Oral history interview with Anna Weiss
Transcript
- My name is Gail Schwartz.
- Today is November 2, 1990.
- I am here to interview Anna Weiss, who
- was a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust.
- I am doing this under the auspices of the Oral History
- Project Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington.
- The purpose of this interview is to add
- to the oral history of the Nazi Holocaust
- so that, through this living memorial,
- future generations will know what happened.
- With this knowledge, hopefully we
- can prevent any such occurrence in the future.
- Please tell me your name.
- I'm Anna Weiss.
- And your maiden name?
- My name maiden name was Loewi.
- And where were you born?
- I was born in Graz in Austria.
- And when were you born?
- In January of 1911.
- January what?
- January 26, 1911.
- When you were a little girl, who made up your family?
- There were my parents.
- And I have three brothers.
- What were your parents' names?
- Otto Loewi and Guida Loewi.
- And my mother's maiden name was Goldschmiedt.
- And then I had three brothers, my oldest brother Hans,
- who is now living in Upstate New York.
- And I'm the second child.
- Then comes my next brother, Victor, who lives in Argentina,
- and my youngest brother, Guido, who lives in Bangkok.
- What kind of education did your parents have?
- What kind of families did they come from?
- My father's father was a wine dealer
- in the Rhine area, Rhineland.
- He had a vineyard and was dealing with wine and with wood.
- That mostly went together in the world, wine and wood dealer.
- And my mother's father was a professor of chemistry in Prague
- and then in Vienna.
- My father himself was a professor of pharmacology.
- And my mother was educated at home,
- like what they call in Germany [GERMAN], which means--
- it wasn't all of high school, but it was a lot of languages.
- It was music.
- She played the piano very nicely,
- general pleasant young girls' education.
- She never learned a profession.
- And she didn't need it, married very young.
- And that was that.
- How would you describe the social status of your family?
- Were you middle class, upper class?
- Well, university was upper middle class, I think.
- Yeah.
- And what kind of neighborhood did you live in?
- Was it in the city itself?
- It was.
- Well, the city is very small.
- Graz had 150,000 inhabitants when I grew up there.
- And the big part was the university.
- And we lived right behind the university.
- And there were private homes there, bigger than here.
- I mean, the whole thing was a little bigger
- and more elaborate.
- So you lived in a private home?
- Yes, I grew up in a private home.
- And how religious were your parents?
- Were they in any way observant?
- None at all, no.
- None at all, neither my father nor my mother, none of them
- were brought up that way.
- My father was bar mitzvah because his uncle insisted,
- not his parents, none of my brothers was.
- So you as a child did not observe any of the holidays?
- We did not observe any holidays.
- However, in Austria, you had to have religious instruction
- in school.
- Everybody had to, Protestants, Catholics, Jews.
- You had to have a grade in your report card.
- And so we always, for 12 years of school,
- we had religious instruction.
- Was this religious instruction after the school day
- or during the school day?
- That depended on how it could be arranged.
- Sometimes it was in the afternoon in the school.
- During elementary school, my father
- had to hire somebody who came to the house.
- It was usually a Jewish student who
- did this and who made a little money this way.
- And he came to the house and taught us.
- Do you remember what he taught you?
- Well--
- What kind of things?
- --biblical history, of course, and what
- they called Hebrew, which, of course, wasn't anything.
- They taught us to translate certain prayers interlinearly,
- which means you say two Hebrew words
- and then you say the two German words
- and then you do the next two words and the next two words.
- And you never know which is which.
- You don't learn the language.
- It absolutely made no sense.
- And I officially, later on, when I was in high school, refused
- to do it.
- The rabbi, who then was teaching us,
- and to whom I was very important because I was my father's
- daughter, said, but why don't you ever prepare your lesson?
- And I said, because I'm not learning anything.
- If you would teach us Hebrew, I'd sit and study.
- But I'm not learning Hebrew.
- I'm not learning anything, and I'm not
- sitting down and doing this.
- And he said, oh, had I only known.
- But it didn't change anything.
- So I never did.
- I never learned that.
- Did you grow up in a Jewish neighborhood?
- No.
- So your neighbors were predominantly non-Jewish?
- I think one was Jewish, but it never made a--
- It didn't make a difference.
- No, it didn't make a difference.
- The next neighbor, yes, he was Jewish.
- And next to him was a house that belonged to a monastery.
- And there were students, Catholic students,
- for the clergy who lived there.
- So it was a completely mixed.
- Do you remember the address, what street you were on?
- Yes.
- What was it?
- Johann-Fux-Gasse funfund-dreissig, 35.
- Yeah.
- I was in the house two years ago.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- My mother sold it.
- And we went for a walk, my brother and my daughter and I.
- And we were standing there, and there were the two bell knobs.
- And I was wondering, shall I push in or not?
- And then I did push.
- And the people came out.
- They knew the family.
- So I just said, very humbly I said, would you
- allow me to see the garden because I grew up here?
- And they asked us in, and they were lovely.
- And since then, I've seen them.
- And they're very lovely people.
- I was there now.
- I didn't call them because I didn't have time,
- but I meant to call and hoped they
- would invite me to a meal in our old dining room.
- But it didn't work out.
- Did you have an extended family nearby?
- No.
- You mentioned your uncle.
- Were there other relatives?
- No, no, not my uncle, my father's uncle, I meant.
- Your father's uncle.
- My father's uncle, who-- my father came from Frankfurt,
- from Germany.
- And between Germany and Austria, academic staff was exchanged.
- They would be called from Germany to Austria
- or the other way around.
- And so we did not have any family nearby
- because nobody was Austrian.
- In Vienna, we had some aunts, but nobody our own age.
- And my mother said-- my mother was an only child.
- And there was nobody.
- In Germany, we had relatives.
- You saw her.
- I still have a cousin in New York
- who was 90 years old last year and who still is there.
- And she had a sister.
- And there were other cousins a little older than,
- but we didn't see them very much.
- But we had no family.
- I mean, life with aunts and grandparents
- was not known to us at all because my grandfather
- died in 1915 when I was four.
- And my grandmother in 27 when I was 16.
- And that was that.
- There was nobody else.
- Were your playmates when you were a child non-Jewish?
- Yes.
- They were non-Jewish.
- Were they very pleasant?
- Did you have any experience as a very young child
- of any antisemitic type incidents?
- In school-- not at home.
- At home, the playmates were the children of my parents' friends.
- And they would be invited and come and play for an afternoon.
- And we had a little kindergarten once a week in various houses
- privately.
- Once I went to school, it changed
- because the best school was a Protestant school, a Lutheran
- school.
- And so we were sent there.
- And I noticed I asked another child at 6, in first grade,
- asked something.
- And she looked at me, turned around, and walked away.
- And I had no idea, no idea.
- Also, it didn't bother me much.
- I just couldn't understand it.
- And eventually, I found out that I was Jewish.
- There was never any talk about it.
- I just didn't know.
- You did not know you were Jewish.
- I don't know that I was Jewish or anything else.
- There was never any talk about religion.
- And so, eventually, I found that, ah, her mother
- must have told her that this is a Jewish girl,
- and you don't talk to a Jewish girl.
- And so she turned around and walked away,
- which is the thing to do.
- And then there were children on the way to school
- who would stand behind a corner and hold out a foot
- so we would fall over it.
- But we got wise to that.
- But we didn't fall anymore.
- But these things happened when we were younger.
- In high school, it didn't happen anymore.
- Were you frightened as a young child?
- No.
- It wasn't a question of being fearful of this.
- No, no.
- And we never told at home.
- It's funny.
- I don't think my brothers-- later on, yes.
- One of my brothers was a very poor student.
- He wasn't very healthy.
- And so he sort of converted everything.
- When he had a bad mark, he said, well,
- the teacher is an antisemite.
- But I knew then that it wasn't true.
- And I never did that.
- I mean, it just didn't make sense.
- It wasn't--
- Were your parents active politically
- when you were younger?
- No, not at all.
- They didn't belong to any organizations?
- Later on, my father belonged to B'nai B'rith.
- And he did that just in order to show that he belonged.
- I mean, he didn't get much otherwise out of it.
- But he went to the meetings.
- And eventually, people invited him
- to go hunting, which wasn't really hunting.
- I mean, he would never shoot or do anything like that.
- But, I mean, he was then a member.
- And--
- Do you remember what year your father started
- affiliating with B'nai B'rith.
- No, I don't.
- Approximately?
- But it must have been in the early '20s.
- In the early '20s, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- So you went to school with non-Jews?
- It was a private--
- Yeah, I was mostly the only Jewish child in the class.
- Sometimes there was one other one.
- Was it a coed school?
- No, there were none.
- That didn't exist.
- There wasn't coed, only boys here
- and girls there in the same school, but different buildings.
- My brothers went there, too, but on the other side.
- Yeah.
- Did you have any household staff that celebrated Christmas,
- let's say?
- Oh, yes.
- So did we.
- Oh, can you describe that at all?
- Well, we had a cook.
- We had a maid.
- And we had a Fraulein, which was a governess.
- And later on, she was more--
- she helped in the house when we grew up and didn't
- need a governess anymore.
- And then there was a couple who had an apartment downstairs
- in the house who lived there, where
- the man did the yard and the wife did the laundry or ironing.
- And I mean, they also were sort of on the staff of the house.
- And Christmas, we had a big tree in the living room.
- And everybody was there.
- And everybody got gifts.
- And I mean, we had everything everybody else
- had except a creche.
- We didn't have a creche.
- But we had a tree, and we had gifts.
- And we had a big meal that evening.
- Now, in the Catholic community, Christmas Eve is a fast day.
- And so in the kitchen, they had fish.
- In the dining room, we did not have fish.
- We had something, a goose or something.
- So we didn't fast, but we did have it decorated.
- But your parents did not treat it as a religious holiday?
- No.
- It was more of a--
- No, no.
- --family get-together.
- We didn't sing, for instance.
- We didn't, no.
- But we had a decorated tree, which isn't really terribly
- Christian.
- It's just a custom, a very pretty one.
- And so did my husband.
- He grew up the same way.
- I mean, it was less stuff, but yeah.
- We had.
- Did go family ever attend a synagogue?
- Was there a synagogue nearby?
- There was one synagogue in Graz in all of the city, which
- has been burned down since.
- And there's a very--
- I was in Graz now six weeks ago--
- or three weeks ago, I came back.
