes that he would soon be able to negotiate the purchase of a Cuban immigration visa for us. The news spread like wildfire through the refugee community at the social club. Soon, other refugee families and even Chief Rabbi Serebrenik had made contact with the same Cuban official in Bruxelles. Within a couple weeks about 300 hundred families had also purchased Cuban visas. I remember receiving a large envelope sent from my father containing the three visas. Each one included stamps with the legend “Republica de Cuba.” In the accompanying letter, my father instructed us to leave Luxembourg as quickly as possible and travel through occupied France, then through Franco Spain, and from there to Lisbon, the capital of neutral Portugal. While Portugal remained neutral throughout World War II, Franco Spain, although technically speaking a non-combatant, was a close ally of Germany throughout World War II and actually sent a division of volunteer troops to the Russian front (the “Blue Division”). The Spanish civil war, which had officially begun in July 1936, had officially ended barely a year earlier on March 26, 1939, shortly before the beginning of World War II. The plan was that, after we had obtained the necessary travel permits from the German authorities, we were to contact my father so that he could then make his own arrangements to meet us in Lisbon for the transatlantic trip to Cuba. The possibility of escaping from German occupied Luxembourg now became the subject of intense daily discussions at the social club. We all agreed to enlist Rabbi Serebrenik to jointly represent all Jewish refugees before the German authorities—including himself—who had succeeded in purchasing Cuban visas. Rabbi Serebrenik proved to be a skilled negotiator. He apparently met daily with German authorities in August and soon reported to us that he had successfully negotiated a deal with the Germans. Given still the chaotic circumstances prevailing in occupied France, all of the Jewish refugees with Cuban visas would be escorted by the German authorities all the way to the Portuguese-Spanish border. When the day of our departure arrived, we were instructed to board a number of Luxembourg City buses, which had been confiscated by the Germans

22

Chapter Two

from the local authorities and had been assembled on the railroad station square. After we were all on board two German military cars suddenly appeared. Each of these cars held three or four Germans dressed in distinctive black uniform and carrying side arms in black leather holsters. One of the SS guards jumped out of his car and signaled the bus convoy accompanied by the two German military cars to start moving out of the city. Not a word was spoken inside my bus. All of the bus passengers were deeply engrossed in their thoughts. Some of them were crying as they waved goodbye to relatives and friends.

Chapter Three

Occupied France 1940

The bus convoy headed south and we soon arrived at the Luxembourg-France border. As we entered France we noted signs on the road indicating in German that we were now in occupied France. Whenever we passed any roadblocks, manned by German soldiers, we were promptly waved through after they checked the lead vehicle carrying the SS guards. It was obvious that fighting had taken place there recently. I saw several charred vehicles on the side of the road, which appeared to have belonged to the French Army. At least once I remember seeing the charred remains of a tank but could not make out to whom it belonged. After a few hours, the convoy stopped at a square facing a railroad station. The commanding officer of the SS guards ordered us to collect our suitcases and get out of the buses. We walked single file and stood in front of the railroad station. After receiving a signal from the commanding officer the buses left. The commanding officer, flanked by the remainder of the SS detachment, told us that we would spend the night in this French town and that we would be escorted further by railroad all the way to the Spanish-Portuguese border. We were instructed to be at the train station no later than 7:00 A.M. the next morning. He made it quite clear that anybody that failed to do so would suffer dire consequences. Rabbi Serebrenik stepped forward and entered into a brief dialogue with the SS commanding officer before urging us not give the SS guards any excuses to inflict punishment. In fact he suggested to be there ten minutes early the next morning. We were to spend the night in various houses in this French town, which would be selected for each of us by the SS guards. My mother, sister and I were one of the first families to be assigned a house. Ours was facing the railroad station at a distance of perhaps one hundred to two hundred feet. All of the French occupants of the houses 23

24

Chapter Three

located near or facing the railroad station, had obviously observed the strange spectacle of the about two to three hundred passengers, who had disembarked from Luxembourg city buses. The commanding officer of the SS detachment walked to the front door of the house he had selected for us, accompanied by his translator, as we followed him single file, carrying our suitcases. He banged his fist against the front door and barked loudly: “Ouvrez!.” A middle-aged French lady with a frightened facial expression immediately opened the door of her house and the translator informed her in French that she was to provide sleeping accommodations for the three of us. The French woman was obviously scared by the harsh orders barked at her and responded in French to the translator that she would comply with his order. She brought us to a room which had a typical French bed with a very soft mattress and a cot. I slept fitfully on the cot that night and woke to the alarm clock at 6:00 A.M. We quickly dressed, brushed our teeth and packed our luggage. A train had apparently pulled into the railroad station during the night. I nervously watched through the window the activities at the station and continuously updated my mother and sister who were still getting ready. I could see that the SS guards were already ordering some of the passengers to board the train before 6:50 A.M. I urged my mother and sister to hurry up. We all became very nervous and walked quickly to the train. We were assigned three seats together in the train by one of the SS guards. One entire railroad car was reserved for the SS. A few minutes after we boarded the train, it began to move slowly out of the railroad station. I looked at my wrist to note the time and discovered to my horror, that I had left my watch on the night table of our room. I was devastated to lose my most priced possession. Since I had forgotten the name of the town where I had left my watch (and tried to retrieve it five years later, see Chapter 8) I determined by a process of deductive reasoning, studying the railroad maps of France, and a method of triangulation that the name of town in which we spend a night in the late summer of 1940 was the town of Épernay. Our train continued to move very slowly with frequent unexplained stops. By the time we arrived in Paris it was close to dusk. The train pulled onto a sidetrack and we were ordered to descend single file and stand in front of the train while the commanding officer announced that the train would remain overnight in Paris. We were told, to our surprise, that we could actually leave the train for a while to sightsee, but be back well before 7:00 A.M. the next morning. I concluded from this strange turn of events, that our SS detachment had decided to stop overnight for their own recreation. I had never been in Paris before although I had dreamed many times, while growing up in Vienna, of visiting the “City of Lights” some day. I could, however, never have foreseen under what circumstances this first visit would oc-

Occupied France 1940

25

cur. I do recall how exciting it was to see the “Arc de Triomphe” and to walk along “Les Champs Elysées.” For those readers who have never visited Paris, “Les Champs Elysées,” the broadest boulevard in Paris, is considered by some to be the spine of the city. How exciting it was to see the unusual stores, fancy restaurants and interesting people. Since we had no French money that would be honored by any one of the stores, we focused on sightseeing. I already had then a pretty full command of the French language and proceeded to act as a guide for my mother and sister. I could understand the streets signs and the conversations around us and told my mother and sister everything I read and heard. I noticed the frequent appearance of groups of German Wehrmacht soldiers wearing caps and instead of steel helmets. Most of them were swaggering through the streets and laughing boisterously. Some of them were accompanied by French women. There were a large number of German Army trucks moving through the streets before dusk. When the sun had set completely I noticed that the entire city was in total blackout. We now had to walk more slowly to discern the outlines of pedestrians, buildings and streets. Occasionally, a car would move slowly through the street with its headlights blacked out except for a thin slit. As we approached the Étoile, from the “Place de la Concorde,” I noticed a hotel near the “Arc de Triomphe.” An occasional civilian would enter the hotel, but mostly German military officers of various ranks. Being naturally curious, I decided to go in, asking my mother and sister to wait outside. Once inside, I observed a fascinating scene. Apparently this hotel was reserved for German officers. From the lobby of the hotel I could see into a large room with a bar where several German officers were drinking. Their loud conversations were all conducted in German. Judging by their uniforms, these officers belonged to many different branches of the German military. Practically everyone was accompanied by one or more elegantly dressed women. Judging by their difficulty of carrying on conversations, I assumed that all of the women were French and spoke very little German. After taking this all in, I quickly slid back out the door without being seen. I visited this same hotel some five and half years later, but this time in the uniform of a special agent of the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence agent. This second visit will be described in greater detail in Chapter Eight. I rejoined my mother and sister we headed back to the railroad station. We hadn’t gone far when we suddenly heard the wailing sirens indicating that hostile airplanes were approaching. We observed that all French pedestrians were now rapidly walking or jogging. Everyone headed to the nearest Metro (subway station) which was serving as an air raid shelter. While waiting in the Metro for the “all clear” signal from the sirens, I overheard one woman commenting

26

Chapter Three

about the bad luck of the French. She pointed out to her companion that Paris had recently been bombed by the German air force (Luftwaffe), barely a month ago in June, and now in July they were being bombed again, apparently by British airplanes. In retrospect, it appears that we had just witnessed the first air raid of World War II by the British air force on Paris. After the “all clear” had sounded, we walked back to the train station which was quite a distance away. We had no difficulty locating the train on its side track. We boarded the train, located our compartment, and then attempted to get some sleep. We were more comfortable the night before in our room. When I awoke the next morning about 7:00 A.M., I noted that our train was still in the station in Paris and that no SS guards were anywhere to be seen. They finally appeared sleepy eyed and hung over a few hours later. They checked whether every one had returned to the train. Finally, after another hour, the train pulled out of the station heading south. We made frequent stops and, after a prolonged stop at Bordeaux, arrived at the Spanish-French border town of Hendaye the next afternoon. During this period we stopped twice for supplies of food. We were fed for the first time by German soldiers who handed out soup in metal containers. We were told to keep the metal containers for another meal. We had now slept on this train for two consecutive nights. Since we had arrived at the Spanish border, I thought that we soon would be out of the jurisdiction of the SS guards. We all followed with fascination every move that was made by the SS and the German Wehrmacht soldiers as well as the Spanish army and border guards. Franco Spain had just won its bloody civil war the year before, and Germany had just conquered France barely a month earlier. I first noticed that the Spanish border gendarmerie all wore some curious looking triangular hats and side arms in holsters. The other Spanish military wore light blue uniforms and hats and at least their officers wore side arms in holsters. Their ranks could be identified by the epaulets and insignia on the lapels of their military jackets. Whenever a Spanish soldier or policeman strutted in front of a uniformed member of the German contingent or vice versa, they invariably saluted each other. This saluting and strutting lasted for many hours. The Spanish and Germans were obviously competing in impressing each other with their military polish and behavior. We watched this military exhibitionism with fascination and amusement. The SS guards met at several different locations with the Spanish military. It appeared that very high Spanish officers arrived at one point and disappeared in a building with the SS where the Spanish and German contingents apparently held interminable discussions. The Spanish contingent came on our train several times to inspect us always accompanied by the SS. They also handed us some food through the

Occupied France 1940

27

train windows. Finally, the next day I saw the SS and some Spanish soldiers jump on the train and disappear into the special SS car. We finally started to move again and we impatiently awaited the train’s arrival at the Spanish-Portuguese border. I remember that our train now was moving much faster than traveling through occupied France. The first large Spanish city we passed through was San Sebastian, where we were supplied with some water, bread and sausage passed to us through the train windows. When we arrived at the Spanish-Portuguese border, the Spanish soldiers, who had escorted us together with the SS, were now conferring with the Portuguese soldiers and border guards. The SS had disappeared and were nowhere to be seen. A contingent of Portuguese soldiers and border guards then boarded our train, accompanied by the Spanish soldiers who were guarding us, apparently to look us over. I considered it odd that they did not request to see our travel documents. We all assumed that as soon as the Portuguese border guards had checked our travel documents, we would be permitted to enter neutral Portugal and proceed to Lisbon. We would then finally be out of the control of the SS and on our way to Cuba. However, what happened next was totally unexpected by us. Specifically we could observe there were many more meetings between the Spanish and Portuguese border guards over the next several days and nights, without any progress. The days went by and still nothing was happening. Our hygiene had become atrocious. There were toilets on the train on the train but no bathrooms. There were frequent arguments as to when and for how long one could use the toilets on the train. Sometimes our train would be moved from one track to another. This movement initially raised our hopes that the day of liberation had arrived. But we soon discovered that these short train movements were for the purpose of creating “receiving space” for the mountains of excrement that had accumulated under all of the toilets of the train. Our mood became darker and more desperate as the days went by. On occasion they would pass loaves of bread and water through the windows. Any attempt to leave the train was futile, with the armed Spanish guards surrounding our train day and night. After we had been at the Spanish-Portuguese border for about ten days, Rabbi Serebrenik informed us of some very depressing news. We had not been permitted to enter Portugal because of some informalities in our Cuban visas. Our train was to be returned to Occupied France. We received this news with dread and the darkest of premonitions. A few hours later the SS guards suddenly appeared and surrounded our train. The Spanish guards had boarded the special car reserved for the SS detachment. The train began to move slowly, apparently in the direction of Occupied France. A wailing and screaming could be heard all along the train. Some of

28

Chapter Three

us jumped out of the moving train through the windows only to be seized by the SS guards and roughly thrown back. After some time had elapsed, we calmed down and silently sat in the train, deeply absorbed with the thoughts of what our future would hold. The train now moved through Spain exactly over the same route, but in the opposite direction than we had moved about two weeks earlier. We were so depressed that we did not even eat anything that was offered to us. That evening we arrived at the Spanish-Occupied France border in Hendaye. The formalities for entering Occupied France from Spain now took much less time, apparently due to German efficiency and the fact that the German authorities were now in charge of approving our entry into Occupied France. During the trip through Spain, endless discussions were held among us as to what our final destination would be. We decided, as long as we could remain outside of Germany and occupied Poland, we would have a small chance of surviving the war. As the train entered occupied France, we were moving through a completely blacked out countryside. The train made a number of stops and then a very sudden stop. An order was whispered from one fellow passenger to the next that Rabbi Serebrenik wanted us to immediately arrange each compartment so that only women and children could be seen through the glass windows and doors of each compartment. All of the younger men lifted themselves onto the luggage racks above and covered themselves to remain hidden from any observer outside the compartment. The older men would stand behind the children and women. Rabbi Serebrenik’s plan was to give the Germans, who were about to inspect the pitch-black train, that the train was mostly occupied by foul smelling women, children and old men. We soon heard soldiers mounting the train. As I peeked out of our compartment, I saw the German helmets with SS insignia of a detachment of German Waffen-SS (combat SS) in the corridor of the train accompanied by our SS escort detachment. They pointed their strong flash lights throughout the corridor and then into each compartment. They stopped in front of our compartment and shone the flashlight into it. It was that I knew by their uniforms and steel helmets that they belonged to the Waffen SS, the most feared and cruel service of the German military. They carefully scrutinized those they could see but fortunately did not shine the flashlight up to luggage rack of the compartment. In fact, I recall that they did not enter any of the compartments of the train, apparently because the bad smells emanating from them. Rabbi Serebrenik’s “trick” had worked. We did not realize how lucky we were. Later during World War II, the Waffen SS became notorious for murdering million of Jews. An other possibility for being spared that night by the Waffen SS was that Goering had not yet instructed Heydrich until July 31, 1941 to begin the preparation of the “Final Solution.” Heydrich was the head of the Waffen SS

Occupied France 1940

29

at that time. Also the Wannsee conference, which worked out the details of the “Final Solution,” did not take place until January 20, 1942. The mass murder of Jews in Auschwitz did not start until June 1942. After a few hours of waiting in terror, the train began to move again but in the other direction. We eventually stopped at the town of Bayonne in the part of France called “les Pays Basques.” By then it was dawn. After a short while a detachment of German soldiers, headed by a captain of the Wehrmacht, arrived in a truck followed by several empty trucks. I noticed a short discussion between the head of the SS detachment and the Wehrmacht captain. Then, after some stiff saluting, all the men of the SS detachment mounted a truck and departed. That was the last time we ever saw our “travel companions.” We had learned enough by then about the mores of the German military to realize that we had just had the good fortune of being transferred to the custody of the Wehrmacht, a more benign branch of the German military. We were ordered to get into the trucks after what appeared to be a friendly discussion between the captain and Rabbi Serebrenik. They were both tall, slender and good looking men, about the same age and under other circumstances could have been great friends. The Rabbi informed us that we were being transported to a camp where we would be temporarily sheltered. From that point on orders from the Wehrmacht captain were communicated to us through Rabbi Serebrenik. An armed German soldier got onto each truck with us, and the convoy proceeded to move to the camp, which would become our home for the next three or four months. In the months to come, I observed many congenial meetings between the Wehrmacht Captain and Rabbi Serebrenik. These meeting appeared to me to be conducted in a professional manner as between two modern day executives. After a short trip while we passed a Senegalese soldiers’ prisoner-of-war camp, full of several hundred soldiers still in French Army uniforms. The camp was fenced and guarded by Wehrmacht soldiers armed with rifles and fixed bayonets. Finally, we arrived at our camp. This camp was a large abandoned two-story warehouse located near a river. We were allowed to sleep on the second floor of this warehouse. There were toilets here, but this time they were in bathrooms where we could wash. We were, of course, delighted after of about two weeks of being deprived of our daily hygiene. Cots and blankets were brought in before nightfall. Finally we were told that we would be fed with German Army rations twice a day. The only stipulation was that we were not to have any social contact whatsoever with these soldiers. The soldiers promptly installed a make shift kitchen on the first floor.

30

Chapter Three

When night arrived, we fell into a deep sleep on the cots that we set up with the soldiers’ help. This was the first time in about ten days that we could actually sleep lying down in what could be loosely called a bed. Needless to say it felt like a luxury and I slept like log. In the days to come the cots on the second floor were arranged along opposite walls so that about 100 to 150 were arranged on each side. The three of us arranged our cots adjacent to each other as did all the other families and single couples. With each family in their own territory, we all felt more secure. The rest of our group arranged their cots, sometimes in pairs of male and female, and otherwise in random fashion along each wall. We placed our belongings on the floor next to our cots since there was no other furniture in the hall. We soon established an agreement concerning a certain code of conduct. No one other than a family member could enter the family territory formed by adjacent cots unless invited. Our life had become better but extremely boring. The two meals a day were tasteless but edible. We spent our time playing cards and endlessly discussing the military situation with what little we knew. Several factions started to form, based on the differences of opinion among us as to how the war would eventually end. Even with our improved conditions, tensions rose and we frequently heard families arguing. There were just a few soldiers guarding the warehouse. We were not allowed to leave the building at any time. The soldiers took a head count every morning. We were definitely under their control, but at least they never entered our sleeping quarters at night and therefore would not intervene in any “domestic dispute” that we were now forced to witness. It was hard falling asleep most nights, so I usually passed the time watching others. After the first few weeks in the camp I noticed couples having sex. But what was particularly disturbing to me personally, and something that left a psychological scar, was who was having sex with who. Sometimes during the middle of the night, a husband or wife would stealthily migrate to the cot of another man or woman to have sex. This, of course, led to bitter fights involving hitting and screaming during the night. These loud fights naturally woke everyone. Some of the couples involved in these incidents had children who witnessed these bitter fights between their parents. The acts of infidelity became an abundant source of gossip in the following days. Each of these disputes caused the rest of the refugees to take sides causing the tension to rise even more. Very little news about the war filtered through. We learned that the battle was now raging over Great Britain and the German Luftwaffe was bombing London daily. We latched onto any tidbit of news, which we discussed for days. By the beginning of September 1940, the newspapers that had been smuggled into our camp made it appear that Germany would invade Great Britain any day now, and thereby end World War II victoriously for Germany.

Occupied France 1940

31

It was during this phase of our detention in the camp that my mother observed the Wehrmacht Captain walking through the dining hall of our camp. My mother still was then a good looking woman in her forties. She suddenly stepped in front of the captain and said in flawless German: “Herr Hauptmann (“Captain” in German), I am a married woman with two young children and no husband. My children are in dire need of their father who lives in Belgium. I implore you to issue a travel permit to my him so that he may rejoin us in this camp.” Amazingly, he did not appear offended by this sudden address by a Jewish woman and told her that he would let her know through Rabbi Serebrenik whether he could assist her in this request. A few days later, Rabbi Serebrenik approached my mother to give her the good news that the Captain had granted a travel permit for my father. In hindsight this travel permit had a very beneficial effect for all four of us. My mother immediately mailed the document to my father in Bruxelles. About a week later we received a written message from my father by means of a French courier. We were thrilled with the news that he was staying in a hotel in Bayonne. Rabbi Serebrenik obtained permission from the Captain to temporarily leave the camp to see my father. The hotel in Bayonne was rather shabby, but in retrospect it was wise for my father to stay away from our camp. He never visited us there because he was afraid that if he did, the German authorities would incorporate him into the camp population. Leaving the camp to visit my father soon became a daily privilege, thanks to an intervention by Rabbi Serebrenik. Our privileged status caused quite a bit of jealousy among the others in our group. On the other hand, it was to their advantage that we were able to bring back some French food. We were also able to provide them with some news about the war that was less biased. Soon my father insisted that we enroll in the local French school system. My sister found a school in Bayonne, which would accept her as a temporary student. The only opening my father could find for me as a temporary student was in a school in the nearby town of Biarritz, one of the most beautiful cities of France. After I started to attend this school, I noted that I had a time window of about an hour and half before my five o’clock curfew at the camp. I soon took advantage of this time window and started to explore Biarritz. This charming city was almost completely deserted except for the German Wehrmacht soldiers, who were apparently using the many hotels for recreational purposes. My favorite spot to visit was a completely unguarded yacht basin where a large number of luxury yachts were anchored side by side. I never saw policemen, guards or soldiers in the area. One day I boarded the nearest yacht. From there I jumped to the next one and the next one and finally the last. One day I decided to look around the most luxurious yacht there. I sat down in a

32

Chapter Three

sumptuous sofa facing the Atlantic Ocean. As I sat there, I enjoyed the absolute tranquility of the moment. I was lost in a very pleasant daydream when I suddenly heard airplanes approaching. I looked up and saw two planes circling each other. To my surprise, I heard the unmistakable noise of machinegun fire and realized that the planes were both firing at each other. The skirmish lasted about a minute, and then the two planes went off in different directions, and absolute calm returned to Biarritz. To this day I wonder whether I had seen an actual dogfight or a training practice run. In any event it reminded me of the grim reality of our situation at the camp and that it was time to return. I did not want risk losing our privileges. There were many kiosks in Biarritz and I sometimes bought a newspaper and smuggled it into our camp by hiding it under my jacket. The newspapers were passed around the camp population and read from cover to cover. During the month of October 1940, we learned that the German Luftwaffe was bombing Great Britain mercilessly and that Germany was preparing to invade Great Britain by sea (Operation Sea Lion). At the camp, we endlessly discussed what our fate might be. The consensus was, based on rumors and stale news, that as soon as Great Britain was conquered, the Germans would earnestly begin the extermination of all Jews under their control in Europe. However, after a few weeks a glimmer of hope started to creep into our pessimistic forecasts. It seemed that the Germans were not ready to invade Great Britain, because of the stiff resistance the German Luftwaffe was encountering over the British skies (Great Britain’s finest hour). One day Rabbi Serebrenik announced that he had been in constant daily contact with the Wehrmacht Captain, and that they had jointly arrived at a plan to gradually empty our camp and transfer us to Vichy France. This announcement filled us with joy, apprehension and renewed hope. The plan involved the cooperation of the Vichy France custom and border police. Each day the Captain selected one family or a few single members to leave. They were brought to the Bayonne railroad station by truck, and then boarded a train to Vichy France. Each departing group was provided with a handwritten permit by the Captain. In retrospect, I now realize that the German border guards had apparently been included in this plan. Finally it was our turn to leave. We packed our suitcases and met my father at the Bayonne railroad station. We boarded the train heading for the city of Marseille, the largest city in Vichy France. We were happy to see that there were only French civilians on the train. It was late at night when we arrived at the border of Occupied France and Vichy France. An armed German border guard and a Vichy French policeman jointly inspected the travel documents of all passengers. When we handed ours to the German border guard

Occupied France 1940

33

he read it and then took the Vichy French border guard aside to discuss it. We were grateful and relieved when they handed our papers back and proceeded to the next compartment. Once the train crossed the border into Vichy France, we all agreed that we had been very fortunate to have been assigned to this particular German Captain. In retrospect, had we been assigned to a different German authority, we could have been transferred to a more permanent camp, and eventually our final fate could have been quite horrifying. So many times over the years I have thought about our stay in the camp, and the benevolent role this Wehrmacht Captain played in our lives.

Chapter Four

Vichy France Fall of 1940–December 7, 1941

It was very early in the morning when our train arrived in Marseille, the second largest city in France. We all walked out of the railroad station somewhat uneasy to be in yet another strange city. I recall that we were descending a large number of steps and passing a fountain. We walked from one narrow street to the next to find an apartment for rent. I acted as the translator because I was already fairly fluent in French. Unknown to us at the time, we had entered the neighborhood where the old port (Vieux Port) of the city was located. There were many narrow streets with two and three story houses in that part of Marseille. After wandering through several streets with no luck finding an apartment to rent, we arrived at 52 of a street named “Rue Tapis Vert” (Street of the Green Carpets). Here there was a two-room apartment for rent located on the third floor. My father paid two months rent in advance, without even inspecting the apartment. After making the climb to the third floor with our luggage, we found an apartment consisting of two small rooms and a bathroom. There was also some kind of gas stove for cooking. After having spend the prior four months in a train, and then in the Bayonne camp without any privacy whatsoever, we all considered this tiny apartment the height of luxury. We had fortuitously picked a very good geographical location in the city of Marseille. Rue Tapis Vert was very close to the main thoroughfare in Marseille, the Cannebière, It also was not far from the Old Port (Vieux Port). After unpacking, my sister and I were anxious to explore Marseille. Marseille certainly was quite different from Luxembourg and Vienna. The first thing that drew my attention was the overall character of the city—it had an entirely Mediterranean flavor. The population of Marseille was very diverse. We noted people from several different countries. During my stay in Marseille, I can 34

Vichy France Fall of 1940–December 7, 1941

35

only remember German military personnel in the streets one time. The group of German officers I observed apparently formed part of a diplomatic mission. Of the French population, the most notable were the sailors. They wore snappy looking sailor uniforms including a white beret with a red pompon. There were many of them walking in the streets and I found out shortly after our arrival that a large naval base was located in the nearby port of Toulon. In the fall and winter of 1940, the French Navy was one of the three largest navies in the Mediterranean. The other two were the British and Italian navies. After signing the armistice, the French Navy and France’s vast North African colonies (the Magreb) remained under control of Vichy France. The French Navy was headed by Admiral Darlan, who had the reputation of being anti-British. In retrospect, Germany probably agreed to an armistice agreement with France, and the creation of an independent Vichy-France, precisely for the purpose of keeping a major part of France—including its large navy, and its vast North African colonies—out of the control of the Allies. One only has to revisit the famous film “Casablanca” to get a sense of those times. Immediately after the signing of the German-French armistice, Churchill became concerned that the French Mediterranean fleet would eventually be turned over to German control. A major part of this fleet was based in Mersel-Kébir on the Mediterranean coast of Algeria. On July 3, 1940, Churchill issued an ultimatum to the Vichy France fleet. The ultimatum demanded that the Vichy France fleet be moved during the duration of hostilities to the control of the British. Alternatively, Churchill demanded that the Vichy France fleet be moved to the island of Martinique in the French Antilles. Vichy France rejected the ultimatum and a major part of the Vichy France Mediterranean fleet was then sunk by the British fleet. About 1300 French sailors died during this battle. However, the remaining part of the French fleet managed to escape to Toulon in Vichy France. This development caused a deep anti-British feeling in Vichy France. In November of 1942 the Germans attempted to capture the French fleet in Toulon. The French fleet then scuttled all of their war ships in Toulon. Just a few days after our arrival in Marseille, my parents started to socialize with the not inconsiderable Jewish refugee colony there, many of whom were also part of our group in the Bayonne camp. My parents were concerned about the deteriorating military situation and how this would eventually affect our lives. They also worried that we were going to run out of money, as did many of our friends. My father discovered that there was a thriving black market in currency exchanges in Marseille. The U.S. dollar was a particular desirable currency. Apparently my father had found a way to receive dollars through a circuitous route from the U.S., and was able to earn some money through speculative investing in the thriving black market.

36

Chapter Four

I read the Vichy-France newspapers and listened to the French radio, both of which gave me the impression that the news media was state controlled and definitely “pro-Axis” slanted. Nevertheless, we were able to receive news faster and were able to discern what was really happening in the war, because we also simultaneously had access to the news from the Allies via the radio (BBC). Of course, whenever we saw a movie in Marseille, they were inevitably preceded by German or Italian newsreels. The first positive news that we received in Marseille was that President Roosevelt had been re-elected in the United States. The next encouraging positive news which filtered through, was that the British air force had seriously damaged the Italian fleet by means of an air raid at the Italian naval base in Taranto, Italy. While still in Bayonne, we heard that Italy had invaded Greece. We now followed every new development in that particular campaign. Shortly after the invasion, the Italian army experienced some difficulties, and soon their mission in Greece had completely stalled. Also at the beginning of December 1940, news spread around Marseille that the British forces had started, with some success, a major counteroffensive against the Italian army in their North African colony of Libya. After an unbroken series of victories for the Axis powers throughout 1939 and 1940, we were glad to see that at least Italy was having problems with their military operations. This news started to raise some faint hopes for us that the war may still turn out well. It was on the basis of this news that we raised our glasses, filled with red wine in a Marseille bistro, on January 1, 1941, on my fourteenth birthday to toast to a victory for the Allies. Shortly after we arrived in Marseille, my father started to explore the possibilities of continuing my and my sister’s education. He quickly found an art school and a regular school for my sister, located not far from our apartment. My situation was more difficult. My father learned that there was a charitable organization in Marseille, which was financially supported by the American Quakers. We visited their office which was well-appointed with an elegant desk. My father explained to a lady how my education had been interrupted twice due to the war, and that we did not have adequate funds to continue my education in Marseille. He told her that my education in Vienna, was a technical education including mathematics and science (Realschule), and he would like to enroll me in a technical high school in Marseille. The American lady indicated to my father that she knew of such a school. She gave my father further information about the Quaker organization, which would be deciding whether to grant me a scholarship. Shortly thereafter, we were thrilled to receive a letter from the organization telling us they were prepared to pay for all of the considerable expenses involved in my attending the French technical high school, then called École d’Électricite Industrielle de St. Barnabé. We could not have been more grateful.

Vichy France Fall of 1940–December 7, 1941

37

On my first day at school my father and I took the trolley to St. Barnabé. We found the school and introduced ourselves to the headmaster. I explained in French who I was, and why my father was trying to enroll me in their school. The headmaster had already been informed of my situation by the Quakers, and he immediately agreed to enroll me in the fall term on a provisional basis. My father left me at the school and returned in a few hours with my clothes, toilet articles and some towels. I was assigned a bed in the dormitory and became a full-fledged live-in student. This school has been renamed many times since World War II and is now called “École Centrale Marseille.” The school was unfortunately not coed, so the thirteen and fourteen year old students spent a great deal of our free time visiting a nearby all girl school. At times we were permitted to go to the movies and actually made some dates with girls from this school to join us. The discipline in this school was very strict. Every morning, we stood at attention before the French flag, as it was raised on a tall pole while a trumpeter played a martial tune. This, and other ceremonies in the school, gave me the impression that the school administrators were trying hard to imitate the German school system. The official point of view of the French Government in exile was that the Vichy regime was an illegal government distinct from the French Republic, established by traitors under foreign influence. Indeed, Vichy France eschewed the formal name of “French Republic” and styled itself the “French State” replacing the “Liberté, Égalite, Fraternité” motto, inherited from the 1789 French revolution, with the reactionary “Traveil, Famille, Patrie” motto. The school had a small stadium in which the students frequently participated in sports competitions. Sometimes, competitive events were held with visiting teams from another school. I soon found out that I was very good in middle distance running. My technique of winning was something I had developed by trial and error. I would stay in the pack in about third or fourth position, conserving my energy throughout the race. When we were through about half of the last lap. I would get into high gear and pass all the runners ahead of me, just a few feet from the finish line. I soon became the middle distance runner to beat in all competitions, including the competitive events with other school teams. The only time I recall losing one of these races was when another student tripped me in the last lap. Everybody in the school spoke only French. At first, the headmaster assigned a bilingual Alsatian student to me as a translator. But they soon found out that I did not need a translator to function there. In fact I already spoke fluently French due to my bilingual education in Luxembourg. The students and teachers in the St. Barnabé School amusingly observed that my French

38

Chapter Four

had a “Parisian accent.” French is spoken in Marseille with a distinct accent, which is also spoken, to a lesser degree, along the entire French Mediterranean coast, but more distinctly in Marseille. This accent is easily identified by Frenchmen in other parts of France as emanating from the French Mediterranean coast line. The curriculum of the St. Barnabé School was geared toward mathematics and the sciences. Their standards and teaching staff were excellent. The school administration tried hard to instill patriotism and nationalism in us. I do not recall any other Jewish or foreign students while I was there. I do recall one incident in particular, that gave me a sense of pride in being Jewish. During a history lesson, a student asked how it was that France had lost the war against Germany so quickly. The teacher looked directly at me and said: “If the French would have had a sense of belonging together and sticking together like the Jews do, we would have won the Second World War too.” Since I was a full time resident student at the St. Barnabé School, I was allowed to go home each Friday afternoon to spend the weekend with my parents. I very much looked forward to these weekends. The commute to my parents’ apartment on the weekend was by trolley. One Friday, I came home with a bloody nose and a black eye. My father immediately boasted to my concerned mother and his friends that he was proud of his son, because he is the only Jew at the St. Barnabé School and “he does not take any crap from his fellow French students.” I still wonder today how my father arrived at that conclusion, but I did not vigorously object to it. The stores in Marseille were well stocked with merchandise, food in particular. Since my father was able to save and take a modest sum of money with him when leaving Austria, we actually could go shopping in Marseille. I particularly have fond memories of going out for dinner with my parents and sister on weekends to the many bistros of Marseille. I still remember a strange custom in Marseille at that time, when I was still thirteen years old. Whenever we sat down for dinner the first thing the waiter did before taking our order, was to fill all the empty glasses set on the table, including mine, with red wine. As the spring and summer of 1941 began, we enjoyed the mild Mediterranean climate on the beaches of Marseille. My sister and I could walk to some of them from our apartment. The Vieux Port was a rectangular inlet with a narrow opening on the seaside. It jutted into the downtown section of Marseille. At times a French warship would enter the Vieux Port and anchor there for days, apparently to remind the warring nations that Vichy France was still in control of a large and powerful navy. We enjoyed a rather pleasant existence except for the disquieting news about the war that was raging around us. Nonetheless, the British offensive in

Vichy France Fall of 1940–December 7, 1941

39

Lybia had started to have some initial successes by conquering the city of Tobruk located along the Mediterranean coast. Based on these developments, which were endlessly discussed by the refuge population in Marseille, we began to hope that we could sit out the war by remaining in Marseille. However, at about that time, the Vichy police started to haphazardly, but steadily, arrest undocumented or defectively documented Jews and transfer them into various camps located in various parts of Vichy France. We found out, after the end of World War II, that these camps served as transfer or temporary camps in which the Jews in Vichy France were collected and later on were transferred to extermination camps to Eastern Europe, such as Auschwitz (see Chapter Three). We therefore lived in constant fear that we could be next. Each time a Jewish refugee was arrested, the news spread like wild fire in Marseille. The mood of the refugee colony quickly changed from a glimmer of hope to quiet desperation. Soon the entire refugee community renewed their efforts to obtain U.S. immigration visas or, as a second choice, a visa to one of the South American countries. We had, of course, a few days after arriving in Marseille, contacted the U.S. Consulate and applied there again for a U.S. immigration visa. My parents were making no progress at all in their dealings with the U.S., consulate during the many visits they made in the weeks leading up to May. Finally on May 20, 1941, my father received a letter which proved to be completely worthless, and could be considered by some neutral observer as counterproductive and even sadistic. I will explain. There were, in 1940, approximately 300,000 Jews in metropolitan France, half of them with French citizenship (and the others foreigners, mostly exiles). About 200,000 of them, and the large majority of foreign Jews, lived in Paris and its outskirts. Among the 150,000 French Jews, about 30,000, generally native from Central Europe, had been naturalized French during the 1930s. On this total of 300,000 Jews, approximately 25,000 French Jews and 50,000 foreign Jews were deported. According to historian Robert Paxton, 76,000 Jews were deported and died in concentration and extermination camps. This makes for a total figure of 90,000 Jewish deaths (nearly a quarter of the total Jewish population before the war). Proportionally, this makes for a lower death toll than in some other countries (in the Netherlands, 75% of the Jewish population was exterminated). This fact has been used as an argument by supporters of Vichy France. However, according to Paxton, the figure would have been greatly lower if the French State (l’État Francais) had not willfully collaborated with Nazi Germany, which lacked staff for police activities. During a raid in July 1942, the then Vichy France Prime Minister Pierre Laval ordered the deportation of Jewish children, against explicit German orders. Paxton pointed out that if the total number of victims had not been higher, it was due to the shortage in

40

Chapter Four

wagons, the resistance of the civilian population, and deportation in other countries (notably in Italy). It is worth noting that the unofficial policy of the U.S. State Department regarding issuing immigration visas to European Jewish refugees at that time was controlled by an Assistant Secretary of State by the name of Breckenridge Long. In an intra-department memo he circulated in June 1940 Long wrote: “We can delay and effectively stop for a temporary period of indefinite length the number of immigrants into the United States. We could do this by simply advising our consuls to put every obstacle in the way and to require additional evidence and to resort to various administrative devices which would postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of the visas.” 90 percent of the quota places available to immigrants from countries under German and Italian control were never filled under the “Breckenridge Long administration.” In November 1943, when the House was considering a resolution that would establish a separate government agency charged with rescuing refugees, Long gave testimony saying that everything was being done to save Jewish refugees, which caused a loss of support for the measure. Long is largely remembered for his obstructionist role as the official responsible for granting refugee visas during World War II. He “obstructed rescue attempts, drastically restricted immigration, and falsified figures of refugees admitted. The exposure of his misdeeds led to his demotion, in 1944. He has become the major target of criticism of America’s refugee and rescue policy.” Keeping the foregoing in mind the letter of May 20, 1941, signed by Linton Crook, Vice Consul of the American Consulate in Marseille, reads in translation as follows: “Marseille, France May 20, 1941 TO THE COMPETENT AUTHORITIES: the U.S. Consulate in Marseille certifies that the documents submitted by CILLI KLEIN ILSE “ OTTO “ PAUL “ Seem to be satisfactory, and that a visa to the United States will probably be granted to him (them) as soon as he (they) will be in possession of an exit visa from France and have proof of their departure date for the United States via a shipping company having been fixed. For the General Consul: Linton Crook Vice Consul of the United States of America”

Vichy France Fall of 1940–December 7, 1941

41

May 20, 1941, letter from Vice Consul Linton Crook

When issuing this letter the American Consulate knew or was in a position to know that no “shipping company” would issue a ticket for a transatlantic crossing based on the mere promise contained in this letter. When this letter was presented to the Vichy France authorities in support of our application for a “sauf conduit” (a sauf conduit served in those days in Vichy France as the equivalent of a passport), I still recall the exact words of

42

Chapter Four

the rejection: “Vichy France does not issue a sauf conduit based on a promise by a U.S. official that an immigration visa will be issued in the future. Vichy France will only issue a sauf conduit on the basis of the presentation of an actual visa.”