- And somebody there showed me there's
- a beautiful monument now in the place of the synagogue.
- But I don't think there is a synagogue, certainly not
- [INAUDIBLE].
- What percentage of Graz was Jewish?
- Do you know at that time?
- I don't know it, but I would say 5%.
- I mean, not much.
- But a very small percentage?
- Very small percentage, yes.
- Now, people came back because they got such good conditions.
- They don't pay tax for their property.
- Even the next generation doesn't, which I think
- is foolish.
- And so there are streets owned by Jews
- where there is no tax income.
- And of course, what's going to happen?
- Stupid.
- But that's what it is.
- OK, you went to this elementary school.
- Yes.
- And then what kind of courses did you study?
- In the elementary school?
- Well, what everybody does-- reading, writing, arithmetic,
- a little bit of history, probably, learn history and--
- OK.
- And then after school, your religious studies?
- After school, once a week, somebody came to the house.
- Right.
- We didn't particularly care for it.
- But we did it because everybody had to do it.
- And we knew it.
- And that was that.
- And then after I was 10 years old, I started learning English.
- And right away, first grade, we started learning piano.
- I mean, we had extra things and played a lot outdoors.
- What language did your parents speak to you?
- German, German.
- Did you belong to any youth groups as a child?
- No.
- No.
- That somehow was not done.
- None of my friends belonged to a youth group.
- And also, my parents were very careful
- that we wouldn't do things that not everybody else did.
- Because then it was the Jewish child
- who was doing something extra, and that was not good.
- I remember when girls cut their hair.
- After World War I, people cut their hair.
- It was called [CROSS TALK]
- A bob, or a bob.
- I was allowed to--
- I wanted to cut my hair, of course.
- And I was told when in two other families
- of the academic community the girls
- are allowed to cut their hair, you can be the third.
- But you can't be the first, yeah?
- And my whole school class--
- by that time, I was in high school.
- They knew this.
- And I came in one day.
- And they said, you know these two girls and these three girls
- cut their hair.
- You can tell your mother.
- And I told my mother.
- And she went that afternoon.
- I mean, they kept [INAUDIBLE].
- And then it wasn't much, but I wasn't
- ever to be the first to do something.
- They were very careful.
- Did your father ever tell you of any incidents that he
- himself experienced?
- Only when he was a medical student--
- of all things, he joined a-- it's
- called [GERMAN], one of these clubs
- that students belong to where they fence and where they drink.
- And I mean, why he did that, I don't know.
- But at that time, I guess that was [CROSS TALK]
- Dueling club type of thing?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- And he studied at Strasbourg University,
- which was the best at the time.
- And it was fine there.
- And then he wanted to go for a year to Munich.
- And these clubs were connected at the various universities.
- So normally, you would come from Strasbourg, from this.
- You would go to that particular one in Munich
- because they were connected.
- Well, he didn't.
- They didn't accept him.
- Because he was Jewish?
- In Munich, yes.
- In Munich, it didn't work well.
- He came up, and that was no good.
- Well, he was a young student.
- He was 42.
- I mean, that, at our time, none of us would have done.
- We wouldn't have joined any of that stupid thing anymore.
- But at his time, my goodness, it was in the late 1890s.
- OK.
- You're now approaching high school.
- Yeah.
- And did you change schools, or did you stay at the same?
- No, no, there was no such thing.
- It was a different school.
- Which one was that?
- It was the one girls' high school, Madchen Realgymnasium.
- And Realgymnasium means a school which has
- Latin and a modern language.
- In that case, it was French.
- And besides that, girls could go to boys high schools at the rate
- of 3 to a class of 30 boys.
- Three girls could be in the class.
- I know because all my brothers told about, in each class,
- there were three girls.
- But my parents didn't approve of that.
- So I went to a girls' school, and I was quite happy.
- I wanted to go to a boys' school, of course,
- but I was quite happy in that school.
- OK.
- And again, was it the same type of makeup?
- You were one of the few Jewish students in high school?
- Yeah, I was.
- I think I was mostly the only one in my class.
- And then there would be one a class higher
- and one a class lower.
- And for religious instruction, three or four classes
- were together.
- The four kids would have a teacher.
- And at that point, the religious instruction, was at the school?
- It was at the school.
- At the high school level.
- But we had to come back.
- We had to come back for various things.
- We had to come back for gym because the school didn't
- have a gym.
- And they had to rent one, and so we had
- to come back in the afternoon.
- There were various things that we had in the afternoon.
- Were you accepted as an older child?
- As a high school-aged child, you are accepted
- even though you were Jewish?
- Or did you--
- In the class?
- Yeah.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- The teachers?
- The teachers didn't even know.
- I mean, the teachers were really not--
- except for two, they were not very intelligent people.
- And they had no idea of any problems.
- They didn't know there were any.
- And they misunderstood a lot of things that happened, therefore.
- And no, I must say I was quite happy in high school.
- I made friends.
- My father warned us.
- And he said, you're going to high school now.
- You're going to make friends.
- Don't invite them before they have invited you
- because it's very possible that they're not allowed to come.
- Because you're Jewish?
- Yeah.
- And so we didn't.
- But eventually, things came.
- And we weren't-- we were so busy.
- We were doing so many things that inviting people
- wasn't really an important thing.
- I did a lot of sports the school offered.
- And I did everything they offered.
- They had competitions.
- And they trained us from 7:00 to 8:00 in the morning.
- So everybody had bicycles.
- And we got there at 7:00 and did games of what is called varsity
- here.
- What sports did you do?
- Well, it was high jump and broad jump.
- And I don't know how to--
- Javelin?
- Yeah.
- And running, of course, running, I mean,
- I was just a little longer than I am now.
- But that wasn't my thing.
- But jumping was good.
- And I didn't want to win.
- I just wanted to train.
- And we had a competition.
- And there were 120 kids of the same age, and I made number 23.
- And I thought, that's fine.
- I mean, I'm in the upper.
- And I came home, and they laughed at me.
- They thought it was very funny to be number 23,
- but I still think I was very good, upper quarter.
- OK, now you're in high school.
- Yes.
- And again, you said you didn't experience
- any overt antisemitic--
- Until the end, until the end--
- there are eight years of high school.
- We have four years of elementary, eight
- years of high school.
- And during the eighth year, there is a ball.
- A dance you mean?
- Dance.
- And there I was, as expected, asked to stay home.
- Who asked you to stay home?
- Well, the girls formed a committee who arranged the ball.
- And the students from those clubs we talked about
- would not come to anything that had Jewish girls.
- And I knew this.
- I expected to be asked not to come because it happened
- every year to everybody.
- Were you hurt?
- Were you upset?
- It's funny.
- I was not emotionally upset because I had expected it.
- I knew it.
- It had happened to everybody else.
- But I still felt that decent people will say, OK, no dance.
- And of course, they didn't do that.
- So I didn't see the class anymore.
- This was your last year of high school?
- The last year of high school and this happened in winter.
- And of course, I went and saw the class.
- I went to school.
- But they also went on a trip.
- And of course, I did not go on a trip to the castle.
- They asked me to stay home.
- And I didn't go to the party.
- On the day of the exam, there was a party.
- I didn't go there either.
- I didn't do anything for [CROSS TALK]
- That was your choice?
- That was my choice, of course.
- Oh, yeah.
- That, nobody from outside was coming.
- I was invited to that, but that I didn't do.
- And I didn't see the class until we had the 50th anniversary
- in 1979.
- And I happened to be there.
- And they invited me.
- They wrote to me.
- And I thought, after 50 years, people are not the same anymore.
- That's stupid.
- You don't carry a grudge for 50 years
- and don't go if you could go and see your class.
- So I went.
- And there were 14 of us.
- I mean, after 50 years, you are 70.
- There were 14 of us.
- And I couldn't come at the right date,
- so we had another meeting two weeks later when I was there.
- And they said, why couldn't you come two weeks ago?
- And I said, because I had already my ticket.
- And I couldn't extend my vacation.
- Nobody has six weeks of vacation.
- And I couldn't come.
- And they all said, vacation.
- Are you working?
- I thought they all worked.
- But they didn't.
- Once you marry, you don't work anymore.
- But I worked until I was 75.
- And I'm still working.
- So that was-- and then they asked.
- They said, how come we never saw you?
- Haven't you been back?
- I said, yeah, I've been back since--
- '71 was the first time I came back.
- I couldn't make up my mind to come back.
- And they didn't know.
- They didn't know anything.
- I had to tell them why they didn't see me.
- Even the ones they're running the direct committee
- didn't know.
- They weren't concerned with it.
- Not everybody was an antisemite.
- They weren't concerned with it.
- Isn't that interesting?
- One of my classmates was shot by the Nazis.
- She was not Jewish.
- She was just pretty, And obviously, she
- was very courageous.
- And I can't find out what actually happened.
- Nobody talked about it, but yeah.
- What did your family do in the summers?
- Well, that depends.
- During the First World War, nothing.
- We stayed home, of course.
- But we had a house with a yard.
- Didn't matter.
- And there was a swimming pool some place and we could swim.
- We loved swimming.
- And after 1921 or '22, we did go for a month
- to Tyrol or to some place in the mountains usually
- and hiked and did things.
- And usually, there was a lake, and we could swim.
- So we had a nice time one month in summer.
- And also, as I said, we did so many sports.
- We had bicycles, all of us and everybody else, too.
- So you could go.
- Or some teachers arranged.
- Once a week during vacation, they would go for a day
- into the mountains.
- Was your high school coed?
- No.
- That was also girls.
- It was a girls' school.
- It was a girls' school.
- OK, so you've now finished high school.
- Finished high school.
- And then what were your-- this is 1929?
- That was 1929.
- And I wanted to study medicine.
- And I took it for granted because I had
- said so ever since I was 15.
- So there were three years.
- For three years, I had said I was going to study medicine.
- And nobody had objected.
- And when the time came, my father said, no.
- For what reasons?
- Well, I asked him that, too.
- And he said, well, we take all these pains with the girls.
- And we teach them, and then we examine them.
- And then they get married and never become doctors.
- And at this time, of course, you didn't go anyway.
- I mean, papa says, no, and you don't do it.
- So I didn't.
- And two years later, my next brother told me,
- I'm going to study medicine because I just
- don't know what I want.
- And with this, I went to my father.
- And I said, isn't that a little funny?
- He can do it because he doesn't know what he wants.