Photograph of the sauf conduit dated September 2, 1941

Vichy France Fall of 1940–December 7, 1941

43

This rejection by Vichy France authorities instilled a veritable panic in us, because the news of arrests of Jewish refugees in Marseille was continuing. My father then heightened his efforts to obtain a valid Cuban visa. After a negotiating period of a few weeks with the Cuban consular authorities, he was able to obtain some documentation from them which apparently satisfied the Vichy France police and we were then issued a sauf conduit. This document gives a fictitious address, apparently for the purpose of confusing the Vichy France police as to our true whereabouts. Once we had this travel document in our possession, our anxiety slowly disappeared because we were now apparently safe from the Vichy France police. However, news of arrests of Jewish refugees in Marseille continued. Looking back at these events over the span of more than six decades, I firmly believe that we would have shared the fate of thousands of other Jewish refugees who stayed behind in Marseille after December 7, 1941. Most of these unfortunate Jewish refugees who were unable to obtain immigration visas from a callously indifferent “Breckenridge Long administration” perished in the concentration camps of Eastern Europe. Another piece of evidence that convinced me of this was an article I read about Otto Frank and the fate suffered by his family. The article describes how the rising tide of Nazism in Germany encouraged more and more attacks on Jewish individuals and families. Frank then decided to move his family to the safer territories of Western Europe. In the summer of 1933 Frank moved his family to Aachen, where his wife’s mother resided. He then moved his family to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In 1938 and 1941 he attempted to obtain visas for his family to emigrate to the United States or Cuba. He was granted a visa only for himself to Cuba on December 1, 1941, but no one knows if it ever reached him, and ten days later, when Germany and Italy had declared war on the United States, the visa was cancelled by the authorities in Habana. While in Vienna, Luxembourg and Marseille, we were in frequent contact with officials in the U.S. consulates. In our contacts with each of them my parents implored them to grant us an immigration visa. While residing in Marseille, I was old enough to observe for the first time how frustrating it was to deal with the federal bureaucracy in Washington D.C. More than six decades later, I am firmly convinced that the systems governing the judicial and executive branches of the U.S. Government were then, and perhaps are more so now, inherently dysfunctional, fundamentally flawed and undemocratic. I have experienced dealing with federal agency decisions over the past six decades which taught me that there really exists no recourse for an individual who wishes to challenge an agency decision by the executive branch. Appealing such a decision through the federal court system is useless because

44

Chapter Four

the standard of review of such an agency decision makes the decision effectively irreversible, no matter how wrong the decision is. My experience as a litigator in the state and federal court systems during the past six decades has led me to the conclusion that the U.S. judicial system, both state and federal, has become fundamentally unfair and corrupt. We did not have the financial resources in 1941 to challenge the decision of Vice Consul Linton Crook and even, if we had made such a judicial challenge, it would have been, in retrospect, futile because the federal and state courts routinely rubber stamp every action taken by federal agencies. As an example, prior to issuing the letter of May 20, 1941, my parents were informed by various officials of the U.S. consulate that our visa application would be processed “as soon as possible” or “in due course.” At other times, they questioned my parents about their surviving relatives still living in Europe and about those living in the United States (my father had two sisters living at that time in Brooklyn, New York). They then informed my parents that their relatives still residing in Europe “might present a problem.” In my opinion, these statements represented just another stalling tactic of the “Breckenridge Long administration.” At about the time when we had obtained the Vichy France “sauf conduit,” we learned that General Rommel and his Afrika Corps had landed in Libya to rescue their Italian Axis partner. The reputation of the German Wehrmacht at that time was that it was invincible. We learned in April 1941 that the German Army had successfully invaded Greece and Yugoslavia, and Rommel’s Afrika Corps had begun a counteroffensive in Libya. All of these events confirmed my father’s decision to leave Europe as soon as possible. When the triumphant German Wehrmacht then unexpectedly invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941, we began to panic. We believed that, unless we could obtain exit visas within the next few weeks, it would be too late for us. What we did not know then that the first experimental use of gas chambers in Auschwitz had already started on September 3, 1941. As the months of the summer and fall of 1941 passed, we saw more and more military victories of the German Wehrmacht displayed on the newsreels in local movie theaters. I remember seeing the enormous numbers of Soviet Union prisoners-of-war, who had been captured by the German Wehrmacht. These newsreels showed veritable seas of humanity being watched by German soldiers armed with rifles and fixed bayonets. The camera scanning of the masses in the newsreel continued for several minutes and depressed me greatly. The German announcer triumphantly described how an enormous number of Soviet prisoners had been taken by the German Wehrmacht, after the advancing German Wehrmacht had encircled entire armies of Soviet soldiers at various battles. They boasted that the German Wehrmacht would be

Vichy France Fall of 1940–December 7, 1941

45

in Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) before the beginning of the Russian winter. However, in late November 1941, after we had already purchased our tickets for our transatlantic crossing to Habana, Cuba, we noticed that the unbroken string of military victories by the German Wehrmacht might have reached a tipping point. I concluded that this tipping point in the fortunes of war might have arrived by the news that the Red Army had successfully repulsed in late November the German Wehrmacht’s assault on Moscow. On December 6, 1941, the day of our departure from Marseille, we heard a rumor that the Red Army had successfully begun a counteroffensive near Moscow in the middle of the cruel Russian winter. This fact was, of course, hidden from the German public by the German propaganda machine. But such news had a way of reaching Vichy France and, in particular the refugees in Marseille, where it spread like wildfire. Moreover, it could not be hidden from the German public even by Goebbels’ propaganda machine that Germany failed to conquer both Moscow and Leningrad that winter. We began preparations for our embarkment to the “New World” in September. By the end of September my father had successfully negotiated the purchase of four tickets for passage to Habana, Cuba, No firm departure date could be issued because of the constantly changing military situation in Europe. I was so looking forward to celebrate my fifteenth birthday as a passenger on the Portuguese transatlantic liner the Nyassa. The Nyassa was originally built in 1906 as the German passenger ship Bülow. She was a fairly large ocean liner of 9028 gross tons; she was 462.4 feet long and 57.6 feet wide; she had only one funnel and had a top speed of 14 knots. As a German ocean liner during World War I, she took refuge in neutral Portugal. She was then seized by Portugal in 1916 and was renamed the Nyassa in 1924. Between 1940–1944 she made fourteen round trip voyages between Lisbon and the United States, as well as voyages to South America. She had 108 first class cabins; 106 second class cabins and sleeping facilities for 1828 third class passengers. She was scrapped in 1951. Our four tickets for the transatlantic passage on the Nyassa were, of course, for third class. We now said our goodbyes to our many friends in Marseille. I recall having a good bye dinner with a small group of my fellow fourteen and fifteen year old students in a small bistro in St. Barnabé, I still remember these tearful goodbyes from all my teachers and fellow students just a few days before December 6, 1941. Red wine was served on all of these occasions, no questions asked. All of these Frenchmen wished me well and a safe trip to the “New World.” On the morning of December 6, 1941, I packed my bag, got on a trolley with a heavy heart and returned to the apartment at 52 Rue Tapis Vert to help finish packing. We decided to leave Marseille on that same day

46

Chapter Four

of December 6, 1941. With our bags in hand, we retraced our steps passing the same fountain and mounting the same stairs of the railroad station, in which we had arrived over a year ago. We had made plans to stop one night in the city of Toulouse in Vichy France. Toulouse was the fifth largest city in France. The reason we stopped there was that my sister’s best friend, Madeleine Neurath, from Vienna lived there with her father. She is still alive and now lives in Paris, France. Shortly after the Germans occupied Paris, her gentile mother committed suicide. Her Jewish father eventually joined the “Free French” Foreign Legion, and was killed in action during World War II. After spending that evening with the Neuraths, we slept in a hotel. They met us the next morning and brought us to the railroad station on December 7, 1941, where we boarded a train for Lisbon, Portugal. We leaned out of the train windows to say our last goodbyes to our friends the Neuraths standing below us on the railroad platform. Suddenly, a commotion swept through the crowd on the railroad platform. Some young boys were working their way through the crowd, hawking newspapers. The headlines were in bold type and covered the front page completely: “Les Japonais ont attaqués Pearl Harbor” (the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor). The boys shouted the headlines as the people crowded around them to purchase the papers. We got off our train immediately to feverishly discuss this new development with the Neuraths and others standing on the platform. Everybody we spoke to at that moment opined that this new development had changed everything and that the war had suddenly taken a new and unpredictable course. The consensus of opinion of the people we spoke to was that we should now cross the Spanish French border as quickly as possible. We had paid little attention to the rising tension between the U.S. and the Japanese empire in the fall of 1941, because we had mistakenly believed that a military confrontation between Japan and the U.S. in the Pacific would have little effect on the war raging in Europe and North Africa. But on December 8, 1941, Britain and the United States declared war on Japan. After what seemed an eternity our train finally proceeded towards the Spanish border. We purchased a new newspaper at every train stop to keep abreast of the now constantly changing political and military situations. We had no problem crossing the Spanish-Vichy France border and sighed a relief after we had crossed into Spain. We arrived in Madrid in the morning of December 8 and decided to spend three nights there to rest and explore the city. After exchanging our Vichy France currency for Spanish currency, we ordered a taxi and quickly found an inexpensive hotel. In the following hours and days we closely followed the ever changing military and political situation while also doing some sightseeing. We visited many tourist attractions in this beautiful city, which I recall had many broad boulevards. I vividly recall visiting the fa-

Vichy France Fall of 1940–December 7, 1941

47

mous “El Prado” museum. I was fascinated and amazed by the vast treasures and art that form part of their priceless collection. We saw the works of Velazques, Murillo, Brueghel the elder, El Greco, Bosch, P. Brueghel, Goya and many others. As we boarded the train for Lisbon on December 10, 1941, the scene at the railroad station in Toulouse on December 7, 1941, repeated itself at the railroad station in Madrid. Once again young boys were hawking local newspapers by bellowing the thundering headlines to the crowd gathered on the railroad platforms. This time the thundering news was bellowed in Spanish by the newspaper boys. They bellowed in Spanish: “Alemania y Italia han declarado la guerra contra los Estados Unidos!!!” (Germany and Italy had declared war on the United States) We, of course, discussed this new development on the train ride from Madrid to Lisbon. I recall voicing the youthful and oversimplistic opinion that this was really a good development, because a clear line of demarcation had now been drawn between all of the “bad guys” and all of the “good guys,” and that we are about to cross over this geographic demarcation line from the side of the “bad guys” to the side of the “good guys.”

Chapter Five

Lisbon, Portugal December 10, 1941–Late January 1942

We had an uneventful train ride from Madrid. We saw many impoverished Spanish villages along the flat countryside between Madrid and the Portuguese border. When we reached the border, we recognized the town immediately, as the one we had visited with our German SS guards in the summer of 1940. The mountains of excrement which our refugee group had “deposited” on some side tracks had, of course disappeared for the most part. But I got off the train to take a closer look at the trestles and side railroad tracks where our train had been parked. I could still see some discolorations, caused by our “deposits,” on the wooden trestles which supported the railroad tracks where our train had been detained the previous year. We had no trouble this time getting through the Spanish border control. After crossing to the Portuguese side of the border, the examination by the Portuguese border guards of our sauf conduits and Cuban visas also went smoothly. Neither the Spanish or Portuguese border guards could have guessed that we formed part of the refugee group that attempted to cross into Portugal some sixteen months earlier escorted by a German SS detachment. We all felt a sigh of relief once we were safely in Portugal and our mood quickly changed from anxiety to anticipation and hope for our future. Upon arrival in Lisbon, we were immediately impressed by this very beautiful city. We checked into an inexpensive hotel and immediately searched for a more permanent residence for our stay until our departure on the Nyassa. We quickly found a pension (roughly the equivalent of today’s bed and breakfast) in a charming hilly part of the city near Avenida Liberdade. As soon as we had unpacked my sister and I left to familiarize ourselves with the city. I still vividly recall the intricate patterns of stone pavements on the broad boulevards. We also explored the Estoril Coast which was part of greater Lis48

Lisbon, Portugal December 10, 1941–Late January 1942

49

bon. There were many luxurious hotels located on or near an inviting beach and we thoroughly enjoyed our excursion trips to Estoril. To our disappointment, we noticed that virtually in every window of every store or restaurant there had been prominently displayed what I would call today advertisements with photographs extolling the virtues and military successes of either the Axis powers or the Allies. It appears that the Portuguese had found a new source of income during World War II, based on their avowed neutrality status, by leasing their window space for displaying propaganda of one side or the other. I found it interesting to observe how each side viewed the progress of the war. The first news about the military situation in the Pacific announced a string of military victories for Japan. However, we were now in a neutral country and we also believed that the U.S. military was a sleeping giant who had not yet been fully awakened. We therefore were not very concerned about the initial news about the war in the Pacific. We were checking daily about the departure date of the Nyassa. No firm date had been set the first few weeks we stayed in Lisbon. In view of the fact that we were about to cross the Atlantic Ocean, we started to pay more attention to the activities of the German submarine fleet in that theatre of operations. When the United States entered in December 1941, German Admiral Doenitz promptly responded by sending a squadron of U-boats to strike at merchant ships in the shipping lanes of the U.S. East Coast. He codenamed this Operation “Paukenschlag” which is roughly translated as Operation Drumbeat. The next six months was a “Happy Time” for the German U-boats and a nightmare for the U.S. Navy and U.S. merchant marine. A force of only a dozen or so U-boats took down dozens of ships and destroyed hundreds thousands of tons of necessary supplies. Every time we read about the sinking of a merchant ship of the Allies in the Atlantic, our anxiety about crossing the Atlantic Ocean increased. However, after few weeks of reading about these attacks we noticed that none of these ships that had been sunk belonged to a neutral nation such as Portugal. A few days after arriving in Portugal, we were informed that the departure date of the Nyassa had been postponed again, in view of the constantly changing political and military developments. We were informed that the new departure date had been tentatively scheduled for late January 1942. This latest news did not particularly bother us since we were now living in an attractive pension and were frequently dining out in wonderful restaurants in Lisbon. Fortunately for us, my parents still had some savings. My sister and I amused ourselves with various activities and frequently went to the movies. I also was looking forward to celebrate my fifteenth birthday in Lisbon. I recall that most of the movies we saw were American movies in Technicolor. We had not previously seen any Technicolor movies in Vienna, Luxembourg or Marseille,

50

Chapter Five

as this was a new technology that had recently been perfected in the United States. We saw a few Betty Grable and Alice Faye “sappy” movies several times each, because I was completely overwhelmed not only by this new technology, but by their blond good looks. However, the movie I recall most vividly was “The Great Dictator” with Charlie Chaplin. The opening of this movie in Lisbon was preceded by an intensive propaganda war. According to the Portuguese newspapers, the Axis had tried to suppress the release of the movie in Portugal by filing several protests with the Portuguese authorities. Despite these protests, the neutral Portuguese government refused to stop the movie from premiering at the end of December. My sister and I purchased advance sale tickets for the opening. In the days preceding the premiere, a large number of pro and anti movie advertisements appeared in the local newspapers. So we counted the days with anticipation until we would be seeing this very controversial movie. When we arrived at the movie theatre, I recall seeing singing pro and anti demonstrators standing out front with large signs. This, of course, increased our excitement and anticipation. We both liked the film very much, despite the fact that it had no subtitles. My sister and I had knew, however, enough English to still enjoy the film immensely. Having just a few days before escaped the grasp of the Nazis, both my sister and I were deeply moved by the portrayal of the Jewish characters and their plight in this movie. Part of the plot of “the Great Dictator” deals with the cruel behavior of the police of a thinly disguised police state towards their Jewish population. On the evening of December 31, 1941, we went out with our parents to celebrate my fifteenth birthday. After we had a nice dinner in a fancy restaurant, we walked along the Avenida Liberdade to our pension shortly before midnight. Suddenly we saw fireworks in the sky signaling the beginning of the New Year. I had never seen such a lavish display before. I was filled with renewed joy that we had made it safely to a neutral country. As a teenager of sixteen my sister Ilse was a very attractive young woman. She was frequently asked out by young men also staying at the pension. There was a young doctor from Angola who was one of her frequent dates. She also dated another young man with a motorcycle. One night he and my sister had a serious motorcycle accident. As a result my sister wound up in a hospital, which upset my parents and me considerably. She came out of it with no lasting injuries, but my father thought it wise to impose a 10:00 P.M. curfew from that time forward. As the time of departure on the Nyassa approached at the end of January 1942, we became more and more pensive about the life that lay ahead of us in Habana, Cuba. By that time I had gathered as much information as possible about Cuba and its culture. I reviewed all of the books and magazines that

Lisbon, Portugal December 10, 1941–Late January 1942

51

were available in the local libraries in Marseille and Lisbon to learn as much as possible, but there was very little information available about Cuba, in general, and the city of Habana, in particular. I studied the maps of Habana and made a mental note of which neighborhoods were more desirable than others. The old city of Habana did not appeal to me because it was crowded and included some slums and dilapidated neighborhoods. The suburbs of Vedado and Miramar apparently were, however, very desirable because they included many private homes, villas and small apartments buildings, I discussed this layout with my parents and we decided collectively that we were going to try to find an apartment in the Vedado suburb. My overall impression of Cuba from my research was that this was a country which could be described as a veritable tropical paradise. We therefore looked forward to our departure with a mixture of excitement and anticipation. On the day we boarded the Nyassa, I noticed the various classes of passengers who were boarding the ship. Some of the first and second-class passengers were elegantly dressed and arrived in chauffeured limousines or taxis, indicating that they were either very rich or very important, or both. Shortly after we had boarded the ship we ascertained that most of these elegant passengers were diplomats of many different South American and European nations as well as the U.S. These diplomats had apparently booked passage on the Nyassa to return home after the declaration of war between the United States, Germany and Italy. The majority of the third-class passengers had immigration visas to different South American countries and Cuba. Cuba, along with a few other South American countries had declared war on Germany shortly after Germany declared war on the U.S.

Chapter Six

Crossing the Atlantic on the Nyassa in January and February 1942

We boarded the Nyassa at about noon, and after finding our bunk beds on the third deck of the ship, we went on deck to explore our surroundings. The first thing that I noticed was that the third-class passengers were strictly separated from the second and first class passengers. The first (lowest) deck of the ship was, however, exclusively reserved for the third-class passengers. There was an open mess hall and some other seating facilities on the first deck. This is where I would spend most of my waking hours. My favorite spot was on the bow of the ship. I particularly enjoyed looking down at the water and leaning forward from the bow of the ship, watching the ship cut through the water. When we pulled out of Lisbon harbor, I had noticed other ships on the horizon but by dusk these ships had quickly disappeared from sight. I deduced that they had deliberately doused their lights to avoid being detected by the roaming German submarine fleet that was now sinking the many merchant ships crossing the Atlantic. However, I realized that the Nyassa appeared to be normally lit, apparently to let the German U-boats know that she was a ship belonging to a neutral nation. While we knew that our ultimate destination to be Habana, Cuba, none of the third class passengers had any idea what specific route the Nyassa would take to reach its destination. The details of this route were not given to any of the third class passengers and left us guessing the entire trip. The next afternoon I spotted a shoreline on the far horizon. I assumed that was some kind of an island in the Atlantic that we were passing that I had failed to notice on the maps that I had studied. However, that shoreline did not disappear for hours. And as the Nyassa got closer and closer I realized, to my great surprise, that it was the shoreline of Africa!!!

52

Crossing the Atlantic on the Nyassa in January and February 1942

53

Close to dusk we approached a large harbor which we were told was Casablanca, the largest city of the North African Vichy France colony of Marocco. As we docket and I gazed down from the bow of the Nyassa, I observed again to my amazement the familiar uniforms of the Vichy France police, border guards and the French sailors with their white berets and red pompons. To my right at a distance of two hundred yards, I noticed two French war ships of the Vichy France fleet, anchored at adjacent docks. I realized to my consternation, that we had again crossed the demarcation line separating the “good guys” from the “bad guys,” but in the wrong direction. After this initial shock I remembered something which calmed my anxiety. Surely all the diplomats would not have boarded the Nyassa in Lisbon, only to be returned to the control of the Axis powers by way of Marocco!! No, there must be another reason for making this detour. Nothing happened for the next few hours. I started to take in the sights from the ship. The city had many white buildings, forming a large and sprawling composite, which lived up to its name, which translates into “White House.” It had many two or three story whitewashed buildings. The architecture of these buildings was completely new to me. Standing at the bow of the Nyassa, I could see the old colonial center which was quite large and had refreshingly beautiful architecture. The buildings were of a style which would be considered a French version of Arabo-Andalusian architecture, white with soft lines, and great detail. The people I observed wore clothing that I had never seen before. Many of the women wore what appeared to me to be long nightgowns, apparently to camouflage any curvatures that might attract the opposite sex. In the part of Casablanca closest to the docks, I could see that donkeys were used as a frequent mode of transportation. There were also motorcars and camels, visible in the distance. This panoramic view of French colonial North Africa was indeed fascinating. No cargo was being moved off or onto our ship during that afternoon or evening. We again began to wonder why the Nyassa had made this detour before crossing the Atlantic. The next morning it became clear. A gangplank was raised to the lowest deck of the ship. Soon some chauffeured limousines and taxis appeared at the dock and a line of passengers quickly formed to board the Nyassa. To my amazement, I recognized a handful of them from our Jewish refugee group in Marseille. One of the men I recognized was a young blond man with the nickname “Tiger,” who my sister had met in Marseille. I do not recall ever learning how he and a handful of other Jewish refugees from Marseille ever made their way from Marseille to Casablanca presumably after December 7, 1941. However, most of the group were high ranking diplomats who apparently had enough influence to cause the Nyassa to make

54

Chapter Six

this detour. After all our new passengers had boarded, the Nyassa lifted its anchor and headed out again to high sea, presumably this time to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The next few days passed in utter boredom. My favorite spot, day or night, was still at the bow of the ship where I stared out constantly so as to be the first one to spot land. Many of our group in third class became seasick, and would spend most of the time in their bunks. However, I was lucky enough to remain well during the entire trip. One evening, as I was standing near the bow of the ship, something came flying through the air and landed at my feet. It was a fish flopping on the deck!! I studied this rather small fish further and saw that it had wings. I had never heard of a “flying fish” before, let alone seen one. After observing it flopping on the deck, I picked it up carefully by its wings and threw it back into the ocean. I had now found an activity to break through the monotony of the voyage. I picked up many more flying fish from the Nyassa’s deck and threw them back into the ocean. Soon, I was teasingly labeled by some of the third class passengers as “the flying fish thrower” of the Nyassa. The weather was overcast most of the time, and we also experienced occasional rain squalls. After about two weeks I saw an airplane flying over our ship. Rather than continuing on, it circled our ship for several minutes. Soon more planes arrived and circled our ship. Suddenly I noticed a number of other ships on the horizon. After getting closer, I thought they were probably war ships judging by their silhouettes. Someone in our refugee group had binoculars, and the passenger with binoculars gave us a running report of what he could observe. He reported that these ships appeared to be either stationary or were circling a particular area. When we got closer, he reported that he recognized their flags. There were about a half dozen ships, mostly British, but at least one of them was American. After the Nyassa safely passed these warships, I continued to scan the ocean for landfall. Before long I noticed an island or group of islands on the horizon. As we approached the island someone shouted “It’s Bermuda!!!” As the Nyassa docked at a charming town by the name of Hamilton, we heard that there had been a horrible accident on board a few hours earlier. A child from our refugee group, who was about six years old, had fallen into a shaft of the ship and had died of his injuries. A gangplank was lowered and a small coffin was carried down the gangplank, accompanied by the child’s parents. This small cortege then disappeared down one of the side streets of Hamilton. Still saddened by this tragedy, I turned my attention toward the city. The British-Caribbean architecture of the buildings of Hamilton gave the immediate impression that this was a very pretty town and island indeed. Even

Crossing the Atlantic on the Nyassa in January and February 1942

55

though we were not permitted debark. I soaked up the absolute beauty of this place. The first prominent feature was a flagpole, with a British flag flying high. Now I could allow myself to believe that we had really crossed to the side of the “good guys.” There were several policemen with white helmets and white jackets standing on the dock. There were also British sailors pacing around the dock gazing at us curiously. Then I noticed several horsedrawn open carriages, parked near the gangplank and waiting for passengers. Soon, the gangplank from the Nyassa was lowered again, and several first and second class passengers descended to the dock and mounted these horsedrawn carriages. They disappeared from sight, swallowed up by the narrow streets of the town. The refugee group eyed this procession green with envy. Most of us now counted the hours and days when we would also descend from that gangplank into a better, free world. Soon, we had word what we had witnessed on the high seas outside of Bermuda the sinking of an American merchant ship by a German U-Boat. Late that afternoon, after all the first and second class passengers had returned from their excursions, the Nyassa pulled up its anchor, and we resumed our trip to Habana. The weather in Bermuda had actually been somewhat chilly, and I assumed that the Nyassa would soon turn southward toward a warmer climate. However, after two or three days of sailing, the weather actually got down right cold. We now approached a coastline on the horizon that looked nothing like the tropical coastline that I had pictured. This coastline extended as far as the eye could see. Soon, what appeared to be a U.S. coastguard cutter and a U.S. destroyer, flying the Star and Stripes, were following the Nyssa at a distance of a few hundred yards. The Nyassa now headed directly into an inlet on the coastline and we saw now many more U.S. war ships. We docked in what seemed to be a large naval base. Soon we heard from the upper decks that we had docked at the U.S. naval base by the name of Newport News, Virginia. Within minutes of docking, a large detachment of U.S. sailors, armed with rifles and fixed bayonets, aligned themselves on the dock in front and along the side of the Nyassa. They were ordered by a naval officer to stand at ease, resting their weapons on the dock with one arm holding their rifles and holding their other arm behind them. This was my first visual encounter with any kind of U.S. military. In my opinion, their white tops and bellbottom trousers resembled pajamas, more than uniforms. Their caps did not contribute very much to a military look either, as compared to the familiar uniforms of the French and British navies. Soon, what appeared to be high ranking U.S. civilian and navy officials boarded the ship and disappeared out of sight. After a while we surmised that they were examining the travel documents of the first and second class passengers. We saw that some of the passengers were permitted to debark one family at a time.

56

Chapter Six

None of the third class passengers were even permitted to approach any of these U.S. officials with travel documents even though, we believed at that point in time, that the Kleins at least had fulfilled the conditions precedent, as set forth in the letter dated May 20, 1941, authored by U.S. Vice Consul Lynton Crook (see photograph of this letter in Chapter 4). Most of the rest of the third-class passengers (perhaps a more descriptive term would be “third class citizens”) also had their sights set on the U.S. and also had some documentation that they believed entitled them to enter the U.S. at this point in time. We refused to let this opportunity slide by. Some of these third class passengers, including my mother, had their documents in hand and jointly made a move to approach the U.S. officials on the decks above us. They attempted to ascend to the second deck, but these attempts were rudely rejected by members of the crew who were guarding the stairways. Disheartened we all soon realized that this was not going to be our turn to enter the U.S. We then shifted our attention to the row of sailors standing guard on the deck below us. At first we tried to engage them conversationally, with our broken English. They just studiously ignored us and did not budge from their posts, staring steadily ahead. Then we tried to get their attention by throwing European coins, chocolates and candies at their feet and informing them in broken English what veritable treasure troves lay on the deck. Still no reaction. The discharging of first and second class passengers continued in dribs and drabs into the afternoon. By late afternoon the U.S. civilian and navy officials were disembarked. The Nyassa lifted its anchor and headed toward the high seas. So ended my first contact with the U.S. Little did I know that my next contact with the U.S. would occur about three years later. The Nyassa was now definitely heading south, because I felt the temperature turn gradually milder. According to the maps I had studied, the most direct route from Newport News, Virginia to Cuba was south along the East Coast of the U.S., and through a passage between the Royal Crown Colony of the Bahamas and the state of Florida. I resumed my customary position at the bow of the ship in order to be the first to spot land. Two or three days after we had left Newport News, I noticed some green and red navigation lights off to the left side of the bow. I assumed that we were passing some of the chain of islands forming part of the Bahamas. At about midday, I saw land in the distance. The Nyassa headed straight towards that shore. Soon we were approaching a very large city, which we correctly assumed was Habana.

Chapter Seven

Habana from February 1942 to the Beginning of 1945

As we approached the Cuban coastline we started to appreciate, that we were indeed heading into a veritable tropical paradise. It was February, and we were standing on the deck with short sleeved shirts, enjoying the incredible Cuban climate. Although it still was the middle of winter, we could see the lush green vegetation of the island. The beauty of the island became more apparent as we approached its coastline. As we came very close there were many palm trees and brightly colored flowers. To our right was the outline the outline of the Malecon, a broad boulevard running along the shoreline of Habana. On our left we could see the outline of a large massive fortress with a tower. We later learned that this was the famous “El Morro” fortress from Spanish colonial times. I now know that there many more such castles and forts dispersed amongst the many colonial possessions of the former Spanish empire. As the Nyassa approached the inlet leading to the Bay of Habana, I had the impression that we were about to enter a city and country with a vastly different culture than our homeland. While we were looking forward to being here, we wondered how we would be received and how we were going to adjust to all of the unfamiliar customs. After passing through a somewhat narrow inlet into the Bay of Habana, we could see the details of the unusual beautiful architecture of the historic section of the city, known as “Old Habana.” The Nyassa docked at the right side of the Bay. Before long, Cuban customs officials boarded to examine our entry visas. About half of the third-class passengers without Cuban entry visas remained on the Nyassa, anxious to reach their ultimate destinations. Instead of debarking to the dock, the Cuban custom officials instructed us to descend into a series of boats, leaving our luggage on deck. We were told that our luggage would be examined by the custom officials and delivered to us later after we had passed 57

58

Chapter Seven

through customs and the Cuban health department. We were lowered by gangplank to the boats waiting along the Nyassa. Suddenly, my parents started to panic, remembering that they had hidden our life savings in large denominations of U.S. dollar bills inside the false bottom of a hairbrush. In our rush to leave, they had forgotten to take the hairbrush with them. My mother desperately pleaded with the Cuban officials to permit her to return to the deck to pick up just one bag. Her pleas were rejected, and most fellow passengers and officials started to suspect that there was something in the “Klein” bag that needed extra careful examination. Fortunately for us, the young blond man “Tiger” threw the bag to us from the deck into our boat. We calmed down immediately, now secure in the knowledge that we still had our life savings in our possession. Each boat held about twenty to thirty passengers and there were about ten of them. After these boats had been filled with passengers, the small flotilla crossed the Bay of Habana to a health examination facility at the other side of the Bay, where doctors at this health examination facility gave each of us a careful physical examination. They stamped our travel documents and indicated that we were now free to enter Cuban territory. We had retrieved our luggage, and bravely entered this new land with anticipation, curiosity and uncertainty. This would become our new home for the next three years. Cuba is by far the largest island in the Caribbean. It was part of the vast colonial empire of the Kingdom of Spain until the advent of the SpanishAmerican War in 1898, at which point the U.S. liberated Cuba from Spain. Cuba’s liberation was accomplished by a war of only 113 days, short by most standards. The Spanish-American War was triggered by the sinking of the USS Maine in the Habana harbor. The warship exploded under mysterious circumstances on February 15, 1898. The U.S. press reports whipped up the American public into believing that the USS Maine had been sunk by an act of sabotage under the direction of the Kingdom of Spain. The term “yellow journalism” was born during this period and is a tradition that I believe is alive and well in the present day media. The U.S. also correctly accused Spain of extensive atrocities committed against the native Cuban population. The Spanish-American war ended after quick and decisive naval and other military victories for the United States in the Philippines and Cuba. Only 113 days after the outbreak of the war, the Treaty of Paris was signed, which ended the conflict, and gave the United States ownership of the former Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam. The U.S. then took control of Cuba, ended the insurrection of the native population, expelled the Spanish and eventually granted independence to Cuba in 1902. The insurrection of the Cuban natives against the colonial rule of the Kingdom of Spain had been valiantly fought for at least two decades preceding the declaration of independence of Cuba by the U.S. The two most important

Habana from February 1942 to the Beginning of 1945

59

leaders of the Cuban insurrection were Jose Marti, who was white, and Antonio Maceo, who was a mulatto. Both of these two Cuban insurrection leaders were eventually killed in battles with Spanish troops. The people of Cuba are primarily composed of three distinct races: the original Indian population of the island; the Blacks who are descended from the African slaves; and the Spanish whites who are the descendants of the original Spanish colonizers. These three racial entities had extensively mixed over the centuries, but a substantial portion of whites of Spanish origin remained distinctly separate, and did not intermarry with the other two races. There was a small middle class which included mulattoes and mestizos. Also included in the middle class were newly arrived Spaniards who had fled to Cuba during the Spanish civil war. The white Spanish minority formed the upper class of the Cuban society. The Cuban people therefore formed a dynamic new Indo-Afro-European culture, which was sometimes referred to as Criollo. The native Cubans referred to the Spanish refugees as the “Gallegos,” meaning Spaniards from the Spanish province of Galicia. The newest group to this socio-economic class was composed of all of the Jewish refugees, called “Polacos” (meaning people coming from Poland). The political situation in Cuba in February of 1942 was quite different from that of Europe. Cuba was governed by a thinly veiled military dictatorship headed by a former sergeant of the Cuban Army, a mestizo by the name of Fulgencio Batista. He had staged a coup in April of 1933, displacing his rival Grau San Martin as president of Cuba. He was a strong man and became an effective leader in an atmosphere of rampant corruption. He was in turn displaced by Grau San Martin in 1944. After our departure from Cuba in early 1945, Batista regained power but was eventually removed again from power and fled to the United States after an insurrection led by Fidel Castro. Batista’s rule was dependent on close cooperation with the U.S. and close ties with U.S. mobsters such as Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Santo Trafficante Jr. and others. My family and I were, of course, blissfully ignorant of all of these facts when we arrived. Once we found hotel accommodations for the night my family and some of the other refugees decided to familiarize ourselves with the city. The architecture of this new land was quite different from what we had become accustomed to in Europe. We passed through Old Habana to get a closer look at the unusually interesting and very attractive buildings that we had seen from the deck of the Nyassa. The most interesting and unusual architectural feature consisted of support columns of adjacent buildings supporting ceilings that extended over sidewalks to form open air passageways. Many different kinds of stores had open air entrances along these passages. The grocery stores

60

Chapter Seven

(bodegas) sold various kinds of food and prepared their own fresh fruit drinks (batidos de leche). At night, these stores would be closed by lowering iron shutters. We frequently bought fruit drinks in the bodegas, prepared right in front of us. There was a tremendous variety of fruits available: banana, mango, pineapple, mamey, guava, papaya etc. We would choose a fruit and it was then cut into small pieces and mixed in the blender with ice cubes, milk, sugar and salt. These fruit drinks were delicious, especially on hot days. Another common sight in Habana was the sugar cane peddler. The peddler had a small wooden cart in which a few stalks of sugar cane were heaped. He would cut of a piece of sugar cane with a machete, then place a cut stalk between two rollers. He then turned a manual crank which moved the sugar cane stalk between the two rollers, squeezing out all sugar cane juice. He added ice cubes and salt. Surprisingly, this also made for a delicious drink, especially on hot days. On our first day in Habana, some of the natives noticed we were foreigners, and a small group of them followed us at a respectable distance. When we passed a fruit stand we saw some very large unusual looking green bananas. Bananas were a rare delicacy in those days in Europe, so we each bought one and peeled and ate them while continuing to walk. The group of Cubans following us broke out into convulsive laughter. We continued to walk, noticing that our green bananas did have a rather strange taste, while trying to ignore the small group following us. We continued to eat our green bananas, while trying to ignore the small group following us. We ignored their laughter but later laughed very hard ourselves when we found out that we had eaten plantains not meant to be eaten raw, but fried with sugar, and served as a dessert, or a fried supplement to a meal, like potatoes. We noted that virtually all Cubans wore their short-sleeved shirts outside of their pants. This Cuban fashion provided far more ventilation given the tropical climate. I soon adopted the same fashion, and found it much more comfortable than the European style I had become accustomed to. On the next day we started to look for an apartment in earnest. We found an attractive two-bedroom apartment on the ground floor of O Street between 25th Street and 27th Street. This apartment building was located in the Vedado section of Habana, only two blocks from the then and still now famous Hotel Nacional. As soon as we had moved into our apartment, almost reflexively and by habit we registered as applicants for an immigration visa with the U.S. Embassy. We quickly became very comfortable with the Cuban society and blended easily in. I found the Cuban people very friendly. They loved sports, music and having fun. The three major racial components on the island lived

Habana from February 1942 to the Beginning of 1945

61

harmoniously together. Although I did not know any Spanish when we entered Cuba, I was fluent in French. This knowledge of another Latin language helped me greatly in learning Spanish. In just a few days, I spoke enough Spanish to go shopping and buy the groceries for my family. I quickly and easily formed friendships with Cuban teenagers of my age, who became my voluntary guides and translators. They wanted to show me what they considered to be the most important points of interest in Habana. One evening they brought me to the red light district of Habana which was located downtown. Since I had never seen such a district before, I was duly impressed by this novelty. Another day we visited the slums of Habana. I was particularly appalled by the slum know as “El Fangito.” The sanitary conditions were atrocious, and the inhabitants lived in poverty on a scale I had never seen before in Europe. Habana also had a small Chinatown, which I had never seen before in any European city. After only a few weeks, the structural layers of Cuban society became clearer to us. We found out that being white automatically entitled us to entry into the upper class, particularly since we had some money at our disposal. We learned that this privileged upper class spent most of its free time, particularly weekends, in social clubs located on the many beaches in the Vedado and Miramar sections of Habana. Admission into these beach clubs was strictly controlled by invitation only. Soon our refugee club had selected one of these beach clubs as our gathering place to socialize. In order to become a member of one of these beach clubs, it was necessary to be examined by an admissions committee, and if invited to become a member, pay, of course, a substantial admissions fee. Most of our fellow refugees selected one particular club and applied for membership and were admitted without any problems. This particular club quickly became the weekly social meeting place for us and our friends. This beach club had many amenities: a good restaurant, a bar, a band and dance floor, tennis courts, a swimming pool, and a white sandy beach. Our parents and other members of their age group spent a good portion of their free time there, gossiping about other members of their group, playing cards and discussing the war. Soon a rumor had spread about one particular family, who had been refused membership in “our” club. At this point, I had my first encounter with the subtle racial discrimination that existed then in Cuban society. Although I have not been to Cuba for many years, it is my understanding that this subtle racial prejudice still survives to the present. The family in question had a very Jewish sounding name, and had clearly come with us from Europe on the Nyassa. However, from what we could tell, this family was refused admission because the head of the family had kinky hair. The admission committee’s opinion was that the head of this family was of

62

Chapter Seven

mixed Negro-White ancestry because of the texture of his hair. Having come from a society where a much more venal and virulent form of racism was being practiced, we found this event to be hilarious, and an unending subject of gossip and amusement. One day, about two or three weeks after we had landed in Habana, I was walking with a Cuban friend near the docks in the harbor. There was an ocean liner approaching through the passage formed by the Malecon and the Morro fortress. As this ocean liner came closer to the dock I was standing on, it started to look familiar. I suddenly realized that it was the Nyassa. More fascinating than this fact was that, looking at the passengers leaning over the handrails of all three decks, I could recognize the faces of some of these passengers as being part of the original group that crossed the Atlantic with us. I never got a chance to inquire about these passengers, whom I recall having a rather sad demeanor. Why were they still on board the Nyassa? As the Nyassa started to dock, a number of Cuban policemen appeared, and told us to leave the dock immediately. I never did find out what happened to this particular group. Years later, I saw a movie, entitled the “Voyage of the Damned,” which reminded me of this sight in the Habana harbor in March of 1942. Once settled in and having started to learn Spanish, my father made inquiries about continuing my education. He knew that I had to take some kind of a test before being accepted into the Cuban school system. This test involved, among other subjects, my command of the Spanish language. Since I did not speak much Spanish, he found a tutor to teach me the language and many other subjects as quickly as possible. This tutor was Señor Alfredo Carabot, a former captain in the antifascist army during the Spanish Civil War. He had fled to Cuba shortly before the capitulation of the antifascist forces in Spain. Prior to the Spanish civil war, he had been a professor in one of Spain’s most distinguished universities. He was an excellent teacher, and taught me enough Spanish to be able to pass an admission test and enter the Cuban school system as early as April, less than two months after I arrived in Habana. I was than provisionally admitted to attend high school (Escuela Superior de Artes y Oficios de la Habana “Fernando Aguado Y Rico”) in Habana. Another unexpected development occurred shortly after our arrival in Habana. As is well known, the highly specialized skills of cutting, polishing and setting diamonds into jewelry had developed among a Jewish colony, which was concentrated for many decades, and perhaps centuries, in Belgium. A number of people from this Belgium Jewish colony had immigrated to Cuba shortly after the Blitzkrieg in 1940. They tried to reestablish their trade immediately after their arrival in Cuba. The demand for diamonds was very high during World War II because diamonds were used by

Habana from February 1942 to the Beginning of 1945

63

both sides as replacement for the currency of the warring countries. Diamonds could much more easily be smuggled to any part of the world and serve as currency. This Belgian Jewish colony therefore lost no time in installing diamond cutting and polishing facilities. At first they hired and trained only Cubans. However, after only a few months, they realized that

April 17, 1942

64

Chapter Seven

October 14, 1942

their loss rate of raw and finished diamonds was so high that they were actually losing money by hiring Cuban Labor. When they learned of the five hundred to a thousand Jews who had arrived from Lisbon on the Nyassa, they approached us at the beach club. They offered to hire and train all of the younger members of our group as diamond cutters and polishers. The compensation they offered was based on the numbers of diamonds cut and polished daily.