- I know what I want, and I can't do it.
- And that broke it.
- And then he let me go.
- But I couldn't finish.
- It was too late.
- What did you do in the two years between high school and--
- The first year, I was home.
- I just stayed home and took very intensive French and English
- and a lot of gymnastics, just nothing important but fun.
- It was nice to do.
- And I went to a private gymnastics school.
- And I was the--
- I don't know what this is called,
- the person who does the exercises so the others see
- how it's done.
- And for that, I didn't have to pay.
- I could come all day.
- I could be there all day and do things.
- I didn't get paid.
- And I didn't have to pay.
- And it was very satisfying.
- It was very good.
- And the next year, they sent me to-- and then in summer,
- I went to England for three months to learn English.
- But I did know already.
- And the next year, they sent me to a very famous, very elegant
- nursing home in Germany where they teach diet cooking.
- And I spent a year there.
- What city in Germany was that?
- In Dresden-- Dresden, which was East Germany up to recently.
- And that was a very famous, very elegant place
- where all the businessmen with their secretaries
- went on weekends.
- It was all very--
- but we were kept very strictly.
- We weren't allowed to mix with the guests.
- When you were in Germany then, again,
- was there any sense of your being different, being Jewish?
- Did you have any experiences there?
- Yes.
- A little bit, yes.
- Because the group of students, of cooking students,
- lived together.
- We were three to a room.
- And of the three, there was one who was antisemitic.
- And then in another group, there was one.
- And I didn't suffer.
- It always worked out, but I was aware of it.
- I just knew.
- It didn't really-- it didn't really bother me terribly much.
- It was still a time--
- I remember I visited an elderly lady who
- was one of my roommates.
- She had something to do there.
- And that lady was very rabid and said, oh, those Jews.
- And we should put them all against the wall.
- And I said, oh, I'll be the first.
- And she was terribly embarrassed.
- At that time, they would say such things
- when they thought they were safe and there
- wasn't anybody to hear it.
- The moment I said something, she--
- We were talking about your experiences in Dresden.
- Anything else that you remember from that time?
- From Dresden?
- Yeah.
- Yes, that I went to the opera all the time
- because I had a friend who was an opera singer who
- pretended I was her sister.
- And I could just go in and out to the box for the relatives.
- That was fun.
- That I remember.
- Yeah.
- Otherwise, no.
- I mean, I learned to cook.
- And I didn't like to learn to cook, but that was that.
- Then you came back home.
- I came back.
- And what happened?
- Well, then I went to medical school.
- Now, which medical school did you go to?
- I went to Munich at first.
- And that was the fall of 1932.
- And in Munich, I had two groups of friends, a Jewish group
- and a non-Jewish group.
- And it so happened that there was a non-Jewish group.
- We went skiing over in January.
- These were all medical students friends?
- All medical, yeah.
- And we were in the mountains.
- And at that time, you didn't have a radio there.
- And there was no television.
- And we didn't know anything that went on.
- And we were there for a week.
- And we came back, and there were all these swastika
- flags in the streets.
- It was just the day after Hitler took over.
- And I packed and left.
- And I wasn't staying at the time.
- And I came back home.
- This was your decision--
- Yeah.
- --to leave?
- But it was obvious.
- I mean--
- Yeah, I mean it wasn't your parents telling
- you to come home.
- It was your decision.
- Well, they didn't have time to tell me.
- I mean, it was so obvious.
- I just--
- Why do you say it was obvious?
- What kinds of-- you were a young woman.
- What kinds of--
- But everybody knew what Hitler was doing.
- How did you know?
- By his actions, I mean, the Hitler putsch was in the '20s.
- And forever from then on, you know what he was doing.
- So when he had power, you left.
- I mean, there was no question about that.
- But you, as a young woman, were aware?
- Oh, yes, of course.
- What about your other Jewish friends?
- What was their reaction?
- Some were from there, and they had no place to go.
- I mean, they just stayed there in Munich.
- And the others went home.
- I mean, nobody stayed at the university I think.
- And I came home to Graz and went on studying.
- I mean, I had my next semester at home.
- What were the feelings of your non-Jewish friends
- when you said you were leaving?
- Did they say anything to you?
- I can't remember.
- I think they were sorry, but I think they
- knew that I should do that.
- Nobody told me to stay.
- That didn't-- no.
- That came much later in a different place,
- very surprisingly.
- But not at that time.
- No, I just left and spent a semester in Graz
- with my brother, who was in the same semester,
- and so with his friends.
- And it was a very nice time.
- And we had some exams at the time and did very well.
- I mean, there was no such thing that they didn't
- grade us fairly or anything.
- They--
- Were very objective?
- Yeah, yeah.
- That was OK.
- That was then the spring of '33.
- And after that, I went to Vienna.
- I didn't want to stay home and live at home.
- And I thought it was nice to go to Vienna.
- It was a very good medical school at the time.
- And I was in Vienna for two years,
- did the preclinical and part of the clinical studies there
- and, again, exams.
- And--
- During that time, again, any unpleasant incidents?
- Anything you noticed?
- Not for me, personally.
- I came too late.
- In Vienna, there were huge riots at the anatomy.
- There were two institutes of anatomy.
- One was social democrat and Jewish,
- and the other one was Nazi.
- And they were in the same building.
- And the Nazis would come over and throw people out
- by the windows.
- And I mean, but that was when I was not there.
- By the time I came there, only one such thing happened.
- And the professor quelled it.
- The professor what?
- Quelled this.
- Quelled it.
- There was election.
- The students were there.
- There were hundreds of students, just big amount,
- big numbers of students.
- And they started this.
- And he banged his fist on the table
- and said, OK, there won't be any lecture.
- But then there won't be any grades finished and turned
- around and went.
- And everything was quiet.
- Nothing happened again.
- They weren't going to jeopardize that.
- And I'm sure he was an antisemite.
- I'm pretty sure.
- But he wasn't going to have any of that.
- That's fine.
- I mean, he can think what he likes.
- Do you remember his name?
- Yes, of course.
- What was that?
- Durag, Durag, D-U-R-A-G. He was from the Arlberg,
- from the mountain area near Switzerland.
- Oh, he was very pleasant to me.
- You know, all these people, they were my father's colleagues.
- And I had a little bit of a different situation
- from the other students because I
- was the daughter of another professor.
- Were your friends at that time Jews and non-Jews, or mostly
- Jewish students?
- In Vienna, mixed, yes, mixed with probably more Jews
- than others.
- But it was all one big muddle.
- Did you find it, as you were getting older,
- you had more awareness of being Jewish?
- Yes, of course, because I didn't have any awareness.
- And later on-- yes.
- And then, of course, I got influenced by my Jewish friends
- in Vienna who were Zionists, many of them.
- And so I learned about these things from them.
- Did you join any organizations?
- No, I never joined anything.
- Up till now, I never joined anything.
- No.
- I support things, but I don't join.
- That's a little different.
- And how long were you in Vienna?
- For two years as far as I know, yeah.
- And then I decided I'd go to Prague because Prague
- is a famously beautiful place.
- And my mother had grown up there,
- and I had heard about Prague.
- And I'd never been there.
- And it's just as easy-- you can, in Europe,
- within the German speaking university, you can just change.
- There's no problem.
- And so I went to Prague.
- This was what year?
- 1936.
- '36.
- 1936, in the fall of '36.
- And of course, there were friends in Prague
- from my mother's, so I wasn't quite alone.
- And then that year, my father got the Nobel Prize, rightfully.
- You know, I got to Prague in September,
- and the prize is decided in October.
- What was the feeling then of his being a Jew
- and getting the Nobel Prize?
- Do you recall anything about that aspect?
- No.
- No, because lots of Jews had it.
- I mean, Dad wasn't aware.
- No.
- And he had a friend who was a--
- This is the Nobel Prize in chemistry?
- No, in medicine.
- In medicine.
- In medicine-- my father had a friend in Prague
- who was the director or whatever,
- of the big newspaper in Prague.
- And he knew.
- He called me.
- And he said, you stay by the telephone.
- I'm going to call you.
- There is news.
- And then he called and said, your father got it.
- And you come now.
- You come to the paper now, and we are going to celebrate.
- He was an old gentleman.
- And he had champagne, and he had pastries.
- And he and I celebrated.
- And that was very lovely.
- That I'll never forget.
- He was not only a newspaper person.
- He was what was called a private scientist.
- He was not with any institution.
- He paid for his own science.
- He had his own lab.
- There were such people.
- I knew others.
- And he did important science.
- I mean, he counted.
- He went to meetings and everything,
- but he wasn't affiliated to anything.
- And that's how my father knew him.
- He had been to Graz, visiting, discussing things.
- And so that's what happened on that day.
- And also, during this time, I had met my husband.
- How did you meet him?
- He was, at the time, temporarily working at the Department
- of Pharmacology.
- And of course, my father was a pharmacologist in Graz.
- And all pharmacologists of universities are friends.
- I mean, they all knew-- it's a family,
- the people of the same field [? as us. ?]
- And I knew a pharmacologist in Prague.
- And of course, officially, I made a visit.
- And he had told me at that time, since you're hearing my lecture,
- instead of going in where the students go in,
- then you sit someplace up there, come into the lab
- and go out with the people from the lab who
- all sit in the first row.
- And you sit with them in the first row.
- And that's what I did.
- And that's how I met him.
- And your husband's name?
- Ulrich Weiss.
- And he was there only for a short while.
- It was one particular assignment.
- And everybody went out, sat there.
- And at lunch, you go home.
- And our way home was the same.
- So we walked home together.
- And I have a theory.
- He denied it.
- But I think he started looking at me because of the book
- I was reading.
- I wonder if he- I don't think he mentioned that.
- I don't think he believed it, but I
- was reading Jacob Burckhardt's Cultur der Renaissance.
- That's The Culture of the Renaissance.
- And I don't know.
- Maybe he didn't know another girl who
- was reading that or something.
- But I think that's how he noticed me.
- I asked him once.
- And he said, no, no, no, no.
- That wasn't it.
- This is my theory, so I'm mentioning it.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- And then, well, we saw each other practically every day
- and walked home together.
- And then came winter, came end of January.
- And there was a dance.
- And he said he was going.
- And I couldn't believe it because he
- wasn't a dancing person at all.
- But he said he was going.
- And I was-- you didn't go with a man.
- You went with a family.
- And there was a couple who had asked me to go with them
- and who knew him.
- And so he told them he was also going.
- And so that was fine.
- And then he was allowed to take me home.
- And that's when he asked me to marry him.
- Yeah.
- And then, of course, my parents knew nothing about it.
- I mean not even his name.
- They knew absolutely nothing.
- And I wrote to them.
- And they were very surprised.
- And we had to go, of course, and introduce him.
- And I think that was traumatic for him,
- a family was three brothers, everybody
- looking if he's good enough.
- But he survived, and that's fine.
- So what was the date that you got married?
- Did you get married soon after that?
- Yeah, in May of that year.
- On the 23rd of May, 1937, we got married.
- So we were married for--
- wait a minute--
- 51 years.
- Did you have a civil ceremony or a Jewish ceremony?
- We had a Jewish ceremony because there was no other way.
- In Austria, at that time, there was only religious marriage.
- And so we had a Jewish ceremony in our living room in our house.
- A rabbi came, the cantor came, the chuppah came.
- And we had it all there and with no guests,
- with nobody, just the people from the house.
- And then we left, we on a train.
- And that was the last time I was there until 1971.
- It just happened.
- I never came back.
- And then where did you go with your new husband?
- You mean to live?
- Well, you took a trip.
- We took a trip to Italy.
- A honeymoon trip?
- A honeymoon-- Italy to Switzerland.
- And then we lived in Czechoslovakia.
- Well, in Germany, it is called Aussig on the Elbe.
- And in Czech, it is Usti nad Labem.
- And it's a very small industrial city.
- He was there in the pharmaceutical industry.
- And it didn't last very long.
- We were there a little over a year.
- We had our first child there.
- And what was your child's name?
- What is your child's name?
- Ruth.
- Ruth.
- Now, she's Mrs. Ruth Bolliger.
- And I think you saw her.
- I don't know if you remember, but yeah.
- And well, then--
- During that time that year that you were living there,
- what was life like then?
- Well--
- Did you sense-- did you have any sense--
- Well, it was more than sensing.
- I mean, in the Sudeten area, it was Henlein.
- The name was Henlein of the man who took Hitler's place.
- And he took care that you more than sensed it.
- I mean, they marched, and they played music.
- And they [INAUDIBLE]--
- This you saw all the time?
- Oh, all the time, it was terrible.
- That was really quite awful.
- I mean, we knew we wouldn't last.
- We had to leave.
- Did other Jews feel the same way?
- Everybody.
- You had to leave?
- Oh, absolutely.
- Nobody stayed.
- It wasn't a sense of this will pass?
- Oh, god, no.
- I don't know.
- Yeah, some people, remote people,
- very rich people in Germany--
- I mean, I know a case--
- couldn't see this and said, oh, we
- are not going to leave if we have to leave
- 10% of our possessions behind.
- Anyway, no, no, everybody left.
- You know, I tried to pack and then everything stayed behind
- and never really moved.
- We just left.
- When was this?
- You stayed there a year, you said?
- Yes, I have to think.
- This was in 1938, beginning of '38 or end of '37.
- No, it was '38 In '38, they marched into Austria,
- and we were still there.
- Wait a minute.
- We were still there in '38 when the Nazis marched into Austria.
- And I had my baby then.
- She was born in March '38.
- And we were still there the rest of the year,
- I think, and then went to Prague in '39, beginning of '39.
- And of course, my husband had already
- tried to apply for an American visa.
- And you needed a sponsor.
- And he had an aunt, and she refused.
- She didn't think it was necessary.
- No, it was the remote people who didn't think it was necessary
- and refused at first.
- They had already guaranteed a lot of other people.
- And she said, no, I don't think you need it and didn't do it.
- And then when she did do it, it was late.
- And then it took two and a half years to get the visa.
- I mean, she wasn't of ill will.
- She just was stupid.
- She didn't know.
- And then while we waited for the visa, the uncle died.
- So the whole thing wasn't valid anymore.
- We were already in France at the time.
- Did you feel safe in your home?
- Before France, did you feel safe?
- In the Sudeten area, safe in the home?
- Yeah.
- Well, it depends what you call safe.
- After the Nazis-- well, while they were still only in Austria,
- yes.
- But then there were talks that all of the cities undermined.
- And it will be blown up.
- And I thought, that'll be fine, finish the whole thing.
- But they didn't blow it up.
- And then, of course, they marched into the Sudeten area,
- and we marched out of the Sudeten area.
- And then they marched into Prague.
- How did you leave, by train?
- How did you--
- Yeah, by train.
- Was that difficult getting tickets?
- No, no, no, no, no.
- At that point, it wasn't.
- It wasn't a mass exit at the time.
- I mean, we just--
- I was in Prague.
- I had an abortion.
- I don't know.
- If you want to erase it, erase it.
- But I had an abortion right after Ruth.
- And I asked the doctor, could I go home?
- And he said, well, if you stay in bed,
- you can go home and send me home.
- And of course, I got on the train,
- and I packed my own apartment and my mother-in-law's
- apartment.
- And it never moved, but we didn't know this.
- And then we left on the train.
- It wasn't a big thing to leave.
- And my husband had something to work in Prague.
- And I couldn't live in Prague because I wasn't born in Prague.
- And there were so many people going into the Prague
- that they had to do this.
- So the baby and I had to go to a little village
- outside in deepest Czechoslovakia.
- And luckily, I had started learning Czech.
- I didn't even know the language.
- And it was a new house.
- And water was running.
- How did you know how to go to that--
- why did you pick that particular--
- Somebody picked it for me, for us.
- I mean, my husband, of course, was a native Czechoslovakian.
- He knew.
- And some friends said, oh, why don't you go there?
- And--
- What was the village?
- What was the name of the village in Czechoslovakia?
- Stará Boleslav, which in German has a name Altbunzlau,
- it was very pretty.
- And the doctor was German or spoke German, which was easy.
- Because I had a baby, and I could talk to him.
- And for a while, my mother-in-law was with me.
- So it was, your baby, and your mother-in-law?
- And my mother-in-law, but my mother-in-law
- was practically deaf.
- She did know Czech, but she didn't hear.
- It wasn't much help.
- And so we were there.
- And then she had a stroke, not a terrible.
- But we noticed that her speech was a little wobbly.
- And so I called my husband.
- And he picked her up.
- I mean, you couldn't take a chance having her there.
- And so then it was the baby and I. And then a friend of mine
- came and said, this is ridiculous.
- What do you do here with a baby?
- I'm going to take the baby to Prague.
- And you see what you do, which was fine.
- She had a right to live in Prague.
- She was really there.
- So she took the baby in her house.
- And I mean, the conditions were ridiculous.
- The house was newly built. The water
- was running down the walls.
- I had to heat.
- The men were mobilized at the time.
- I ordered wood.
- And what they brought was three big trees,
- which they laid in the street in front of the house.
- And so I went with my handsaw and cut the trees.
- And I got warm twice.
- First, I cut the wood, and then I burned the wood.
- And it was fine.
- And eventually, policemen came and saw me and said,
- you have to leave.
- And I said, why?
- Oh, but you're not from here.
- You have to leave.
- You can't live here.
- You have to go back.
- And I said, yes, sir, yes, sir.
- And next day, he came again.
- And I was there.
- Of course, I didn't leave.
- I couldn't leave.
- And I said, yes every time very peacefully, very fine,
- and said, yes, sure.
- I'm going to leave, yes, [INAUDIBLE].
- And eventually, I decided I'm leaving,
- but not back to Sudeten area.
- Of course, the Nazis were already in there.
- And I ordered a van and put a little bit of furniture
- we had and hid among the furniture
- and went back to Prague.
- I mean, I wasn't allowed in, but they didn't see me.
- And so I was in.
- And then this friend of mine, who was a native to Prague,
- she got me a room someplace.
- And--
- You said you hid in the van itself?
- I hid in the van.
- While the driver was driving--
- Right.
- --you were hidden in the front?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Otherwise, they would've taken me out of the van.
- Oh, you couldn't leave legally.
- I mean, you had to leave illegally.
- You couldn't-- because the laws were impossible to follow.
- You couldn't do it.
- And you learned that fast.
- Boy, do you learn that fast to do everything illegally.
- And not even-- it was a sport.
- I won.
- I got into Prague.
- It was fine.
- It didn't bother me at all.
- Did you ever discuss your plans with other Jewish friends,
- or did you keep it to yourself?
- I didn't have any Jewish friends in that place.
- Oh, yeah.
- That's right.
- There wasn't anybody.
- Right.
- I had no friends at all.
- I couldn't talk to anybody, so no.
- Then, in Prague, we had friends, of course.
- That was different.
- And then, well, we were in Prague for a while
- and then decided to leave.
- And my husband's mother couldn't.
- I mean, she wasn't well enough anymore.
- And her sister hadn't warranted to her.
- I mean, she couldn't leave.
- And she had cousins, and she had people.
- I mean, she wasn't--
- so she stayed behind.
- And the first time we tried, we went to the station.
- And the laws had been changed, and we couldn't leave.
- That happened all the time.
- You go there--
- Are you talking the railroad station?
- Yeah.
- And you can't leave because you need one more paper or one more
- signature.
- When you say to leave, where did you intend to go?
- We intended to go to Belgium at the time.
- Oh, I didn't mention that, meanwhile, the Nazis
- had marched into Prague.
- We were in Prague when they marched in.
- We were still there.
- And about the day they marched in,
- I got a notice from the Belgian consulate
- that there is a visa for us.
- My father was in Belgium, and he provided it.
- But in order to leave, you also had
- to take your passport to the Gestapo to be stamped.
- And then you could get a visa, and then you could leave.
- Well, I went to the Belgian consul.
- And I said, thank you very much for the visa,
- but my passport is now at the Gestapo.
- And when I get it back, I bring it for the visa.
- And he said, if you get it back, which wasn't very encouraging.
- But of course, I knew that much, too.
- I did get it back.
- The Gestapo had an office.
- And the first day, I was there at 7:00 in the morning and much
- too long line.
- I knew I would never-- so I left and came next day at 5 o'clock
- in the morning.
- And there were already people waiting.
- And--
- Were you very calm at this time?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, mostly I am.
- And there were all Jews, of course.
- These were all Jews, people who wanted to leave.
- And they, among each other, had distributed numbers.
- We came first, number one.
- And I remember at 5 o'clock in the morning, I had number 92.