Habana from February 1942 to the Beginning of 1945

65

Both my sister and I accepted their offer. We earned, as incredible as this sounds, about the equivalent of two to three thousand dollars a week, in today’s dollars. The compensation was so high because their loss rate had almost completely disappeared after they replaced their Cuban labor force with us youngsters from our refugee group. I recall we handed over this tidy sum of money to my mother every Friday. She would give us perhaps two hundred dollars as spending money for the next week. Having such a tidy sum of money at my disposal, I thought I would ask one of the very pretty Cuban girls at the beach club for a date. When I asked her in my still broken Spanish she informed me that it was customary to ask permission of the parents and, if they agreed, then she would go out with me. There was, however, one more stipulation—there would be a chaperone. I then decided to find female companionship in other ways. Some of my Cuban friends attended dances on the weekends in certain clubs in downtown Habana. On one weekend, I accompanied one of my Cuban friends to one of these dances. There were a lot of pretty girls there, and all you needed to do was ask one of these girls to dance to strike up an acquaintance without worrying about a chaperone. This required, of course, at least some rudimentary ability to dance “Salsa Cuban Style” (Rumba, Conga, Merengue, etc.) I asked one of my Cuban friends to teach these dances to me. Before long, I was pretty good and I loved the beat of the vibrant Cuban criollo music. I frequently went dancing with Cuban friends on the weekends, and met many pretty Cuban girls at those dances. The dance floor was very large, because it was located on the second floor of a building that occupied a whole city block in downtown Habana. I looked forward to those dances and meeting new señoritas on the weekends. My social life therefore was varied and exciting, now that I had more than enough dating money. After a while my parents really began to indulge themselves into an idyllic life style. My mother hired a young mulatto Cuban as our full time maid. My parents spend most of their free time at the beach club gossiping, discussing the war, playing cards and swimming. My sister and I did not really resent this setup because we were now, at the age of fifteen and sixteen, the real breadwinners of the family, and we could still enjoy a social life in the evenings and on weekends. After I began to attend high school in Habana in April 1942, I switched to a part-time position as diamond polisher. However, I still brought home a tidy sum of money every week. Our lives were settled in every way and now we turned our attention to the war raging around us. In Europe the Germans had resumed their offensive in the spring of 1942. They penetrated further south in to the Soviet Union, and intensified their bombing campaign against Great Britain.

66

Chapter Seven

Their drive into southern Russia had, as their declared goal, rolling up the southern front and taking control of the immense oil fields located in the Caucasus. However, by the summer of 1942, Britain had built its own strong bomber air force fleet, and retaliated against the Luftwaffe air raids by mass bombing some major cities in Germany. From our perspective we could now discern that the war had turned really ugly by becoming a war of total destruction in which each side tried to annihilate the other. Our interests were particularly focused on the fate of the Jews remaining in Europe. Although we did not know the details of their fate, we learned enough by reading local newspapers to discern that the European Jews were being systematically exterminated by the Nazi genocide machine. A certain feeling of guilt then began to creep into our idyllic existence at the club. Our group began to organize fundraising drives at the club. Our donations, based partly on our earnings as diamond cutters and polishers, were sent to various rescue organizations in Europe. Our feelings of guilt were, however, reinvigorated every time we read about another atrocity against the Jews perpetrated by Hitler. In the summer of 1942, Rommel, the “Desert Fox,” had succeeded in driving into El Alamein, deep in Egypt. We were also closely watching the fighting at the Russian front. From our vantage point, Germany was still on the offensive on all fronts. In the Pacific, the Japanese also scored an unbroken string of victories and occupied immense territories, such as the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma, Indochina, major portions of China, the Dutch East Indies and others. They were also very much on the offensive during the entire year of 1942. However, I believed that these initial strings of victories were due to the fact that the U.S. had not yet fully mobilized its immense industrial base, and that the fortunes of war would soon turn in the Allies’ favor. Also I noted at that time that the U.S. had invaded North Africa on November 8, 1942, and quickly took control over most of Vichy-France’s North African colonies including Casablanca before the end of 1942. During the period immediately after the entry of the United States into World War II, the Roosevelt administration was notably cool, if not hostile, to de Gaulle. The relationship between Washington and Vichy became murkier each passing day. Finally, with the Vichy leaders gone from French territory due to the US, British, and Free French invasion and advance, on 23 October 1944 the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union formally recognized the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF), headed by de Gaulle, as the legitimate government of France.

Habana from February 1942 to the Beginning of 1945

67

At the beginning of 1943, I made a quick calculation. In about two years, I would be eighteen and I could then enlist in the U.S. Army by applying with the U.S. Consulate in Habana. I would do this if they agreed to send me to fight against the Nazis in Europe. When I first expressed this sentiment to my mother she became very angry. She exclaimed: “listen I did not bring you through the hell of Nazi Europe so that you can become cannon fodder for the United States!” Since we did not have an immigration visa at that time, and since I was barely sixteen years old at that time, our argument was strictly academic. My father commented that, even I volunteered to become part of the armed forces of the United States by applying at the U.S. Consulate, given our past experiences with U.S. Consulates, the likelihood of my offer being accepted before the end of World War II was extremely remote. I enjoyed my school year in the Cuban high school. I had no difficulties keeping up with my home work while working part time as diamond polisher. I received better than average grades in all of my courses, despite the fact that I was working part time. I had quickly befriended some of the Cuban students, which greatly accelerated my fluency in the Spanish language. I particularly excelled in math, due to my excellent tutor, Señor Alfredo Carabot. In one of the math tests given that year, I actually scored first in the class. The results of each test were posted on the classroom door. When I came home and bragged to my father that I had scored first in my class, he did not believe me. I dared him to go to my high school in downtown Habana and check for himself, which he did. He bragged for weeks at the beach club about this isolated occurrence. The months went by and my sixteenth birthday was approaching. We went out on New Year’s Eve, and dined in another great restaurant, and my parents and sister wished me a happy birthday. We all gave thanks that we had been spared the Hitler genocide machine, and that we were so fortunate as to be sitting out the war in a place like Habana, Cuba. My parents predicted that the tides would turn during the year 1943, and that the war would be over by my eighteenth birthday. I expressed regret that the war could end so soon, because I still wanted to fight for the “good guys.” Throughout the year 1943, we saw many movies in Habana. The most notable that year were Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” and the mega production “Gone with the Wind.” Both of these movies were for me unforgettable. As the months went by and we were busy with our jobs, social lives, and education, we closely followed news of the war. Both of my parents had several brothers and sisters that had remained behind in Europe, and they often wondered whether they would ever see them again. The first solid

68

Chapter Seven

good news from the Pacific theatre of operations was the fall of the hotly contested island of Guadalcanal, which fell to the Americans at the beginning of 1943. In the European theatre of operations, we learned later on that the number of Jews murdered by the Waffen SS had now exceeded one million. We also learned with pride that the 40,000 remaining Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto had revolted and had put up a fight before being slaughtered. We avidly followed the news in the newsreel and newspapers. The war had rapidly and definitely turned in favor of the Allies. In my opinion the turning point of World War II came when the Soviet troops reoccupied Stalingrad—the German Wehrmacht had never completely conquered Stalingrad. They did so by surrounding the Germans in that city and taking over 90,000 prisoners of war. In North Africa, the Americans and British troops had completely routed the Germans and Italian armies and were preparing to land in Sicily. After conquering Sicily, the Allies focused on southern Italy, and began rolling up that front. Shortly thereafter, Italy surrendered and then, in short order, declared war on Germany. Mussolini, however, escaped to Northern Italy and, with the help of the Germans, reestablished a fascist government there. The mass bombing of the German cities by the U.S. Army Air Force and the British Air Force intensified during 1943. Therefore, as my seventeenth birthday approached, I felt that the war would be over by the time I was old enough to enlist. As was the custom in the Klein family, we celebrated my birthday on December 31st. I started to wonder aloud whether we should perhaps return to Vienna after the war, since it appeared that the U.S. State Department had decided to indefinitely postpone issuing us our immigration visas. During 1944, the Allies’ series of victories on all fronts continued with some isolated victories for the Axis. The Hitler genocide machine had now entered the final phase of the Final Solution. The gas chambers and ovens in Auschwitz were now working overtime, On June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Normandy signaling the beginning of the end for Hitler’s troops. However, a week later the first V-1 rocket fell on London. A week after that, an assassination attempt on Hitler unfortunately failed. Had this assassination attempt succeeded, my prediction that World War II would end in the year 1944 would probably have been correct and the lives of millions of Germans, Jews and Allies could have been spared. Something totally unexpected occurred in the fall of 1944. We received first a phone call and then a letter from the U.S. Embassy in Habana informing us that our application for an immigration visa had been granted. Frankly speaking, we had forgotten by then that we had applied to immigrate

Habana from February 1942 to the Beginning of 1945

69

to the U.S. shortly after arriving in Cuba. In view our past experience with the U.S. State Department policy of the “Breckenridge Long administration” (see photograph of the May 20, 1941, letter from Vice Consul Linton Crook in Chapter 4), we did not expect a change in position on the part of the U.S. State Department. After we had received this news, my father left just a few days later for the U.S. because one of his two sisters living there was terminally ill. My mother, however, refused to follow my father, because she correctly assumed that I would be drafted as soon as I turned eighteen, my mother believed that we were now in the dying phase of World War II and that we should wait in Cuba for World War II to end. Also, in the fall of 1944, I was about to complete my Cuban high school education and had applied to be admitted to the Engineering School of the University of Habana. My application had been accepted and I was looking forward to continue my education in Cuba. My mother’s intent therefore was for us three to remain in Cuba until the war was over and then immigrate to the U.S. or return to Austria. We were informed by the U.S. Embassy that, if the three of us still living in Cuba did not enter the U.S. as immigrants within six months after the granting of our immigration visas, we would forever forfeit our rights to immigrate to the U.S. In the meantime, I was applying to various universities and colleges in the U.S. to enroll as an engineering student, based on my Cuban High school education. I was informed that, in order or be admitted to one of these colleges or universities, I needed to take and pass a special College Entrance Examination. I once again sought the assistance of my trusted tutor, Señor Alfredo Carabot. I took some intensive courses with him in the fall of 1944. I also studied English with another tutor. Apparently, I got satisfactory grades in my College Entrance Examination, because shortly after having taken this test, I received a letter informing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) informing me that I had been accepted at MIT. Their catalogue had impressive photographs of the school located on the bank of the Charles River in Boston, Massachusetts. My mother immediately declared: “You are not going!” I then wrote a letter to MIT inquiring what would happen if I were drafted, shortly after enrolling there. I still recall promptly receiving their letter in response: “There are special draft deferments for foreign students at MIT.” After some more arguments with my mother, I finally persuaded her to contact the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Habana, and inform them that we were ready to immigrate to the U.S. They requested that we appear in person to fill out certain documents. I appeared at the U.S. Embassy on December 18, 1944, and executed an affidavit before Vice Consul Charles T. Warner to be used in lieu of a passport.

70

Chapter Seven

A copy of my affidavit dated December 18, 1944

I celebrated my eighteenth birthday, on New Year’s Eve which was also my farewell party with my Cuban friends at the Club Casablanca on December 31, 1944. The party had for me a certain déjà vu quality about it because it reminded of saying goodbye to my French friends at the St. Barnabé School in Marseille, three years earlier.

Habana from February 1942 to the Beginning of 1945

71

Club Casablanca

A few weeks after saying goodbye to all of my friends at school and to our friends at the club, the three of us boarded a plane for Miami, Florida. This was my first airplane trip. The war in Europe was now definitely in its final phase. By the time we landed in Miami, Auschwitz had been liberated by the Soviet Union, and

72

Chapter Seven

My party at Club Casablanca

the first graphic details of the atrocities Hitler had executed started to reach the West. The German Wehrmacht’s attempt at a counteroffensive at Bastogne, near Luxembourg (the battle of the Bulge), during the winter of 1944 had failed, and the entry of Soviet and American troops into Germany had begun.

Chapter Eight

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

When we landed at the Miami airport, I immediately observed a vast difference between the idyllic, peaceful life in Habana and the beehive of military activity in Miami. I observed a nation still feverishly at war. In contrast to Habana, there were uniformed men and women everywhere. Civilians were hard to find in the crowd at the airport. As I passed through customs with my mother and sister, there was a uniformed official sitting on a raised platform and, after carefully examining my papers, he gazed down at me, carefully looking me over, and said: “Welcome to the United States, we need young men like you in our armed services.” I still recall my mother’s look when he had said. It was louder than any “I told you so” she could have uttered. A few weeks after our arrival in Miami the war in Europe had formally ended, after the suicide of Hitler on April 30, 1945, and the formal surrender of Germany on May 7, 1945. The war in the Pacific appeared, however, to be far from over, due to the fanaticism of the Japanese. The bloody battles for Iwo Jima from February to March of 1945, and for Okinawa, between April and July 1945, suggested to the U.S. military that the battle for Japan proper would be even bloodier. Nevertheless, the U.S. Joint Chief of Staff had approved Operation Olympic, the invasion of Japan scheduled for November 1, 1945. The prospect of high casualties in the invasion of Japan was reinforced by the declaration by Prime Minister Suzuki on June 9, 1945, that Japan would not unconditionally surrender. White House officials estimated that a successful invasion of Japan could amount to one million casualties. In retrospect, I believe that this official estimate was deliberately exaggerated by the White House to justify the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan on August 6 and August 9, 1945. My parents and I assumed that I was going to become part of the U.S. invasion force that was to invade Japan in November of 1945. I had reported to 73

74

Chapter Eight

my local draft board shortly after our arrival, as all eighteen year olds were required to do. Only a few days after that, I was notified to take a physical at a federal building that is now a post office building located at Grand Central Station in Manhattan. A few weeks after taking the physical examination, I received a draft notice, which like all the others issued during World War II, included the following famous sentence: “The President of the United States to Arthur Otto Klein. . . GREETING: Having submitted yourself to a local board composed of your neighbors for the purpose of determining your availability for training and service in the land and naval forces of the United States, you are hereby notified that you have been selected for training and service therein.”

The notice ordered me to report at 8:00 A.M. of the morning of August 3, 1945, for induction into the U.S. Army at Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. There were about a half dozen other eighteen year olds reporting for induction that morning at Pennsylvania Station. After some introductory remarks, we were requested to raise our right hand and to repeat the military swearing in oath: “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. . .”

Given my life experiences since March 1938, I had already learned enough about the U.S. Constitution to realize that this document was the glue that held American society together. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was of particular interest to me because this First Amendment supposedly (it does, but recently certain people have more and more eroded the rights supposedly guaranteed by the First Amendment) guaranteed to every citizen the right to free speech and free assembly: “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for the redress of grievances.”

Such rights and laws were contrary to the mores and laws of the societies we had left behind in Europe. In the Europe we lived in during World War II, to express an even remotely controversial opinion was to invite arrest, particularly for a Jew. In the Europe we had left, wiretapping of telephones was a well-known method of spying on individuals. I had never known a society that granted the types of freedom that the United States did. Taking this mil-

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

75

itary oath on the morning was therefore for me a very serious and personal matter. It made a particularly strong impression on me. We had all become accustomed to having President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as our father figure. His wise leadership during the depression and his supervision and guidance of the conduct of World War II, had been accepted by most of the American people as wise and good for the U.S. and, by derivation, also good for the rest of the world. His passing on April 12, 1945, was a sad day for us all. I personally believe that, if Roosevelt were still alive on August 6, 1945, the atomic bombs would never have been dropped on Japan. This was my belief then as an eighteen-year-old, and still is my belief today, because Roosevelt was very much aware that he had become moral leader of the “free world.” The history of the atomic bomb leading up to August 6, 1945, is well known. On that day, Air Force Colonel Paul Tibbetts piloted his airplane, the Enola Gay, to arrive over Hiroshima at an altitude of 31,000 feet, and then dropped “Little Boy” on Hiroshima. The fact that 150,000 people (most of them civilians) had been killed—incinerated would be a more appropriate term—in Hiroshima that day has been exhaustively covered by the press and many authors. The atomic bomb used over Hiroshima was of the highly enriched uranium (HEU) type, whereas the more powerful atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki was of the implosion plutonium type (“Fat Man”) which “only” killed 70,000 Japanese (also mostly civilians). No one has been able to find and produce any documents to the American people during the past six decades indicating that Roosevelt had ever approved any final plans to drop the atomic bombs. As soon as Vice President Harry S. Truman assumed the presidency, he set in motion a plan to drop the two Atomic bombs on Japan, The world, including myself, knew at that time very little about this new President. Truman attended the Potsdam conference in July of 1945, and met Joseph Stalin for the first time. The Soviet Union had suffered almost 27 million casualties during World War II. Stalin therefore believed, and expressed forcefully to Truman at Potsdam, his opinion that the Soviet Union was entitled to receive the lion’s share of the spoils of war. However, Truman made it clear to Stalin at Potsdam that he did not agree with his premise. He disclosed that the U.S. had begun testing a new super weapon, and would use it to end the war with Japan. Therefore, many historians believe that the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was at least a partial attempt to impress the Soviet Union with the military might of the United States and was not really based on the necessity of avoiding excessive U.S. casualties. The Soviet Union immediately started to accelerate the development of its own atomic bomb, and succeeded to test its first bomb just four years later,

76

Chapter Eight

on August 29, 1949, less than a year before the beginning of the Korean War. So began the atomic bomb arms race, which was referred to during the cold war as the Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine (MAD). During the train ride to Fort Dix, New Jersey, I remember reading the first news about the sinking of a large U.S. warship by the name of U.S.S. Indianapolis four days earlier, on July 30, 1945, by a Japanese submarine and the subsequent drowning of approximately one thousand U.S. sailors. This news confirmed to me that the war was far from over. After arriving at Fort Dix, a very large U.S. Army camp in southern New Jersey housing several thousand U.S. Army soldiers, we were immediately ordered to change from our civilian clothes into the Army uniforms supplied to us. After we had changed, we were ordered onto a bus and transported to the barracks, which was to become our sleeping quarters for the next few days. A sergeant appeared and marched us to a nearby field to begin our first military assignment. We had to find and pick up all cigarette butts we could find in the field. I still remember the graphic orders of the sergeant: “For the next few hours, I do not want to see anything but asses and elbows until you are relieved.” That evening we were marched to a mess hall, to eat our first Army dinner. My recollection of that dinner can be summarized in two words, “not bad.” The next day we got Army haircuts and assignments similar to the day before. We were also trained to march in formation. At one of the next meals in that mess hall, I recall standing up, after having eaten my meal, and scanning over the about five hundred to a thousand other soldiers in the mess hall. While scanning this mass of soldiers in uniforms, I noticed something odd. I could not detect a single black man in this mess hall!!! Then it dawned on me. I had been drafted and was serving in a segregated army. I found this interesting, given the fact that I was drafted for the purpose of fighting the Nazis, who practiced and were advocating the most virulent and venal forms of racism in the history of Europe, which I had the good fortune to escape. I wondered if we had done the right thing by leaving Cuba where different races were living in racial harmony. The next two days were filled with training in various military drills and some of the same “military assignments” of picking up cigarette butts from the fields in Fort Dix. On the fourth day, as we were ordered to fall in to march to yet another field, an announcement came over the loudspeaker. We were told that a new super bomb, having the power of many thousands of conventional bombs, had been dropped on a Japanese city by the name of Hiroshima. The announcer predicted that this bomb would force Japan to unconditionally surrender. After a few seconds of absorbing this news, the men broke ranks, threw their helmets in the air and danced around jubilantly. After about a

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

77

minute of watching this exhibition, the sergeant took control; “Fall in!! Fall in now!! The war may be coming to an end, but you are still in the army!!” I believe that it was the next day that a select group of raw recruits were ordered on a troop train headed for Camp Rucker in Alabama. I was glad to have been chosen. There, our real basic training as combat infantrymen began in earnest. We were trained as riflemen, with the M1 semi-automatic rifle. One of the skills I was taught was to assemble and disassemble my M1 rifle while blindfolded. This M1 rifle was always to be at our side, day and night. We were also trained to use live hand grenades and bazookas. We learned how to aim and fire mortars. We learned to use gasmasks. We learned to attack tanks with live ammunition. After this exercise, the sergeant told us that, in a duel between the infantry and the tanks, the infantrymen had the advantage, because of the limited visibility of the tank crew. In order to demonstrate this point, each one of us was given a short ride in a real tank, while looking out the narrow viewing slit. We agreed that fighting in a tank, against infantry armed with antitank bazookas, had certain disadvantages. We were also trained to fire a rifle grenade mounted at the end of our M1 rifles. The firing of such a rifle grenade produced a very strong recoil which had to be absorbed by the shoulder and collar bone. Several of the soldiers were eliminated because they were unable to meet this requirement and were transferred to other units during basic training. We also learned to use the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) which has a bipod mounted on its barrel. Each of the trainees had to carry the BAR during marches. I remember the burning pain I felt when the supporting straps of the heavy BAR semi-automatic machine gun cut into my shoulder through my uniform drenched with sweat when I was unlucky enough to be chosen during a forced march that day. Finally, we were trained as sharpshooters. The target practice seemed endless. I was categorized as a sharpshooter by the end of our training, and was awarded a medal depicting a rifle on a blue background. During this phase of basic training, I discovered that I had a peculiar talent, which came to good use later in my life. The forced marches were to test our endurance to the limit. Therefore, any short break during those marches in the hot summer days in Alabama was a relief that we all longingly looked forward to. Our breaks were rarely over ten minutes long. During the break, we generally used up a minute or more to remove the heavy backpack, then later to put it on again. I learned to use the full time of the break by leaning against the nearest tree, keeping my backpack on, and to then fall asleep almost immediately, while standing up. In this way, I got an extra full minute or more of break time by eliminating the two unnecessary steps of removing

78

Chapter Eight

and then again mounting the backpack. This talent served me well in later years when I was commuting on New York City subways. Camp Rucker was located in the middle of Alabama. The temperature in August and September 1945 at Camp Rucker was frequently over 100° F. Many of us recruits frequently passed out from heat exhaustion during the long forced marches we were subjected to during our basic training. During those marches we were instructed to ignore any fallen soldiers—just step over them, and continue marching. We only noticed after a few of such incidents, that an ambulance was following us at a respectable distance. Because of the oppressive heat, we were ordered to take before each meal a salt tablet, which was provided at the mess hall tables. There was also another unidentified tablet we were ordered to take before each meal. Rumors had it that this other tablet was supposed to calm down the raging hormones of us eighteen-yearolds. During the weekends of my first few weeks at Camp Rucker, the USO organized dances with young ladies from the local population. The tables were taken out of the mess hall and a band of musicians appeared on an elevated stage. About a dozen busloads of young southern belles descended on Camp Rucker every Saturday night. They were accompanied by chaperones, armed with what resembled a billiard cue stick. The young ladies lined up on one side of the mess hall and we would choose which young lady we asked to dance. The chaperones moved around the dance floor to ensure with their cue sticks that a proper distance was maintained between the dance partners. I always looked forward to this change in our daily routine. After two of these dances I actually asked one of my dancing partners for a date the following Sunday. To my surprise she accepted. I was still learning the English language—and by necessity I was learning it very fast. When I actually met her the following Sunday in Andalusia, I realized that I had not learned English fast enough because my date spoke with a pronounced Southern drawl which I could barely understand. Needless to say I made no further attempts to date any other Southern young ladies. After about four weeks at basic training at Camp Rucker, we were informed that we would be transferred to Camp Blanding, Florida, for the remainder of our basic training. One early morning, while I was in the process of getting dressed, an officer appeared in the barracks at Camp Blanding and inquired in a loud voice: “Is there any one here who is not a U.S. citizen?” When I identified myself as a non-citizen, the soldiers in my barracks stared at me in astonishment and disbelief. The officer waited for me to get dressed and then ordered me into the back of a truck without giving me any hint of where we were going. After about a 45-minute ride, we stopped in front of a federal building in the large city of Jacksonville, Florida. This building

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

79

housed the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Florida. The officer ordered me to follow him, and we entered then an empty courtroom. He ordered me to sit down and cautioned me to stand up and when the judge would enter. Since I had not received any notice of what was about to occur, I inquired of the officer why we were here. All he said was: “You will see.” Shortly thereafter, the black robed judge entered the courtroom, the clerk of the court made the usual introduction, and I then got up and stood at attention. The judge then addressed me personally as “Private Klein,” and informed me that, pursuant to some section of the U.S. Code, the number of which I can no longer recall, I would now be sworn in as a U.S. citizen. He ordered me to raise my right hand and repeat after him the oath of allegiance, which included the following: “. . . that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law. . .”

This was the second time within two months that I swore to follow and defend the U.S. Constitution. Shortly thereafter my parents received through the mail my “Certificate of Naturalization” more than five years before they became naturalized U.S. citizens. The basic training in Camp Blanding continued the training we had received in Camp Rucker. We had to crawl on our backs through a field of barbed wire obstacles, holding onto our M1 rifle, while live machine gun fire with tracer bullets was continuously fired over our heads. We were also trained to fight at night and what to do under a sky suddenly illuminated by flares. One evening I was assigned to stand guard duty at Camp Blanding from 8:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M. at a motor pool comprising hundreds of jeeps. My orders were to pace back and forth for two hours over a designated path, while holding my loaded M1 rifle on my shoulder. If someone appeared whom I did not recognize, I was supposed to yell out twice: “Halt, who goes there?” If the stranger did not stop and respond with a satisfactory answer after the second challenge, I was supposed to shoot him!!! After having been assigned to this guard duty, I prayed for the next two hours that no one would show up to be challenged by me so that perhaps, if that person did not identify himself and respond satisfactorily, I would have to shoot. No one showed up to relieve me by 10:00 P.M., and I just continued to pace back and forth. No one appeared at 11:00 P.M. or at midnight. After midnight, I decided that I had enough and, if somebody appeared now to charge me with abandoning my post, so be it.

My Certificate of Naturalization

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

81

At about 1:00 A.M., I became so bored that I decided that this would be a good time for me to learn how to drive a stick shift jeep. The jeeps during World War II could be started without an ignition key. All of these jeeps had a stick shift. I had frequently observed, while a passenger during basic training, how the driver shifted gears and drove a jeep. I sat down on the driver’s seat of one of these jeeps and turned on the ignition. The jeep’s motor started immediately, and I began to attempt to drive around the motor pool parking lot, while learning to use a stick shift. By about 4:00 A.M., I considered myself fully capable of driving jeeps with stick shifts, and I just continued to keep awake and hone my driving skills. By about 5:00 A.M., I saw the headlights of a jeep approaching. When this jeep was close, I recognized the sergeant of the guard in this jeep. I assumed I was now going be court-martialed for having abandoned my post. However, something surprising happened. The sergeant of the guard apologized profusely to me—he had overslept. He made an on the spot decision informing me that I was not required to fall in for basic training that morning, and that I could take the day off to catch up with my sleep. The reader will soon find out that there is a second chapter to this tale. We continued our intensive basic training through the month of November 1945. I discovered that I was in better physical shape than most of my fellow soldiers. We were frequently required to do daily callisthenic workouts. These workouts were generally simultaneously performed by an entire battalion (about 800 men). A commissioned or non-commissioned officer would stand on an elevated wooden platform facing us, and lead by example the battalion in various physical exercises. One day, a lieutenant with a name spanning the whole front of his helmet—the name of each officer was prominently displayed at the front of his helmet—appeared and challenged the battalion to do pushups with him until we would drop out with exhaustion. He then made this challenge even more interesting by informing us that he would do his pushups with only arm and one hand, while we could use both of our arms and hands. This officer was built very well with bulging muscles, and looked like Superman! Not only did this officer have no problem at outlasting us, but he also counted in a loud voice the number of pushups he was doing. When he reached 40, I looked around and saw only a handful of soldiers still doing pushups. When we reached 50, there only were one or two of us left doing pushups. I then dropped out because I did not want to embarrass Superman. Toward the middle of November, as we were approaching the end of our basic training, we were drilled for a giant parade to be held in front of a two or three-star general whose name I no longer recall. I recall that we soldiers were arranged in order of size, the tallest in front and the shorter ones bringing up the rear. I was ordered into the second row from the front, and in the first row of marching soldiers facing the general. By the time the parade was

82

Chapter Eight

to start, we had learned our drills very well and I remember that we really gave the impression to this general that he had several regiments of well trained soldiers parading in locked step in front of him. When our company arrived in front of this general and the command “Eyes Right” came from our company commander, I really felt a sense pride of being a part of this well trained U.S. Army, as I paraded in front of this general, while making eye contact with him. Shortly after this parade, we were transferred to Camp Pickett, Virginia, to await our orders to be shipped overseas. If we were to be shipped to a base near or on the Pacific coast, we knew that we would serve the rest of our Army time in the Pacific theatre of operations. On the other hand, if we were to be shipped to a base near or on the Atlantic coast, we knew that we would serve in the European theatre of operations. I was therefore sitting on pins and needles for days in Camp Pickett, playing cards and otherwise whiling the time away, until my orders came. Finally, one day a non-commissioned officer came to our barracks and read off some names from a list to board a train taking us to Fort Dix, N.J. When he called out my name, I was elated because I knew that I would be returning to Europe, after a devastating war, but this time as a member of the victorious U.S. Army. After arriving at Fort Dix, I applied for a two-day pass and it was granted. I was very happy to see my sister and parents again after more than three months. While visiting them in their apartment in Brooklyn, I briefly met one of my cousins from Vienna, who had just returned from the European theatre of operations, and who was still wearing his U.S. Army uniform. He warned me that, if I crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a Liberty ship, that it would be to my advantage to grab the top hammock in my sleeping quarters. Finally, after waiting for about a week in Fort Dix, our orders arrived. These orders gave us the name of the Liberty ship and its date of departure from a dock in Brooklyn, New York—I no longer can remember the exact date of departure or the name of the Liberty ship. We were transported by trucks to the dock in Brooklyn and then boarded the Liberty ship. As soon as I got on board, I rushed below deck to grab one of the top hammocks. I soon realized why my cousin had given me this advice. The hammocks were arranged in vertical rows, and each stack had a row of four or five hammocks, suspended from hooks, one over the other. The unfortunate soldier who wound up with the bottom-most hammock was obliged to stare for most of his transatlantic voyage at the three or four hammocks suspended above him. Being assigned to the top hammock relieved some of the claustrophobic feelings from being cooped up in the bowel of the ship for such a long trip. That crossing was quite different from the crossing in the opposite direction, about three and half years earlier, on the Nyassa.

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

83

A few hours after the Liberty ship left New York harbor, we ran into a storm and the ship began to roll back and forth. I knew we were really rolling by observing the angle of inclination of a glass of water on a table. When the rolling began, I was playing cards with a few other soldiers and promptly got seasick. I lifted myself up to my hammock to ride out the storm. The next morning the sea was calmer, but I still was seasick. Meanwhile I discovered that there was no real mess hall inside of the ship. We were supposed to grab a metal tray and wait in line to receive our breakfast, lunch, and dinner, doled out to each soldier by the cook. After we received our food, we were supposed to ascend a steep flight of stairs leading to the deck, where we were supposed to find some place to sit down or stand up and eat our meal. In my case, just looking at the food in my tray made me nauseous. I started to vomit even before I reached the deck, and rushed to the railing to throw my meal into the sea while vomiting. I spent most of my time in utter misery in my top hammock. The captain of this ship had announced at the beginning of our voyage that it would take about nine or ten days to cross the Atlantic, but we were kept in the dark as to which port we were supposed to dock and disembark. I therefore impatiently counted the days and hours when we would finally reach our destination. I have no longer a recollection as to the exact date on which we left New York harbor, nor do I recall the date we landed in Europe. But looking back, I believe that I spent my nineteenth birthday on that Liberty ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, lying in my hammock in the bowels of the ship, being seasick and staring at the ceiling. After about nine or ten days of crossing the Atlantic, someone announced that he saw landfall to the right of the ship. Soon most of the soldiers on board stood at the handrail to see where we would dock and debark. We were entering a large harbor, which I recognized from what I had learned of French geography during my European school days. It was Le Havre (literally “the harbor”), which is a large French port on the Atlantic coast. To the left of our ship there was large tent city. After debarking, we were instructed to spend our first night in Europe in a tent among that tent city. I remember that I was wondering that evening how many days after D day this tent city was actually built, and how many GIs had spent their first nights there before moving to the front. The next morning we had breakfast in a mess hall where I could enjoy eating food for the first time since leaving New York harbor. We were ordered to fall in. An officer appeared before us and read off the names of soldiers which included me. Those who were called were then transported to a railroad station by truck and were ordered to board a train that had about ten rail cars. These cars were not very clean and had no compartments, with the exception of one railroad car. As the train moved out of Le Havre, we assumed

84

Chapter Eight

that we would eventually enter Germany, but we had no information as to what route we would take and where our ultimate destination in Germany would be. Sometime about midday, we were moving slowly into a town that looked familiar to me. As our train stopped at the railroad station, I immediately recognized it and the house where my mother, my sister, and I had spend a night before re-boarding the train under the control of the SS officers some five and half years before. A rush of emotion overcame me and I made an impetuous, and in retrospect, foolish decision. I was going to get my watch back, the watch that my father had given to me as a Bar Mitzvah present. I knew that I had left this watch on the dresser of our room (see Chapter 3) and I wanted it back from the owner of the house! Without thinking, I jumped off the train and ran toward the house as fast as I could, in plain view of everybody staring out of the dirty windows of the railroad cars. However, before I could reach the house, I heard running footsteps behind me. As I turned around, I noticed two MPs running toward me. They grabbed me roughly by each arm and marched me back to the troop train. I was placed into the only rail car with compartments, with an MP standing guard over me just outside. About a half hour later, I was ordered to appear before the officer in charge of the transport. Two MPs escorted me into another compartment of the rail car, where a captain was sitting behind some kind of a makeshift desk. He said curtly to me; “Soldier, I have decided that I will not wait until we get to Rosenheim, apparently our ultimate destination, but I will decide now why I should not court-martial you for attempting to go AWOL.” After a long pregnant pause, he said: “I saw the whole episode through the train window. What have you got to say for yourself?” I swallowed a couple of times and then a torrent of words started to flow out of my mouth. I essentially related to him my entire background, starting with my childhood in Vienna to the point of time when I was riding in the train he commanded to Rosenheim, Germany. He did not interrupt even once. After I had finished, he said something I still remember clearly today, “Private Klein, this story is either the most outrageous bullshit I ever heard, or you are telling me the truth. I am inclined to believe you. Soldier, if it were in my power, I would order this train to turn around and go back to your town to let you get your watch back. This case against Private Klein is dismissed. Go back to your car.” The next few hours are probably the most shocking and memorable of my life. When our troop train entered Germany, the destruction, rubble, and devastation I observed is hard to describe in words. Our train was moving south along the Rhine into Germany. We passed one town after another that was in utter ruins. On many streets there were only heaps of bricks left where formerly houses and large buildings had stood. I wondered silently how the German people could have withstood such utter devastation and the destruction

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

85

of their entire nation. My conclusion after all these years is that the fault lies probably in the character of the German people. At the next stop, I found a piece of chalk and wrote in large letters, at the urging of my fellow soldiers, “Wir schlafen nur mit einen Fräulein,” meaning roughly in translation the we will only have sex with unmarried German women, indicating that our raging hormones were still very much alive and well in our eighteen and nineteen year old bodies. At each railroad stop I could observe the tired faces of the Germans, particularly the young German women, who stared at us in wonderment, probably because they had not seen such a large collection for several years of young innocent fresh faces of enthusiastic young males who had, up to then, only superficial contact with the war. I had feelings of retribution and revenge already building up inside of me before I arrived in Germany. Lying in my top hammock on the Liberty ship in utter misery, I reflected on the past seven years of my life. By then I had learned how many aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents had perished in concentration camps during World War II. But those feelings quickly disappeared when I saw the tremendous devastation that had been rained down on Germany by the air forces of the Allies, and the sad faces of the Germans staring at us at the railroad stations. I then tried to make contact with some of these young German women, who invariably were stunned, as I leaned out of the window of the railroad car, to be addressed by an American soldier who spoke perfect German. The type of question they invariably posed while I was leaning out of the window was “Wieso sprechen Sie fließend Deutsch?” How come you speak fluently German? So I learned early on, after I had been in Germany only a few hours, that I would not have any difficulties making acquaintances with the opposite sex. Before arriving in Rosenheim, we passed through Munich, the capital of Bavaria. We were allowed to leave the train station for an hour. As I walked around downtown Munich, I had a close up look at the devastation of the buildings there and realized that it was even worse than what I had previously seen from our train on our journey. Finally, late that evening, we arrived in Rosenheim, a quaint town in southern Bavaria, which had escaped the war relatively unscathed. The first thing we were ordered to do was to strip down completely, and then stand completely naked in line to be doused from head toe with DDT white powder. As we looked at each other after this dousing, we really looked ridiculous. We resembled a long line of naked white ghosts. We were ordered to take showers and given new uniforms. We were happy to see that our sleeping quarters had fresh linens. Apparently the U.S. Army was aware that we had just come from an environment that was not very sanitary. The next morning I learned the

86

Chapter Eight

real character of the U.S. Army base in Rosenheim, namely it was a Repo Depo. This army base was responsible for interviewing, selecting, and assigning newly arrived soldiers to various units in the occupation army of the American Zone of conquered Germany. After the unconditional surrender of Germany in May 1945, the Soviet Union and the Allies agreed to divide Germany into four occupation zones. They also agreed to divide Berlin, which was located in the Soviet Zone, into four zones. A similar agreement was made with respect to the much smaller Austria and its capital Vienna. The U.S. army of occupation included initially a military government section, which had at its principal assignment to assist the civilian population in rebuilding the country and forming new administrative civil services. In addition to the military government, the Army had also as its major goal, to find and incarcerate all high Nazi functionaries. This was called at that time the de-nazification program. A U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) was formed and assigned, among other tasks, the task of de-nazification. During the first few months of the occupation, there was a fraternization ban, prohibiting any contact by U.S. soldiers with German women. This ban was studiously ignored from the start. The CIC was also responsible for reporting the presence of, and shadowing any Soviet Union vehicle that we would encounter on the roads of the American Zone. The U.S. Army would coordinate its activities with the other three occupying armies. While coordination with the British and French military governments did not present any major difficulties, coordination and cooperation with Soviet army of occupation presented major problems from the start. For a short time after the official end of the war, the military of the four occupying powers had the right to enter and drive through the zone of an Allied power without first receiving clearance. We were instructed to be particularly alert in spotting such Soviet military vehicles in the American Zone. One of my standing orders was to follow any Soviet military vehicle I encountered while driving around in the American zone until I could gain access to a phone and report its location. I was instructed to call, at the first opportunity, headquarters and await further instructions. I once spotted such a Soviet military vehicle on the Autobahn, and followed it for several hours, all the way into the British Zone. My sense of duty was such that I continued following it even when I had to relieve myself. Instead of abandoning the pursuit, I decided to wet my pants instead. Finally, when the Soviet military vehicle had finally stopped at a gas station on the Autobahn, I phoned my headquarters, while still in my wet underwear, and was instructed to abandon the pursuit and come back.