- And I went with a friend, and we had 91 and 92.
- And the Gestapo opened at 7:00 in the evening.
- And of course, by that time, I don't know
- how many hundreds there were.
- So you just waited all those hours?
- We just waited, and we took turns.
- Of course, you became friends with everybody before and after.
- And you would say, OK, I'm now going to have lunch.
- You let me in again.
- I am number 92.
- And then you go and have lunch and come
- back and then everybody else.
- I mean, it was possible, but they
- tried to make it as unpleasant.
- That's 14 hours waiting.
- But we got in, and we left our passports there.
- Of course, you never knew if you'd get it back or not.
- When you say your passport, was that yours and your husband's?
- Yeah.
- That was my husband's and mine with the child in mine.
- Yeah.
- And three days later, they said to come back.
- And we did go back and got it back.
- I mean, that was the thing.
- There was no difficulty getting it back?
- No, with the stamp.
- I mean, it was really-- and then I went to the Belgians
- and got the visa.
- And then we wanted to leave and go to Belgium.
- And then they had changed the rules,
- and we had to go back from the railway station again.
- And it took another week to whatever
- it was, which I don't remember.
- And then we left.
- Were there a lot of people leaving
- from the railroad station?
- No, only the people who had all their papers ready.
- And there were never very many.
- Was there any sense of panic among these people,
- or were they calm?
- They were calm.
- It wasn't groups.
- I remember us leaving and friends coming with us
- to see us off.
- There weren't groups of nervous people.
- So, no, it was really calm.
- I would think that Uli it was a little more nervous than I
- because, of course, he was the head of the family.
- He felt more responsible, but it wasn't that.
- But each was allowed 10 marks.
- We had 30 marks, 10 for him, 10 for me, and 10 for the baby.
- That was from Prague to Belgium.
- But we got there.
- Just bringing the money and suitcases?
- Money and suitcases, yeah.
- And I brought a diamond, which wasn't my own, of course.
- I didn't have a diamond.
- But a friend of mine had left.
- And she had a pendant with a rather nice big thing.
- And she gave me the pin.
- And she said, I don't dare take it.
- I'm just not courageous enough.
- I'll give it to you.
- If you bring it, it's fine.
- If you don't bring it, it's fine.
- I mean, I'm not bringing it.
- I can't make you bring it, but see what you can do.
- And of course, for me, again, it was a sport.
- I got to bring that thing up.
- And so I cut the diamond off the pendant.
- I broke it.
- And what I did with the chain, I don't know.
- And I had a dress with big buttons, which you can open.
- And I put the diamond in the button and closed it again.
- And I wore the dress.
- They didn't X-ray.
- With X-ray, you find it.
- But they didn't X-ray.
- So I brought it out, and I met her again in England.
- And I said, here.
- It was a triumph.
- The diamond was probably just as little important to her
- than to me.
- But the fact that we brought it when we weren't allowed
- was very important.
- I did a lot of these things just because they were not allowed.
- I visited my mother in Vienna while we were still in Prague.
- And my mother had to leave the house in Graz,
- and she was in Vienna in a hotel.
- And she gave me Czech money.
- She had Czech money left over from something,
- enough to buy a dress.
- I mean, not much, maybe $100 worth or something.
- And she said, do you want it?
- And can you take it?
- And I said, well, I do want it.
- And I don't know if I can take it, but I'll try.
- And I got on the train.
- And I carried this bunch of money onto the S
- in the toilet on the train.
- The pipe, you mean?
- On the pipe-- and I thought, if they find it, they find it.
- But, boom, it was easy.
- And of course, they didn't find it.
- And just before we got off, I got it back.
- And I had it in, and it was forbidden.
- And I had done it.
- [INAUDIBLE] little things, but they undressed me.
- Only, it wasn't on me.
- They undressed me.
- When?
- They took you out of the train.
- Who did?
- The Nazis.
- I mean, at the time, they had already marched in.
- And they were there.
- And there were two women officers
- who undressed the women.
- This was on the train to Belgium?
- No, no, no, to Prague.
- To Prague, back to Prague.
- Which was quite--
- I mean, Prague-Vienna is two hours.
- It's nothing.
- It's not terribly long.
- Yeah, they did.
- [CROSS TALK]
- Was that a very frightening experience?
- I think they forgot to give me fear when they made me.
- I'm just not frightened.
- I just want to see what's next, nothing.
- And I didn't have anything.
- The money wasn't on me.
- And the rest, there wasn't any.
- They undressed me again some place, which was not hostile,
- in Uruguay.
- I flew home from there.
- And my brother waved me goodbye.
- And then all of a sudden, they said, women here and men here.
- And I said, well, how come?
- And there were two officers, and we had to undress.
- They just wanted to See.
- I don't remember what they were looking for.
- But yeah, it's happened.
- It's March 1939.
- And you're on the train going to Belgium--
- To Belgium
- --with your baby and your husband.
- And my husband, that's right.
- And we met my father in Brussels,
- who had an invitation there for a year as a guest professor.
- And he also had a cousin there with whom we stayed at first.
- And eventually, we found a room and moved into a pension
- with the baby, which was not very good because she was still
- small and she still cried.
- And people were very tactful, but we were quite embarrassed.
- But that's what it was.
- And so we spent several weeks in Brussels.
- And then a friend of mine from England invited me with the baby
- to come.
- What was the atmosphere in Brussels at the time?
- Did you feel threatened in any way?
- No, we did not feel threatened, no more than all of Europe.
- I mean, we thought there would be a war,
- and eventually there was.
- And I remember when we were still
- in Prague that there was a blackout,
- and we were sitting in a closet.
- You know no lights on and the closet, of course,
- could have some lights.
- And I was hoping it would fall on our heads
- and then start, you know, because we
- thought if the Allies start early,
- then it will be over very soon.
- But nobody started.
- And so it wasn't over soon once it did start.
- But in Brussels, no, we didn't think about that.
- How were you getting your news then?
- By radio, by newspaper?
- By newspaper and by word of mouth, of course.
- I mean, everybody talked about everything whom you met.
- We didn't know too many people in Brussels, just a few--
- important people, but, yeah, people we met through my father.
- And, well, then I left for England with the baby.
- Without your husband?
- Without my husband because they didn't let men in.
- You know, women were house workers.
- And British let women in very easily, but not men.
- So he-- and he was also-- he was waiting.
- His firm was moving to Paris.
- And he was waiting until they're there to go to Paris.
- And then hoping you would join him back in Paris.
- Yeah.
- And this happened.
- I mean, they did go to Paris.
- And he moved to Paris.
- But they had forgotten conveniently
- that he was married.
- And they didn't ever ask for a visa for myself.
- So he wrote to me that he is now in Paris,
- but that they hadn't asked for the visa.
- And he met somebody who had connections with Quai d'Orsay.
- And this person said, if I try to get the visa from England,
- I should find out when the file goes to the Quai d'Orsay.
- And then this person would go there and influence it.
- And so I went to Liverpool, to the French consul,
- and we talked.
- And in the end, I said, and would you kindly--
- [BUZZING] that's--
- [AUDIO OUT]
- Where were you living when you were in England?
- I lived in Leatherhead, which is in Surrey,
- with a friend and her family.
- And she had two small children just slightly older than my own.
- So we had three more or less babies and took care of them
- together.
- And this is a friend of your family's or--
- She was a chemist who had been to Graz because Graz
- had a very famous chemist, Nobel laureate who had a school.
- And people came to learn his methods.
- And she was one of them.
- And we met her then.
- Her name?
- Her name was, when she came, Janet Brown, and later on,
- Janet Matthews.
- And she more or less got out of chemistry
- and bought a farm in Surrey and farmed.
- But in case of war, both she and her husband
- had signed up as chemists.
- So I was in her house just to the beginning of when
- the Nazis marched into Poland.
- And then I had to--
- September 1939.
- That's right.
- And then she closed.
- And I was there, you know, and I found a place.
- I then went to Kendal in the Lake District.
- There was a big family where my friend from Prague, who
- was a high school teacher, was there
- as a governess for the small children of the house.
- And I wrote to her.
- And she asked her lady.
- And she took me.
- How were you supporting yourself at this time?
- Was your husband sending you money?
- No, I just lived in friends' houses.
- I didn't need-- I mean, I didn't buy anything.
- I didn't have any money, but--
- And you had communication with your husband this whole time?
- Yes.
- That was not a problem?
- No, that wasn't a problem.
- We wrote back and forth.
- We wrote back and forth.
- Yeah, and so then I went to Kendal
- and lived in that big house where my child was number 12.
- They had taken in just anybody.
- They had five children of their own.
- Then there were two children from Liverpool,
- which makes it seven.
- Then there were three cousins, which makes it 10.
- And mine is 11.
- And I'm missing one, but there were 12.
- And the Liverpool children had a governess.
- The house children had a governess.
- And my child had a mother.
- So we were three people for--
- not 12 children because the oldest were 12, 14, 16.
- They didn't need anybody.
- But the nursery had three people, and that was very nice.
- And in the morning, I did cleaning.
- And I served the early tea at 7 o'clock in the morning,
- where the maid of the house happily let me do this.
- Didn't have to get up anymore.
- But it was very nice, you know, cleaning in the morning,
- children in the afternoon.
- And after dinner, everybody was in the living room.
- It was very nice.
- What else is there?
- Well, then I tried to get a visa.
- And they took me to Liverpool.
- I stayed with a family in Liverpool whose children
- were in our house.
- You turn off if what I tell you now doesn't fit in.
- But it is a very funny story.
- [TAPE STOPS]
- While I was in Kendal in the family,
- the Liverpool parents of the two children approached me.
- The mother approached me and said,
- would you do me a great favor?
- And I said, of course.
- And she said, my boy came home from public school,
- which is boarding school.
- He has lice.
- Will you clean him?
- And I said sure.
- Tell me what to do.
- I didn't know how.
- She told me what to do.
- Wash his hair every day.
- Comb his hair every day.
- Pick out-- the poor guy, I mean it was harder for him
- than for me, of course.
- But I did it.
- And I got him clean.
- And then came the situation when I needed
- to stay overnight in Liverpool.
- And, of course, they invited me.
- And I stayed with them.
- And they gave me a very lovely woolen suit
- for my baby, leggings and a jacket
- because I was going to go to France and be cold.
- And then the lady doctor called me into her office and said,
- are you doing anything about birth control?