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

87

I was interviewed by several individuals and panels at Rosenheim. The interviews focused on my abilities as a linguist. Apparently, I made an impression on the interviewers, because they assigned me to the 970th Counter Intelligence Detachment of the CIC, Region III, Frankfurt. I received my travel orders the next day, and proceeded to Bad Nauheim by train. I decided to make a short unauthorized side trip to the Berghof, Hitler’s famous home located in Berchtesgaden in Bavaria. Ever since I had seen Hitler standing in his Mercedes Benz convertible parading through the streets of Vienna in March of 1938, I had wanted to learn more about this man who had so profoundly changed our lives. I was now on my own in occupied Germany for a limited period of time, so I took the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity. I hitchhiked for a while, then walked the rest of the way. When I reached the Berghof, I found all of the buildings totally destroyed. However, I could still identify the outline of a large picture window in the remnants of the main building. I believe that this picture window had been used by the Goebbels propaganda machine as a backdrop for many photos picturing Hitler over the years. I then added my name to the hundreds of other names that had been scratched into the walls near that picture window. I now had to hurry to get to Bad Nauheim so as to not be considered AWOL again. The city of Bad Nauheim was an attractive small city that had been left relatively unscathed. The headquarters of the 970th CIC Detachment was a very large and lavishly appointed house that had been confiscated by the U.S. Army. There were another two or three new arrivals reporting for duty that day. The C.O. was an amiable man with an Italian sounding name. He explained to us that we were on a probationary period, and if we were found acceptable, we would be promoted to the rank and title of Special Agent of the CIC. He then explained to us the duties and activities of the CIC. He also informed us that we would eventually be sent to the European Theatre Intelligence School (ETIS) at Oberammergau, Germany, for further training. I was assigned a comfortable room with a bed. The next thing my CO said came as a complete surprise to me. “Given your background, I assume that all of you have driver’s licenses, and know how to drive a jeep with a stick shift. Those who don’t, raise your right hand.” I noticed that none of our group of two or three new CIC members had raised their right their hand, so I decided not to, even though I had never obtained a drivers license anywhere. The CO then told us that we would be issued CIC drivers licenses and that each one of us would be assigned his own personal jeep. We were driven to a motor pool and ordered to pick up a jeep and drive back to CIC headquarters. I was at least able to that. I was now in a complete state of euphoria. Not only was I on my own, but I also had my own personal jeep at my disposal, and I spoke the language of

88

Chapter Eight

the natives. I drove through the country roads of the German landscape while daydreaming. But I had not learned to drive a stick shift jeep as well as I thought I had that memorable night when I guarded the motor pool in Camp Blanding, Florida. I promptly drove my jeep into a ditch on the side of a country road. How was I going to explain this accident to my CO at the headquarters in Bad Nauheim? I was sitting next to my jeep thinking when I noticed a German farmer in the field working a plow driven by a pair of oxen. I approached him and asked whether he could help me pull the jeep out of the ditch with his pair of oxen. He nodded his head and cheerfully helped to pull out the jeep. When I offered him some occupation money, he declined and asked me whether I had any cigarettes. The U.S. Army paid us in “occupation money” which could be used by us in the PX and other U.S. military establishments to purchase all kinds of goods that were hard to find or not at all available on the German market. The Germans used their own currency, printed under their civilian administration, which could be exchanged for occupation money in a thriving black market. After being pulled out of the ditch I decided to return and exchange my jeep for another one that had no mechanical defects. I barely made it back to Bad Nauheim, because the front alignment of the jeep had been ruined. When I finally got back to CIC headquarters in Bad Nauheim, I told them the jeep had bad brakes from the outset. I was lucky that I had discovered this while driving on a country road, because discovering the bad brakes on the Autobahn could have caused a far more serious accident. The CO at Bad Nauheim apparently accepted my explanation, and ordered someone to drive me back to the motor pool to select another jeep. From that point on I drove my jeep more carefully. When I got back to the Bad Nauheim CIC headquarters, I was told that I would be assigned to the Giessen office of the 970th detachment of the CIC. I drove myself there with my new jeep the next day to notify them that I had been transferred to that office. The drive to Giessen was short and uneventful. I quickly found the house where CIC headquarters were located. This house was also quite impressive and had been confiscated from the Germans. My new CO received me quite cordially, and had one of the German female helpers, who had been hired by the CIC for housekeeping duties, to take me to my room. This room had a large comfortable bed and a private bathroom. I unpacked, stretched out on the bed, and reflected on how incredibly lucky I had been of having survived the war and now to be in this privileged position in the occupation army. The next day I was issued a new uniform which was really an officer’s uniform with only a “U.S.” insignia and no indication of rank. Actually I learned a few days after that how privileged my situation was and how lucky I had been in escaping from Europe during World War II. The

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

89

Me in my CIC uniform

events of the months to come were so unreal, and in such contrast to the civilian life that awaited me in the U.S. after I was discharged, that it gave my nineteen year old brain a totally twisted impression of what life in the U.S. would be like. The daily routine of my life in Germany actually caused me difficulties in adjusting to civilian life in the U.S. later on. The most notable example had to do with future relationships with the opposite sex. Because of my uniform, my age, my access to what Germans considered luxury items, and my mastery of the German language, I had a tremendous advantage over my competition, and I used it. However, this advantage evaporated when I resumed my life as a civilian in the U.S. Once it dawned on me how my daily life was about to change and what was available to me. I was stunned. Not only was I driving my own jeep through occupied Germany, but I also spoke the German language fluently. I mused to myself that now I know what it must feel like to be notified that you have won the lottery. In the days to come the Giessen headquarters eventually issue me a CIC driver’s license.

Page of a copy of my CIC driver’s license

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

91

Page of a copy of my CIC driver’s license

A few days after arriving in Giessen, our CO called us in and informed us that we would be carrying side arms on duty. Each of was supplied with a fully loaded Colt revolver and holster, which we promptly mounted on our belts. This, of course, inflated even more our growing egos as members of the CIC. A few days after that our CO showed us how to fire our revolvers without actually doing so. He ordered us to go into a nearby forest and practice firing our weapons. Only on one occasion during my service, did I have the need to draw this weapon. We had been informed that a secret meeting of Nazi sympathizers

92

Chapter Eight

was going to take place on one particular night. My CO and I approached this gathering place in a hamlet near Giessen, and with our revolvers drawn, entered the premises. As it turned out, it had been a false lead. In the months after the end of the war, the German population suffered tremendous deprivations. There were shortages in everything—housing, clothing, food heating fuel and gas. As a member of the CIC, I had access to the PX, and was therefore able to purchase items that were not available to the Germans—butter, cigarettes, cheese, hard liquor, chocolates, to name a few. I did not need any of these items because they were available to me for free at the Giessen CIC headquarters. After a few days of this unreal existence, I decided to take a walking tour of the city of Giessen. There were still quite a few destroyed houses, buildings and rubble on the streets, but overall, this town had fared relatively well during the bombing raids. Giessen was a college town as was the nearby town of Marburg, but their two universities had not yet reopened. Giessen had also a large U.S. military hospital. Giessen was also a trans-shipment point for all kinds of refugees coming from Eastern Europe. During my walking tours I frequently observed large groups of refugees arriving by train to be shipped to different locations in Europe. In now a role-reversal, I thought of my own and my family’s plight as a refugees and had a great deal of empathy for these people. Perhaps the most obviously traumatized refugees, passing through the Giessen railroad station, were the German civilians who had been expelled from the most eastern provinces of pre-war Germany by the Poles. According to the stories they told to me, many of them had escaped pogroms and barely escaped with their lives. These pogroms occurred at the end of the war in a part of pre-war Germany which is now part of Poland. Another group of refugees consisted of former prisoners of concentration camps, who had been separated from their closest relatives during the war and now were roaming through Europe attempting to reunite with their families. Finally, there was also a substantial number of Jewish refugees, with whom I communicated on the basis of my passing knowledge of Yiddish. They had come out of hiding and most were trying to reach Palestine. All of these refugee groups were guarded by personnel temporarily hired by our U.S. military government for guard duty. The guards wore discarded U.S. Army uniforms dyed in black. They were recruited by the Americans from the vast number of displaced persons who roamed through newly liberated Germany in the months after the war had ended. There were also other civilian and military organizations, including the Red Cross who were assisting these refugees in various ways. The feelings of guilt which my family felt while living in Cuba, now repeated themselves in me, as I observed the

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

93

groups of refugees passing through the Giessen railroad station. These feelings drove me time and again to visit this trans-shipment point for refugees. After having purchased my weekly allotment of luxury items, I frequently would visit the refugees and give them some things they needed, after listening to their horror stories. On one occasion, when I gave a family what rations I had to offer, I was nearly assaulted by other refugees who had not received anything from me. Obviously, I did not have enough for everybody, so the next time I visited the trans-shipment center, I simply gave my rations to the Red Cross for distribution. Before long, while residing in Giessen, I noticed that an impressive house across the street from CIC headquarters was used as some kind of a nightclub. We saw officers of both sexes enter and we could hear music playing until the wee hours of the morning. My fellow CIC agents became curious about these activities in this nightclub and began making inquiries about it. As it turned out, this nightclub was operated by the administration of the large U.S. military hospital in Giessen. It was to serve as a rest and recreation facility for the hard working hospital staff. During World War II, U.S. Army medical doctors and nurses were automatically granted officer status, and the nightclub across the street was their club for unwinding from their difficult daily routine. Our CO approached the hospital administration and negotiated admission privileges for us CIC members. This ushered in an even more privileged phase of my career in Giessen. This nightclub had even more abundant supplies of luxury items than you could purchase at the PX. Every evening, a band of four or five German musicians would appear, and play what I nostalgically refer to today as real dancing music. It was my understanding that they were not only paid with German currency, but also received a weekly bonus of various kinds of consumer products, which could only be found at a large U.S. hospital at that time. There was a modest membership fee but the drinks and food were free, and so a large amount of both alcohol and food was consumed each night. I socialized with many of the male officers. Most of them had German girlfriends, who were delighted to have access to such a luxurious place. They undoubtedly benefited in many ways from their liaisons with these officers. After a few weeks, I learned that most of the officers were married, and some even had children back home. I met many attractive young German women during my daily routine, and easily befriended some who I invited for dates to the club. One evening I visited the nightclub with one of my German girlfriends and noticed a drastic change in the mood of the officers. Many of them, who had participated in bacchanalian revelry every night, were now sitting by themselves, staring glumly into their drinks. I danced for a few minutes, virtually alone on the

94

Chapter Eight

dance floor. Finally my curiosity got the better of me, I excused myself from my girlfriend and sat down at one of the tables with some officers where they were drinking. I asked what had happened to so completely change their mood. An order had come down from headquarters that day, advising all doctors and nurses, that those of them who were married would be joined in a few days by their spouses. The party was over! After the wives joined their husbands at the hospital, their visits to the nightclub were much less frequent. I also found the decorum at the nightclub less inviting and even boring, particularly when I was in the company of my German girlfriend, and the officers were with their wives. After that, I visited the nightclub only on rare occasions. My work in the first few months at Giessen primarily involved reading and translating German documents into English. One of my duties was to compile dossiers on certain high Nazi officials, once they had been identified. The CIC was only interested in examining high ranking former Nazis that may have information that could be useful to the Allies. Any former member of the SS was automatically a suspect. Once we had identified and located one of them, we brought him in for interrogation. A special room in the Giessen headquarters was set aside for such interrogations. It was a bare room with a table and a few chairs at one of side of the table. A single chair was set up on the opposite side of the table. The German SS had made identifying former SS members a relatively easy task, because most, if not all SS members had a small identifying tattoo under one of their arms. I was acting only as the translator during such interrogations, which could become pretty rough when the suspect was obviously lying. However, there never was any actual physical torture of the suspects. Looking back, I truly don’t know whether I would have continued to participate in any interrogation technique involving torture, or whether I would have chosen to request a transfer out of the CIC. We uncovered quite a few high-ranking former Nazis during this period, so we considered our mission successful. Another group of Germans that we were trying to locate were former members of the SD (Sicherheitsdienst), which can be roughly compared to today’s CIA. The reason we were interested in finding them was that they had performed many clandestine tasks during the war, and had penetrated the intelligence services of both the Allies and the Soviet Union. We were, of course, interested to learn as much as possible about their espionage techniques. As the grim winter of 1945/1946 was ending, I noticed the first signs of the economic recovery of West Germany (Germany’s economic miracle). One of the first industries springing into action was the organized removal of the enormous amount of rubble and the recovery of the bricks that could still be used for rebuilding. The Germans had little or no access to gasoline during

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

95

the first months of the post-war period. One day I was driving on the Autobahn in my jeep, when I noticed in my rear view mirror, a Volkswagen approaching. Such a scene was extremely rare in these days on the Autobahn, and I carefully watched this vehicle as it passed me. I noticed that a metal barrel had been welded onto the roof, and metal pipes were connected from the metal barrel to the motor under the hood. My curiosity got the better of me and decided to find out more about this vehicle. I could barely catch up and pull the driver over because of the very high speed he was driving. Finally, after we both had stopped on the side of the road, I asked the driver where he got the gasoline for the Volkswagen. This middle-aged civilian explained that he was not using gasoline, but a combustible mixture was being “cooked” in the metal barrel on the roof and fed through the pipes into the motor under the hood. I then inquired who taught him to rig up such a construction and he responded that he was an engineer, and had figured it out himself. When we parted company, I was scratching my head in wonderment over the engineering skill of an average German civilian. The Giessen headquarters had a female black cocker spaniel who was pregnant. She gave birth to four adorable puppies that winter and I asked my CO if I could adopt one of them. He acquiesced, and I now also had my own dog. When he was just a few months old, I taught him to sit next to me on the passenger seat of my open jeep while I was driving. I can still see him today, sitting there with his long black ears flopping in the wind, as we drove through the German countryside during the spring of 1946. One day I received a letter from my mother that a nephew of hers and my first cousin wanted to meet me. His father owned a large farm in Czechoslovakia during the pre-war years, and I had spent several summer vacations on that farm. He had an older brother and sister, and all three were there when I had visited them during my summer vacations. I had fond memories of these vacations, and in particular, of my kind female cousin by the name of Borishka. I wrote him a letter letting him know that I would meet him at a railroad station of a town near Giessen. I waited at the station in my jeep. I finally saw him approaching. His name was Pali, and he was a tall goodlooking young man with an athletic built. We embraced, and I asked whether I could take him out for lunch at a nearby German restaurant, which had recently opened for business. When I gave our order to the waiter in German, my cousin looked away. After the waiter left, I asked why he had deliberately ignored the waiter and he opened up. He said: “I can not bear looking at them.” I had already learned previously that Pali had spent some of the war years in Auschwitz and other concentration camps in Eastern Europe. But what he told me next shook me to the core. He graphically described the years he had spent in Auschwitz and his near starvation during those years. He had

96

Chapter Eight

witnessed his sister Borishka being executed by hanging because she had tried to escape from the concentration camp. Then came another blow, Borishka had been pregnant when she was hanged. After his visit, I have often thought about what he had revealed to me. It haunts me to this day. Sometime in the late spring of 1946, my CO called me into his office and informed me that a CIC member was needed to staff a small satellite office in the nearby town of Alsfeld. Alsfeld was a town of about 15,000 people and about 30 kilometers from Giessen. I brought my dog and my luggage and reported for duty there. I was instructed to report to the military government U.S. Army officer there, a captain from Erie Pennsylvania. The captain was an amiable young man who was about 30 years old. We immediately formed a warm camaraderie. Although my official duties did not involve assisting the captain, he frequently used me as a translator when communicating with the German civilian population. The mayor (Bürgermeister) of the town reported to this captain, and I functioned frequently as the translator during the meetings. I also translated for the captain when he communicated with the small local police force. Throughout this period I witnessed the first small steps of the recovering German civilian population as they were learning to administer themselves in preparation of the departure of the U.S. Army. My official duty as a CIC member was to show my face in Alsfeld and the surrounding hamlets, to let the civilian population know that the U.S. Army of occupation was still there. I therefore spent many hours during the spring and summer of 1946 driving my jeep through the German countryside with my dog at my side. I often reminisce about those sunny days in West Germany with very fond memories. The military government captain and I lived in an attractive German house, which was much too large for the two of us. The house had a fully staffed kitchen and, of course, a housekeeper, with several assistants, who were superfluous, but who were glad to have a job with the U.S. Army. Being employed by the U.S. Army military government included room and board. This translated into ample supplies of all kinds of food, cigarettes, liquor and other luxury items. The employees of our little domain were therefore very happy and intent on pampering the two of us whenever they had a chance. The captain liked classical music. After discovering I liked it too, he hired a piano player and a violinist. During dinner each night we were treated to excellent performances by these two accomplished musicians, who played for us music by Mozart, Liszt, Chopin and others. Whenever I walked through the town of Alsfeld with my cocker spaniel, it was like something out of a Hollywood movie. My dog had the habit of running several hundred feet ahead of me. Therefore, when I walked through the

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

97

town, my cocker spaniel announced to the Bürgermeister, the few policemen and the inhabitants of Alsfeld that the “translator” was approaching. I could tell that they knew that I was coming around the corner by their overly friendly greeting. This kind of life gave me the artificial expectations of what life would be like when I returned to the U.S. The disappointment of real life in the U.S. after this pampered existence took quite an adjustment on my part. This idyllic summer in Alsfeld passed by much too quickly, and another chapter was about to begin. During a weekend in Giessen, my CO informed me that I had been assigned to take a course which was being taught to all CIC agents at the European Theatre Intelligence School (ETIS) in Oberammergau. When my travel orders came through, I handed my dog over to one of the housekeeping staff with instructions to take good care of him and took the train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The world famous town of Oberammergau is located near a well known ski resort of an alpine town by the name of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Oberammergau is a small quaint alpine village, located in a beautiful and picturesque part of the Bavarian Alps where the world famous passion plays are performed every ten years. Once in Garmisch, I took the opportunity to walk around the town. It had almost completely been spared by the Allies, and was therefore an unscathed typical Alpine resort town with hotels, guest houses, and all of the other facilities that European ski resorts have to offer. Several Bavarian restaurants had already opened, and therefore these were great places to take someone out for dinner. Garmisch was located in a valley surrounded by a magnificent alpine mountain range. The tallest mountain peak in Germany, the Zugspitze, formed part of this range. A rack and pinion railroad would transport skiers to the top of the Zugspitze, where there were skis for rent, but were offered to the U.S. Army personnel free of charge. I frequently went skiing there during my stay at ETIS, although I found the thin air at the top of the Zugspitze hard to adjust to. I took a bus to the ETIS school, thinking that no matter how bad my accommodations there were would be, I could always escape to Garmisch on the weekends. When I arrived at ETIS, I found a beautiful alpine valley with green meadows, flowers and cows everywhere. The cows had bells hanging around their necks that made a soothing and tranquilizing sound all day long until the sunset. At sunrise the peaceful sound began again. These bells also served as my alarm clock every morning. One particular oddity in this idyllic scene was that this beautiful valley was actually used as a V-1 and V-2 factory during the war. A large tunnel had been bored into one of the mountain sides, and when I entered that tunnel, I could still see the remnants of some V-1 and V-2 rockets.