- And I said, no, not much.
- I mean, I'm not--
- I'm not even together.
- It doesn't matter.
- She said, well, when you go to Paris now,
- you can't have a baby.
- You have to watch because this is no situation now.
- And I'll measure you.
- And she measured you for me for a cap
- and gave it to me with everything that belongs with it.
- And I think it's the most unusual gift anybody ever got,
- also one of the most useful.
- And so that's the story, the one story.
- The other story about the Liverpool experience
- is that I went to the counsel.
- And as I had been told, I asked him
- when the file would go to the Quai d'Orsay.
- And he very indignantly said, it is not going to Quai d'Orsay.
- I give you the visa.
- And that was fine because much faster.
- So I said, oh, when can I have it?
- Oh, in three days.
- Anyway, and in three days I went back
- and I had a visa, just because the consulate thought
- his honor was touched if he had to send it to the Quai d'Orsay.
- And so I had all my papers, and I could go to France.
- Came the question, in the circle after dinner in the living
- room with all the guests and everybody,
- now how is she going to go to France?
- If she takes a boat and the magnetic mine hits the boat,
- she might lose the baby.
- You know, you never know what.
- If she flies and something hits the plane, they're all dead.
- So I flew.
- These were the considerations at the time.
- How do you travel?
- And nothing happened.
- I mean, I flew from London to Paris and got to Paris,
- and it was fine.
- And I was there.
- And so there--
- Where did you have the money for the ticket?
- I can't remember.
- Supposedly, my husband sent it.
- Sent you money.
- I guess it wasn't that expensive.
- That wasn't much of a consideration.
- And I'm pretty sure the people in those houses I stayed
- would have given it to me too.
- You know, anybody would give you one thing, I'm sure.
- I can't remember.
- I really don't know.
- But I guess that's--
- he probably sent because he was paid all the time
- and did some money.
- Well, then I got to Paris.
- And we lived in a pension and then found a little house,
- very little house, for rent and bought some pan furniture
- and settled.
- And we were there for quite a while.
- We were there until Paris was-- until June '40.
- Well, it wasn't all of the year, but most of the year.
- Yeah, from fall of '39 to June '40.
- And there were friends coming with no roofs,
- so they were in the house.
- You were putting people up?
- Oh, yeah.
- I mean, it was a tiny thing.
- I think it had two bedrooms and a kitchen and a bath.
- Something-- tiny, tiny, and there were five of us, you know,
- it was really full.
- But it was fine.
- And one morning, my husband had some business in Paris.
- And he took the train to Paris.
- And I was out there.
- You were in a suburb of Paris?
- Yeah, it was a suburb to the north.
- Where was it?
- Argenteuil, Argenteuil, which is known by van Gogh paintings.
- And I look up and these anti-aircraft things
- were bursting directly overhead.
- And I thought, oh, if they shoot up there,
- somebody must be there, right there.
- I'm leaving.
- I'm not going to take that.
- And I waited until my husband came back and said, you know,
- look at that.
- I think we should leave.
- You were 29 years old at this point in 1940?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- And so we left.
- I mean, he also didn't see any point staying
- if they shoot right overhead.
- And so we went back to the house and filled
- a rucksack each and a suitcase each and took the baby.
- Again, do you remember being calm and collected?
- Yes, we were calm and collected.
- But it was the only time I was afraid.
- I mean, I wasn't nervously afraid.
- But I thought if they shoot up here,
- I mean, what are we waiting for?
- That's ridiculous.
- The Germans walked into Belgium, into Holland,
- into north of France.
- France had fallen.
- Why wait in Paris?
- Let's leave.
- And he thought that was reasonable.
- And so we left, left a note for our friends who weren't home.
- We left.
- Just very quickly.
- Yeah, we never saw them again.
- And went to the railroad station, baby, rucksack,
- suitcase.
- And the trains came from the north
- with groups of people on the steps.
- I mean, this was full, absolutely full,
- real refugee trains.
- And I made it into the train.
- I really think if you must, you do.
- I mean, they were hanging on the steps.
- I probably was biting them.
- I don't know what I did.
- I got in with a child and my husband behind me,
- and we were on the train and went to Paris and got to Paris.
- And there were buses waiting, not
- charging, you know, from the Gare de Nord
- to Gare Saint-Lazare or something,
- to the southern station, and not charging.
- And I told my husband, my God, it
- must be important because the French don't charge.
- They want you out.
- So we got to the station.
- The station was closed.
- It was locked.
- It was raining.
- I was sitting on a bench.
- This was the second station?
- That was-- yes.
- The second.
- You had taken the bus.
- We had taken the bus and went to the station, which goes south.
- And so I was sitting there on a bench.
- And my husband very actively walked around the station,
- tried every window, every door.
- I mean, he could be very methodical.
- And he found an open door, which led into an office.
- And he went through and found the way to the waiting room
- and came back out and said, let's go.
- And we went through that open door, through the office,
- went into the waiting room where everybody
- was camping on the floor.
- It was full.
- And it was dangerous because the Germans knew that people
- were in the station.
- I mean, we expected them to bomb the station,
- but they didn't, not on that day.
- And so we waited.
- And I was also sitting down on the floor, of course,
- with everybody else.
- And my husband went on, found a way out to the trains,
- came back and said, you know, there's
- an empty train, which is hired by a firm
- to move the whole firm.
- It's leaving at 7:00 in the morning.
- This was about 2:00 or 3:00.
- So up and we got on the train.
- There was nobody in it.
- And we decided, of course, it's illegal.
- It's not my firm.
- We are not paying for it, but it's life or death.
- And we had to leave.
- And they can always throw us out.
- If we don't go on it, we are no better off
- than when we are thrown off it.
- So let's go on.
- And we got on the train.
- And I sat in the corner with the baby on my lap and my husband
- there.
- But as soon as the people came on the train, he got up.
- I mean, he didn't get out, but he was out on the corridor.
- He didn't sit.
- He didn't take any place.
- And every time I thought it was getting full
- and I wanted to get out, people said, don't move, don't move.
- You have a baby on your lap.
- You get everything.
- And the train left.
- And we were on it.
- And we went south to Clermont-Ferrand.
- Didn't pay money, nothing.
- You know, sometimes it's ironic, but it worked.
- You just-- and the thing, I do such things happily,
- anything that's illegal when it's necessary.
- My husband found it very difficult. If it's forbidden,
- you don't do it.
- And he did do these things, and that was pretty good.
- And he found all these possibilities.
- It was really quite out of character for him,
- but that's what he did when it was necessary.
- And in Clermont-Ferrand, well, that
- was terrible because there was no room.
- We thought that if I go with the baby, then I'll get a room.
- But there just wasn't any space.
- Why did you get off there?
- That where--
- Well, the train went there.
- Oh.
- And also, we had the name of a village
- further south in the Auvergne.
- The name was Vertolaye.
- It's now well known because a very big chemical
- factory settled there.
- But at the time, nobody knew it.
- And we wanted to go there because the firm wanted
- to move there.
- Only they were too late.
- They didn't do it anymore.
- But that was a name we had.
- And so you go through Clermont-Ferrand
- and change to a smaller train and go there.
- But we couldn't find a place overnight.
- And eventually, I went to the police station, I think.
- And there were some charity ladies there.
- And they just had opened a night shelter.
- And I was the first person.
- And I said, wonderful.
- And I was ready to drop at the time.
- And so one of the policemen said,
- you can't walk there anymore.
- I'm taking you.
- And I said, and my husband is waiting at the railway station.
- Could we get him first?
- And so we got him first.
- And then we went there.
- And it was a garage.
- And they had beds there.
- And we slept in those beds in the garage,
- in a big half circle.
- And in 5:00 in the morning was our train.
- And they woke us up and gave us breakfast and gave me
- flowers, which was the last thing I needed.
- And we got on the train and got off
- in Vertolaye, which is a very small village, at least
- at that time.
- And the same day another couple from all of them came there.
- So we were two.
- And there was a--
- across from the station, there was always
- a restaurant and hotel in all the little European places.
- So we were all collecting there.
- And my husband left and looked for a place.
- I mean, we didn't have money to stay in a hotel.
- We had really no money at all.
- So he walked the country and found a broken down farm, which
- he asked to whom it belonged.
- I mean, he saw it.
- It was empty.
- It wasn't inhabited.
- And somebody said, oh, the owner is an hour further.
- So he went an hour further and met the owner,
- who was an old man, who was very happy that somebody
- wanted to live on his farm and let us have it for $5 a month.
- We rented the farm for $5 a month.
- He gave us a set of sheets and I suppose some cooking pots,
- I don't know.
- And we were there.
- I mean, it rained through the roof
- and through the second floor to the first floor.
- It was wasn't whole.
- It wasn't good.
- But for summer, it was fine.
- And we went out and collected wood and collected things
- for burning.
- And we were busy and visited the neighbors.
- And at the time, people had no children in France.
- Between the wars, they had no children.
- It was amazing.
- The few who had boys, the boys were mobilized, you know.
- So the neighbors, the neighbors had no children.
- And they needed-- it was haying time.
- And so I said, oh, I make hay.
- And I had mentioned to my husband--
- and we did speak French at the time--
- that this looks very much like where I come from.
- You know, it's the area, it's green.
- It's medium high mountains.
- It's very similar.
- She had misunderstood and she thought,
- this is what I've always done.
- She thought that's the milieu from which I had come.
- So she said, oh, fine, if you want to make hay,
- we'll have you.
- And, of course, again, no money changed hands.
- But I got my meals and I got--
- I could pick all the vegetables.
- And I got an egg or two and I got milk.
- I got what we needed.
- And so I made hay for three weeks.
- And, you know, they didn't have machines at that time.
- You had to turn it with a rake.
- You walked and walked and walked and turned the hay.
- Fine, I like to be outside.
- And so for three weeks, our food came from there.
- What was your husband doing then?
- Well, he was taking care of his child.
- Oh, he was at home with the baby.
- Well, the thing was, she had said we should both come,
- and she'll choose whom she takes.
- And then she chose me, which I knew she would
- because I was more sports like.
- I was more active than he.
- And I don't think he minded, you know, he had time.
- He played with the kid, and he had time to think and to write
- and to--
- it wasn't bad for him not to be rushed for once, you know.
- And then this other couple came up.
- We were up in the mountains, half an hour from the village.
- And the other couple came and had a very good suggestion.
- They had money.
- And they said, if we buy some meat every day and come up here,
- but then we cook here, then we live cheaply, and you get meat.
- He said, OK.
- And that's what we did.
- So we had pretty good--
- I mean, they bought some kind of meat each day.
- And on the other hand, I brought the vegetables from the farmers.
- And they didn't have to pay for restaurant meals.
- So everybody was served.
- And it was very nice.
- And so we did this for a while.
- And I remember, you know, we had suitcases for the things.
- We had nothing.
- And the wife of that couple looked at this one day
- and stood there and said, now, if only
- married Anna because of her money, it serves him right.
- This was the best thing she'd ever said,
- you know, was right after the Nobel Prize, you know.
- I'm sure people said, ah, that's what he did.
- It would have served him right.
- That was one of the nice situations.
- Then these people went on.
- I mean, they didn't stay there as long as we did.
- So then the meat sauce dried up and fall came
- and there were mushrooms galore.
- And we know about mushrooms, so we just picked mushrooms.
- And I had one bottle of oil.
- And in each meal went one spoonful of oil,
- and that was what we ate.
- And, well, we stayed in this farm through October.
- And then it just got too cold.
- Did the farmer who rented the house to you or the other people
- know you were Jewish?
- I don't think so.
- He didn't probably know what it was.
- I mean, they were not very cultured.
- No.
- But he came-- he was a grandfather type, you know,
- an old gentleman.
- He came with his grandson, who was probably
- as old as Ruth, a year and a half or two,
- put them both in a bed and told us,
- you know, these two are going to get married
- and they'll get the farm.
- I mean, he didn't know what was going on.
- He didn't realize we weren't staying.
- He had brought wine to drink on it.
- And it was very difficult to say no.
- I mean, to him, this was a colossal thing.
- We had just come and he'd offered this.
- And, well, anyway, we did say no, because you can't do that.
- And no, Jewish, no, that didn't matter.
- One woman in the village asked me once if we were Jewish.
- And what was your answer?
- Yes.
- Well, what else?
- Did you have anything in your papers saying that you were
- Jewish, anything written down?
- I can't remember.
- You see, our passport was invalid
- because the Germans had taken over Czechoslovakia.
- There was no more Czechoslovakia.
- So we had no passports.
- We had no citizenship at all.
- So I guess.
- No, I don't know.
- But we never-- you know, when even now,
- when I meet new people, I see to it
- that during the first half hour, somehow
- it is mentioned that we're Jewish.
- So they know because I don't want to be embarrassed.
- I don't want to embarrass other people who
- say something and then think, my god, I shouldn't have said it.
- They shouldn't have said it.
- Keep them from saying it.
- So, no, we had no problems.
- And we were very good friends with the priest in this village
- and in that village.
- Well, they like to talk to people sometimes,
- you know, a little better than with their own parish.
- And so we were guests.
- Did you have a radio?
- No.
- So and newspapers?
- No.
- Oh, you did not-- did you know--
- Only hearsay.
- Again, just hearsay.
- Just hearsay.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah.
- No, we didn't.
- It wasn't-- I don't know if they had newspapers there.
- I mean, there was no communications anymore.
- You had to walk.
- There were no trains anymore.
- We needed-- dentists, I think, was six miles.
- And we had to walk and back with a child on the back.
- You know, there was no communication.
- But you did these things, and the people were very friendly.
- I don't think the dentist charged us anything.
- You know, they were very, very nice.
- Your spirits were good at that time?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Our spirits were good most of the time.
- The worst day was the day after the Munich, so-called, Agreement
- when they sold Czechoslovakia down the drain.
- That was a terrible day.
- You went-- we were in Prague at the time.
- You went out, everybody cried.
- It was just-- that was the worst day.
- And then I had a private worst day,
- which I know my husband didn't mention.
- It's not on his tape.
- I really listened for it.
- There were rumors going on.
- And one rumor was that-- we were south of the demarcation line.
- I don't know if you know what that was.
- The demarcation line was the line as far as
- which the Germans officially invaded France.
- And south of it, officially, they weren't there.
- Unofficially, I'm sure they were.
- Well, we were south of it, which was lucky.
- But rumors went if they find a young Czechoslovak,
- they hang him on the next tree as a deserter.
- And, of course, we believed these things
- because they did things like that.
- I don't know if it ever happened,
- but of course you believed it.
- And so I thought, boy, if we get out of this,
- I'll never be afraid of anything else.
- I mean, that's-- and that was my worst time, I think.
- And we never mentioned it.
- It's not on his tape.
- I think he didn't believe it.
- He just dismissed it and didn't believe it.
- And I did believe it.
- But it didn't happen.
- So after that, I mean, now I'm not afraid of anything
- because nothing can be that bad anymore.
- So that-- no.
- We did a lot.
- I mean, I went illegally on trains, and I went illegally--
- I had to because legally it wasn't possible.
- You had this catch-22.
- You had to have a travel paper to go to Lyon to see the consul.
- And in order to get the travel paper,
- you had to have a picture.
- And the photographer was in another village.
- And you needed the travel paper to go to the photographer.
- You know, you just couldn't leave.
- So I went without.
- There was no point.
- And I wasn't caught.
- And I wasn't particularly smart.
- I just happened not to be caught.
- And so I came back.
- I mean, there were unpleasant things, of course.
- I went to the police to start out getting my travel papers.
- And he asked, of course, where were you born.
- Oh, you were born in Austria.
- You should be in concentration camp.
- And I said, yes, sir.
- And turned around and walked out.
- I wasn't going to argue with him.
- He was stronger.
- And he didn't go after me.
- I mean, that's again, the French, you know,
- they're so lazy and so.
- He didn't go after me.
- And I walked out and walked home again and had no paper.
- But that didn't bother me so much.
- And then I went to Lyon.
- By yourself?
- By myself, yes.
- And we knew--
- I mean, we knew that if I don't come back,
- he'll never find out where I am.
- You know, I won't be able to tell him.
- You just take a chance.
- But if you don't, you don't get anyplace.
- You've got to do something.
- So I did go to Lyon.
- And you couldn't go in a restaurant
- because the police checked.
- You couldn't stand on the line because the police checked.
- On trains, they checked too.
- But you can't get to Lyon without the train.
- So you did go.
- And, of course, in the consulate,
- your extraterritorial, you see.
- So the Americans opened at 10:00.
- And I was there at 8:00 I think, in the morning.
- So I went to the Portuguese first to try to get--
- you know, there were boats going from Portugal.
- So if you could get through Spain to Portugal,
- you could take a boat from Portugal.
- [AUDIO OUT]
- You were in Lyon.
- And you were--
- I was in Lyon trying to evade police.
- And so I went from one consulate to the other.
- And the Portuguese, of course, didn't do anything.
- The Portuguese would give you a visa
- if you had a ticket for the boat already.
- But you couldn't get a boat ticket
- if you didn't have a Portuguese visa.
- So these things were very difficult
- and practically impossible.
- Then I went to the Spanish people.
- And they wouldn't give you anything
- because you didn't have a Portuguese paper.
- And eventually, it was time for the American consulate.
- And I went there and happily waited
- because I had to spend a day.
- How was it decided that you would do
- this rather than your husband?
- Because I always did things.
- I mean, that was--
- You didn't feel you'd be safer because you were a woman?
- No.
- No.
- It wasn't a question of safety?
- No.
- No.
- I don't know.
- It never occurred to me that he would come.
- You know, I always did.
- You know, I went to the Gestapo, and I went--
- and I guess I can't really answer that.
- I don't know.
- It just was always done that way.
- And I think I enjoyed it more.
- [LAUGHING] I really think I enjoyed it more.
- It was-- to me, it was still a sport.
- And, well, then I got to talk to the consul.
- His name was Husted--
- H-U-S-T-E-D. And I want his name remembered because he was
- the only decent consul of the century.
- I think he was really fine.
- Our sponsor had died.
- And so we were hanging in mid-air without the sponsor.
- So I talked to him.
- And I said, but, no, my father is there.
- My father has a grant, a yearly grant of $2,000,
- which isn't very much.
- Would you accept my father as a sponsor?
- And he said, yes, of course, he's your father.
- He would always share with you, which is a very humane thing
- to say.
- And no consul ever said anything like that.
- And, yes, and your father will see to it that your child goes
- to school and he'll--
- that's fine.
- We'll accept you.
- And that saved us because we didn't have anybody else.
- What city was your father in?
- In New York.
- In New York.
- In New York.
- When did he come to the United States?
- He came in June of '40, 1940.
- Was it difficult for him to get to the United States?
- No, it was not difficult for him because the quota system
- ran so that religious ministers and teachers or maybe
- just university academicians were outside the quota.
- And he was in England.
- And he had an invitation to New York University.
- And so he went to the American consul in, wherever,
- Oxford, where he was, I guess.
- And there's a little story, but it's a good story.
- The consul asked him to prove that he
- was an academician, that he was a teacher at the university.
- And he said, well, here is my dismissal paper.
- And the consul said that your dismissal paper.
- That doesn't prove that you were a teacher, which is OK.
- So they were thinking.
- And then my father said, well, the testimony of Sir Henry Dale.
- Well, Sir Henry is a private citizen,
- which isn't true either.
- He was the president of the Royal Society.
- That's not a private citizen.
- And he got the prize together with my father.
- I mean, there was a colossal connection.
- He didn't accept it.
- And then my father had the idea and said, well,
- if I'm listed in Who's Who, would you accept that?
- Yes, he said, Who's Who, yes.
- So he got up, got Who's Who, found my father, read it all,
- said fine, signed everything.
- My father said, thank you very much, went to the door,
- turned around and said, Mr. Consul,
- do you know who put this into Who's Who?
- And he said, no.
- And my father said, I did.
- Thank you very much, Mr. Consulate, and off he went.
- But he had his visa, and he came over.
- That's how he came over.
- So it wasn't hardship, it was just competitive.
- But yeah.
- All along then were you in communication with your father?
- No, not all along, but from time to time.
- I mean, we knew that he was here.
- We knew that he was in this country
- while we were still in France.
- And, well, then, we were in France.
- We eventually-- the interesting thing
- was I came back from Lyon to our little farm,
- and a week later, we had the visa.
- Now, the counsel had told me I have to wait
- until it comes from Washington.
- Whether it was coincidence, I mean,
- sometime after 2 and 1/2 years, it did come from Washington,
- possibly.