98

Chapter Eight

There were two large buildings there, one was our sleeping quarters and the other housed the various classrooms. There were several smaller buildings, probably housing teachers and/or officers. The large obligatory flagpole was also there for the purpose of the daily raising and lowering of the flag every morning. I was assigned a room, which I shared with another German speaking student. Classes started the next morning. A large percentage of the teachers at ETIS were fluent in German. Some of them were German Jews and attained fame and fortune in the United States later on in life. The courses were so interesting that I never got bored listening to the lectures. Some of the courses focused on the history of Nazi Germany. Other courses focused on the history of the Soviet Union, and its past and present political and governmental organizations. On the weekends, we were free to visit surrounding towns and points of interest. One of the towns I frequently visited was the beautiful nearby Austrian town of Salzburg. On one of these visits I decided to make a quick side trip and visit the city of my birth, Vienna. This had to be a quick visit, because I had to report back to ETIS that evening. I took the train from Salzburg to Vienna, and after an about two hour train ride, I arrived at the Westbahnhof in Vienna. I walked over to the same track where I had said goodbye to my mother and sister Ilse, eight years earlier, when I was leaving for Luxembourg at the age of eleven. I reminisced how strange life had really been for me. Vienna looked somewhat shabby to me, despite the many different and colorful military uniforms I encountered on the streets. Compared to the damage I had seen when first entering Germany, the damage caused to Vienna by bombing was considerably less. After exiting the Westbahnhof, I went down the Mariahilferstrasse. I had just enough time to take a few photographs to send back to my parents and to get back to the Westbahnhof and then to Garmisch by train. I made several other visits to Vienna with my wife in the decades to come. On one of these visits she decided that it was time for me to revisit the apartment on the Otto Bauer Strasse where I had grown up. We bought a box of rich Viennese chocolates, with the intent to give them to the present occupants of our former apartment. As we were ascending the steps to our former apartment, we encountered an elderly gentleman. He inquired of me in German: “May I help you?” I then informed him that I used to live here before the war and that I just was trying to show my wife our former apartment. He then asked me whether I was Jewish. When I responded in the affirmative, he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and showed me the numbers that had been tattooed on his forearm while he was in a concentration camp during the war,

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

99

while saying: “So am I.” He then introduced himself as Mr. Goldmünz and that he was the present owner of the apartment building. He knocked on the door of our former apartment and informed the present occupants about the purpose of our visit. We then entered our former apartment. It was an eerie feeling to show my wife our former apartment, it seemed so small. I stopped at the window where I had observed Hitler entering Vienna in 1938 and described to my wife the scene I recalled. The present occupant of the apartment then asked me a strange question: “In which direction was he traveling?” I pointed out the direction with my right hand. Was he testing my truthfulness? After the visit to my former apartment, Mr. Goldmünz invited us for a cup of coffee in the Café Gloria located in the same apartment building. After that meeting, we said goodbye to Mr. Goldmünz. A few weeks later we received a package from Vienna. It was a “Sacher Torte” from Mr. Goldmünz. I am still in touch with this kind aging gentleman. The prank I am about to relate is something I am really ashamed of today. My roommate and I got really drunk in a local pub one evening, while we were still attending ETIS. We then took a ride through the sleepy town of Oberammergau in one of the jeeps that had been assigned to us. We had stayed in the pub until well after midnight. Both of us had grown up under the Nazis, and therefore we were thoroughly familiar with all of their songs. When we left the pub, we were quite drunk and it was well after midnight. The town of Oberammergau was asleep. My roommate then had the bright idea that we should loudly sing the Horst Wessel song (“Die Fahne hoch, die Reihen fest gescloßen. . .”) as we drove through the darkened town in our jeep. We did, and some lights came on and windows were opened. Those inhabitants of Oberammergau that were awakened that night by us must have indeed been shocked to hear that song sung by two drunken “Amis” driving through their town in a jeep in the middle of the night. I wish to apologize to them retroactively today. After the graduation ceremony at the ETIS, I took the train back to Giessen. I was glad to be reunited with my friends and especially with my dog. The time was rapidly approaching when I had to make an important decision—I either had to reenlist, or I would be discharged in a few months. I was leaning toward reenlistment, but I wanted badly to see my parents and sister again. However, something unexpected happened that made that decision for me. My immediate CO was 1st Lieutenant Leslie J. Doan, from Nogales, Arizona. He was a Westerner, and had the build and good looks of a cowboy. We often conversed in Spanish, which he spoke fluently, apparently because of the close proximity of his hometown to the Mexican border. He was about ten years older than me. He criticized my work at times, but his criticism was always fair and constructive. I respected and admired him tremendously. Some-

My ETIS club membership certificate

My graduation certificate from the ETIS

102

Chapter Eight

time in the middle of December 1946, he ordered me to drive another Special Agent by the name of Reinhard Kieffer to Frankfurt-am-Main to be shipped back to the U.S. for discharge. I recall that it was late afternoon when we arrived in Frankfurt and, after saying goodbye to Special Agent Kieffer, I was in a hurry to get back to Giessen. On the way back the sun had completely set and I ran into a heavy rainstorm, which slowed me down considerably. After exiting the Autobahn at the Giessen exit, I was driving through the rainstorm on a country road paved with stones. Such a surface can become very slippery in a driving rain. I approached a curve in the road at a high speed and, as I came around the curve, I suddenly noticed through my headlights a large U.S. Army truck parked in the road. I recall two black soldiers, of the then still segregated U.S. Army, leaning against their truck in the driving rainstorm and carrying on a conversation with two German women. When I put my brakes on, my jeep started to skid directly into their truck. The next thing I remember was lying in a gurney in a hospital with the sleeve of my right arm of my uniform rolled up. There was a needle in my arm and my uniform was soaked from the rain and also from my bleeding. I was obviously getting a blood transfusion. As I became more conscious I became aware that I had apparently ruptured a major blood vessel in the accident, and had bled profusely before an ambulance had arrived. After a few more minutes of lying on the gurney, I started to recognize some of the faces of the doctors and nurses I had met in the officer’s club and I then realized that I was at the Giessen military hospital. There were a number of nurses and doctors hovering around me and addressing me by my first name. Soon I was transferred to a private room. I was told that I had not broken any bones in my limbs, but had broken my nose and cheekbone, and that I had a severe concussion. After a while of letting this all sink in, I asked to go to the bathroom. That request was denied, and I was supplied with a bed pan. The next day I asked again to be helped into the bathroom and my request was denied again. Finally, on the third day, I was permitted to go to the bathroom, and realized why I had not been permitted to do so sooner. When I looked in the mirror I saw what can only be described as the barely recognizable outline of my facial features. The swelling in my face was horrendous and gave me a grotesque appearance. However, after a few days the swelling in my face faded and my face gradually returned to normal. After about a week at the hospital, I was discharged and returned to Giessen headquarters. My curiosity of what happened the night of my accident led me to look for my jeep, which had been towed to a fenced in area near Giessen. The jeep body had buckled in the middle and the front seat and floor were covered with dried blood. When I saw the wreck, I realized how strong the impact with the truck had really been and that I was lucky to have survived.

You Are in the Army Now (Beginning of 1945 to March 1947)

103

When my CO saw me for the first time upon my return from the hospital to Giessen headquarters, he made an on the spot decision for me. He thought that I had enough military service, and that I should be discharged. First he granted me a two-week leave during which I visited Luxembourg and Paris. It was during this two week leave that I celebrated my twentieth birthday alone, without my family that I missed so much (see Chapters 2 and 3). This was the next time in the winter of 1946 that I visited Paris after our brief stopover in the summer of 1940. This time I wore the uniform of a special agent of CIC which was an officer’s uniform without an insignia, which was customary for US Army counter intelligence agents (CIC) stationed in Europe. I noticed the stark differences the passage of six years had made on Paris. There were more people and more activity in the streets. The streets and shops were lit. I observed laughing crowds of soldiers, sailors and civilians made up of many different nationalities belonging to the victorious armies of the Allies. Many of them were accompanied by French women. I passed by the same hotel on the “Les Champs Élysées.” This hotel had now been taken over by the US military, again as a hotel reserved for officers. After I had been I waved into the hotel by the doorman, I noticed once again the wet bar from the hotel lobby. Instead of the German officers loudly talking with women, I now saw a large number of US Army officers who were drinking loudly laughing and talking to each other. Most of these officers were in the company of one or more well dressed French women with whom they attempted to carry on, with little success, conversations in English. As I exited this hotel, I made a mental note to myself how ironic life can sometimes be. This was also the first time that I visited Luxembourg sine 1940. As I walked through the square in front of the Luxembourg railroad station, I scanned the square to observe any policeman who might have his “beat” on the square. Sure enough, I noted that “my” Luxembourg policeman was still stationed on the square as he had been six years ago. I stepped up to him in my US Army Officer’s uniform and asked him in Luxembourgerish whether he remembered me. He became very befuddled and nervous, apparently because it must have been highly unusual for an American Soldier to address a Luxembourg policeman in fluent Luxembourgerish. He asked me whether we have ever met before. I responded in the affirmative, and then described the ear-dragging scene from six years before. He, of course, denied that he recognized me and declared that he would never have done such a thing anyway. I then reminded him of my daily routine six years before of walking to school while reading a newspaper and how severely he had criticized my routine at that time. As I described our first encounter, I suddenly noticed a flash of recognition in his face. He then became so befuddled that he began to stutter. I then felt some sympathy for him, because I had had my “revenge.”

104

Chapter Eight

When I returned from my leave in the early part of 1947, my CO gave me my travel orders to return home by air transport. When the day of my departure finally arrived, I had really mixed feelings about leaving Giessen. Leaving my dog was the most painful. I kissed him and embraced him one last time with tears in my eyes, and told the German housekeeper to take good care of him for the rest of his natural life. Then I said goodbye to my comrades, took my bags, and was driven to the Frankfurt railroad station, where I got on the train for Paris. I flew home from Paris in a military plane. Our first stop was the airport in Reykjavik, Iceland. It was so bitterly cold there that, while walking the short distance from the airplane to the nearest Quonset hut, when I spat to clear my throat, I noticed that my spit froze in mid-air. The next stop was a U.S. Army base in Gander, Newfoundland and then to Westover AFB in Massachusetts. I then took a train to Fort Hollabird, Maryland, where I was eventually discharged. The years after my discharge in 1947 were at times very difficult for me. My attempt to re-enroll at MIT failed, because in 1947 there was still a long list, made up mostly of World War II veterans, who had been discharged before me and were waiting their turn to be registered by MIT under the GI Bill of Rights. I was entitled, as all other World War II veterans, to all of the benefits offered to returning veterans under this G.I. Bill of Rights. This law was a social engineering tool, which tremendously benefited not only the World War II veterans, but also the country as a whole. After I realized that I would have to wait several years before I could reenroll at MIT, I enrolled at the NYU School of Engineering, and graduated in 1952. I then enrolled in night school at the Brooklyn Law School because I could no longer afford to go to school without also earning a living. I graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1958. A few years later, I took the examination to be admitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and passed it the first time. Being a member of the NY Bar then automatically entitled me to become a Registered Patent Attorney. Based on these professional qualifications, my linguistic abilities, and hard work, I started to develop an International Intellectual Property law firm. This law firm was eventually destroyed by third parties by means involving the employment of illegal and unconstitutional means. In doing so they succeeded in destroying my professional career. But this will be subject of a second book.

Epilogue

The taking of the military oath “of defending the constitution” on the morning of August 3, 1945, was for me personally a very serious matter, and made a particularly strong impression on me that day. To take this oath again two months later, when I was sworn in at the federal courthouse in Jacksonville, Florida as a U.S. citizen, reinforced my belief to defend the U.S. Constitution was a cause to keep fighting for. I have often thought in recent years that, if the founding fathers who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were to analyze what has happened to their creations in today’s America, they would consider the present form of governing the American people as evidence that their dream of creating a new, more just society has now morphed into a failed experiment. Shortly after being discharged, I noticed persistent itching in both of my legs. I would continuously scratch myself to the point of bleeding. After that, I developed numbness on the left side of my face and the left side of the roof of my mouth. I started to suspect that these symptoms had something to do with my accident in Giessen, Germany. I then went to the VA for an examination. A VA doctor, after a thorough examination, diagnosed me as having possibly a brain tumor. Many examinations and X-rays later, the VA determined that this was a false diagnosis. A few years later, during a routine physical checkup, the lab came back indicating that I had an abnormal liver function test. Some years after that, a routine blood test indicated that I tested positive for hepatitis C. Then began an excruciatingly painful progressive disease called multiple peripheral neuropathy, which lasted several decades. This disease involves the gradual loss of sensation in your hands and feet. Today I have no longer any sensation in my hands and feet. I argued for decades with the VA that my multiple peripheral neuropathy is traceable to the blood 105

106

Epilogue

transfusion I received at the Giessen military hospital in 1946. On November 10, 2005, nearly fifty nine years after I had received the blood transfusion, the VA finally agreed with me and awarded me a 60% disability. However, the payment of disability compensation is only—pursuant to law—retroactive for five years.

Index

Admiral Doenitz, 49 American Consulate, 40, 41 Anschluss, the, 1, 2, 5, 6, 10, 15 Auschwitz, 39, 71, 95 Austria, country of, 2, 3, 5, 69 Austro-Hungarian Empire, the, 3 Balaton, Lake of, 3 Bayonne, city of, 29, 31, 32, 36 Bermuda, country of, 54, 55 Biarritz, city of, 31, 32 Brooklyn, city of, 4, 82 Brooklyn Law School, 104 Budapest, city of, 2, 3 Bukovina, province of, 3 Casablanca, city of, 53, 70 Castro, Fidel, 59 Chamberlain, Neville, 15 Chaplin, Charlie, 50 Churchill, Winston, 35 CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps), 12, 86, 87, 88, 89, 92, 96, 103 Crook, Linton, 40, 44, 56, 69 Cub Scouts, 3, 4 Cuba, country of, 27, 43, 45, 50, 51, 56, 58, 59, 61, 69, 75, 88, 92, 93, 94 Cuba, Republica De, 21

Czechoslovakia, country of, 3, 15, 95 Czernowitz, city of, 3 D-Day, 83 De Gaulle, Charles, 20, 21, 66 Épernay, town of, 24 ETIS (European Theater Intelligence School), 87, 97, 98, 99, 100 “Final Solution,” the, 28, 68 Frank, Otto, 43 Gauloises, 18, 19 Goebbels, Joseph, 45, 87 Goering, Hermann, 28 Habana, city of, 50, 51, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65, 67, 68, 69, 73 Hitler, Adolph, 1, 2, 5, 15, 67, 72, 73, 87, 99 Hitler Youth, the, 6 Hungary, country of, 3 Japan, country of, 46, 49, 73, 75, 76 Japanese, the, 46, 66, 73, 76

107

108

Index

Jewish, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15, 39, 50, 61, 63, 98 Jews, the, 2, 3, 5, 64, 66, 68, 98

Prague, city of, 3 Prisoners-of-war, 17, 19, 29, 44 Quakers, the, 36, 37

Kristallnacht, 12 Libya, country of, 36, 39 Lisbon, city of, 21, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 64 Long, Breckenridge, 40, 43, 44, 69 Luftwaffe, the, 26, 30, 66 Luxembourg, city of, 11, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 34 Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 37, 49, 72, 98, 103 Luxembougerish, language of, 11, 103 Madrid, city of, 46, 47, 48 Maginot Line, the, 17 Mariahilferstrasse, the, 1 Marseille, city of, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 43, 45, 49, 53, 70 Miami, city of, 71, 73 MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 69, 104 Mussolini, Benito, 20 Nazis, the, 50, 67, 75, 76, 94, 99 Nyassa, the, 45, 59, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 64, 82 NYU School of Engineering, 104 Occupied France, 27, 28 Otto Bauer Gasse/Strasse, 1, 98 Paris, city of, 24, 25, 26, 103, 104 Pearl Harbor, 46 Pétain, Maréchal, 20 Pogroms, 13

Refugees, 11, 59 Rommel, Erwin, 44, 66 SS Guards, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 48 Sauf Conduit, 41, 42, 43, 48 Spanish Civil War, the, 21 Swastika(s), 2, 4, 5, 7 “The Great Dictator,” 50 Truman, Harry S., 75 U-Boats, 49, 52 U.S. Army, the, 67, 68, 74, 76, 82, 85, 86, 88, 92, 93, 96, 97, 102, 103, 104 U.S. Consulate, the, 39, 44, 67 U.S. Embassy, the, 5, 6, 15, 21, 68, 69 USPTO (U.S. Patent & Trademark Office), 104 U.S.S. Maine, the, 58 United States, country of, 4, 5, 7, 36, 43, 56, 59, 67, 73, 74, 98, 101 Vichy-France, 20, 21, 32, 35, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42, 43, 46, 53, 66 Vienna, city of, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 12, 21, 24, 34, 49, 68, 82, 87, 98, 99 Vienna Woods, the, 3, 4 Visas, Cuban, 21, 27, 43, 48, 57 Waffen SS, 28, 68 Wannsee, Conference of, 29 Wehrmacht, the, 25, 29, 31, 32, 33, 44, 45, 68, 72 World War I, 2, 4, 19, 20 World War II, 15, 16, 21, 30, 40, 49, 62, 66, 67, 68, 75, 81, 85, 88, 93, 104