- I don't know.
- But it's a colossal coincidence a week after I'd been there.
- But we got it.
- And then came the question of what do we do with it?
- We have to travel.
- It was in the middle of a winter.
- And it wasn't so good.
- And so we waited a little in there.
- And then we left the farm and went
- to Marseilles, which was the only place where
- you could leave, if you couldn't go through Spain.
- What month was it?
- I think March.
- March, beginning of March.
- March of '41.
- March of '41.
- And we got to Marseilles.
- And again, no place to stay.
- Absolutely no place to stay.
- And we walked in the street with little luggage and a little baby
- and talked about it and spoke French, of course.
- And somebody heard us and said, you're looking for a room?
- We said, yes.
- And he said, I know one.
- But you have to take the streetcar to the end.
- It's 50 minutes, but there is a rest-- there's' an inn there,
- and they have rooms.
- So, I mean, we didn't know any better.
- So we said, fine, we'll go.
- And we went on the streetcar and went there.
- And there was an inn.
- And they said, yes, yes, we have space.
- Took us behind the house and in the backyard,
- there was a half circle of little huts, which
- were all bedrooms, of course.
- And one was empty, and they rented us one.
- And the baby, the girl was who was two years old,
- and she didn't know what she was seeing there, you know.
- So we had this bedroom.
- And in all the others, best of company,
- Spanish officers, from the Spanish loyalist army.
- So it was fine to be there.
- It was perfectly OK.
- And so we lived there.
- And every day my husband took the streetcar back to Marseilles
- to look for some transportation.
- And we were there for several weeks, I think.
- And I was just there with a child.
- And the people in the restaurant always fed her.
- And it was very difficult to have meat,
- and we didn't do anything but for the child.
- I mean, they had noodles or a little meat or something.
- They always gave us something to eat.
- At that time, were you aware of what
- was happening in the other countries in Europe?
- Yes, of course.
- Oh, yeah.
- We were aware.
- Again, just people talk talking on the street--
- Well, no, no, wait a minute.
- If you talk about extermination camps, no.
- No.
- Concentration camps, yes.
- But not this kind of thing.
- No, that we only found out after the war.
- But that wasn't even--
- well, in Paris there were bombings,
- but it was just the beginning.
- No.
- Well, and there we were in Marseilles.
- And he passed by an office.
- And it said there's a boat leaving.
- That was a Monday, next Monday, but only men.
- Well, he took note and came home and told me about it
- and went back next day.
- And by Wednesday, they said men and women, but no children.
- And so we were very hopeful.
- I mean, there just weren't enough people with their papers
- ready.
- I mean, you can't fill a boat if people don't have their papers.
- And by Friday, they would take anybody.
- Then we had to get the money.
- We didn't have the money.
- We had no money anymore.
- And there was the Jewish rescue HIAS.
- HIAS.
- HIAS, had an office in Marseilles,
- had been notified by the HIAS in New York
- that I was in Marseilles.
- And they had written to me--
- come to think of it, how they had reached me, I don't know.
- But it did.
- I got it-- that they are there and they
- know through my father that are there.
- And if I need anything, they'll be very happy to help me.
- And I should come.
- And so I wrote back, or went back, and said,
- thank you very much, but just now I don't need anything.
- But I'm very happy to know that if I need anything, I can come.
- Well, I needed something.
- I needed the money to come over.
- And I went on Friday noon.
- You still had that diamond from your--
- you were still carrying--
- No.
- I had been to England.
- Oh, you had been England.
- I had been to England.
- You had been to England.
- That's correct.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
- No.
- No, I couldn't have given it to her anymore.
- Oh, yeah, I saw her many, many, many years later in Switzerland.
- You had given it to her in England.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- And so I went to the HIAS.
- And I said my husband discovered that there is a boat on Monday.
- We have all our papers ready.
- We could go on the boat.
- But we don't have the money.
- Can you lend us the money?
- Oh, we don't know anything about the boat.
- I said, well, but we know.
- And it's on Monday.
- And I want to be on it.
- And you promised you'd help me.
- And they started out, we don't know about it.
- And this is Friday, and we are closing.
- And they just weren't going to do it.
- And I was sitting on my chair, physically like this,
- and decided, I'm not getting up from that chair without money.
- I didn't say it.
- But I resolved.
- And I was holding on to my chair and argued.
- And in the end, well, they saw babies are stronger than people.
- I was just not giving it.
- And I said, well, call them, find out they're really there.
- Well, whatever they did, in the end, they decided they lend it.
- But we have to send a wire to my father
- to immediately replace it, which is fine,
- because then the next person can get it.
- He didn't have it, but he had enough friends
- to lend him money.
- I mean, I was sure he could do that, and he did.
- And I got the money.
- I came home.
- Meanwhile, my husband had to go to the police
- to make sure that we didn't owe any taxes.
- Of course, we owed everything in Paris.
- But this was Marseilles.
- So, of course, in Marseilles, we didn't owe anything.
- So we got all our papers and everything.
- And Monday morning we were at the boat with another 250 people
- and got on the boat and left.
- What was the name of the boat?
- Le Capitaine Paul-Lemerle.
- It doesn't exist.
- I think it was sunk later on.
- And it had-- in half of the holds,
- it had anti-torpedo netting, which
- they put in across harbors.
- And in the other half of the holds had the people.
- We were in the holds, and holds for women and children
- and holds for men.
- You know, it was full.
- And you came down on ladders.
- And the opening was covered with canvas.
- And you know how canvas, if you stretch it,
- it still makes a little dish.
- And when it rained, water collected.
- And when the boat pitched, it came out.
- It was romantic.
- But the company was so interesting.
- I mean, really, it was worth it.
- There was everybody who was anybody was on that boat--
- artists, scientists, just-- well, not only.
- There were also people who would steal,
- but we didn't have anything to steal.
- So it didn't bother us much.
- And it was very interesting, all sorts, politicians, of course,
- left politicians.
- We still have friends from there.
- I mean, I still have people in Connecticut whom we
- from then and very interesting, very fine people.
- That trip wasn't bad physically.
- We found out why they only took men first.
- We got on that boat, 250 people.
- There was one little hut on deck, which was a toilet, one.
- So they built some more.
- And the way they built it is they made it bigger
- and made more seats all in one.
- It was ridiculous.
- So you always had to have another person
- with you standing outside the door
- because more people could go in.
- You had to know.
- But that-- there was no fresh water on the boat at all.
- There was practically no food because they had a food--
- how do you say it?
- It was rented out.
- The food business was rented out--
- a franchise.
- And these people have to say what they're serving.
- And they said what they would serve.
- And then they didn't.
- And they sold it in a canteen separately.
- And what we got was--
- well, we got some black water and a piece of bread
- in the morning.
- And then we got as a noodle or rice or lentils,
- or chickpeas, always with these little weevils in it, you know,
- just strewn with it.
- That's what we got served.
- And sardines and other things were sold in the canteen.
- But we didn't have any money.
- We didn't buy it.
- And we were wondering everybody else had money.
- How come we are the only people who had no money?
- But we really didn't.
- And people offered to lend us.
- But you don't borrow if you don't know when you can pay.
- People did offer to share with you?
- Yes, yes.
- They would lend us money.
- So there was a sense of camaraderie?
- Absolutely.
- Yes.
- Yes, very much so.
- I mean, from the human standpoint,
- it was a very interesting, very nice trip.
- It was very, very fine.
- And there were names, I mean--
- Were there mostly Jews on the--
- No, not only, you know, left political people and artists
- and--
- oh, there was the founder of the surrealist movement,
- André Breton was on it.
- And I mean, he was a personality.
- There were really people there.
- There were the best friend of Trotsky was there.
- There were authors, Anna Seghers,
- is probably not anybody you know.
- All left, I mean, all very left.
- And, oh, there was a Medizinalrat from Berlin,
- you know, with his daughter.
- He was a very old.
- He was over 80.
- But he was with his daughter.
- And he had a stay at home.
- There was Lévi-Strauss.
- Is that a name?
- He is the last in my register.
- But I mean, I read something he wrote about this,
- which not a word is true.
- I mean--
- About the voyage, you mean?
- Yeah.
- Wrongly interpreted.
- And I mean, he is no good at all in my mind.
- And we didn't meet him because he had a stay at home,
- and he didn't mix with the trash.
- So, you know, this kind of thing,
- he didn't know it wasn't right.
- He didn't-- I mean, if you are what he was-- what was he,
- a ethnologist or whatever, anthropologist,
- cultural anthropology.
- He ought to know who's there.
- If he thought we were twice, that speaks against it.
- So we didn't meet him.
- But then among the people we met,
- there were really interesting people, very, very nice.
- So it wasn't dull at all.
- It was--
- So you slept in the lower levels or in the--
- Yeah, we had bunks.
- You know, the child below, and I on top.
- And everybody else there.
- And then everybody--
- Dormitory type--
- Yeah.
- --arrangement.
- Yeah.
- All the women in one.
- And all the men in one.
- During the day, it changed a little bit,
- but during the night--
- and then, everybody had something to share.
- For instance, I had gotten what later on
- was called a care package.
- And that had cans with butter.
- And it had chocolate.
- And it had I don't know what.
- I got it--
- Who sent it to you?
- Friend of my brother's from Switzerland
- to France, where I was.
- And in France, after all, we did eat.
- So I didn't open it.
- And on the boat, when the food was so terrible,
- we put the children all on one table.
- And we opened it then.
- And the children got the butter and the children, you know--
- and somebody else would have a pail.
- And I had a potty.
- And, you know, everybody had a piece of soap or something.
- And it was all shared.
- So all the people who had children
- got really to be a group.
- And all these children are now grandparents at least.
- Yeah.
- And so it was--
- on the whole, it was pleasant.
- And we went on this boat to Martinique.
- We stopped in Casablanca.
- We weren't allowed off the boat.
- We stopped--
- Oh, we stopped-- the boat turned around once in the Mediterranean
- because there was a sea battle.
- And they didn't want to get near it.
- So they turned around and then stopped and waited it out.
- And then we went next day, which for us wasn't much,
- but for the political people who were
- afraid they were being taken back, it was very serious.
- But nothing happened.
- And we got out and went to Martinique.
- And in order to get a visa for Martinique,
- you had to put down a deposit.
- And then they started charging us.
- You know, they put us in a camp there,
- in a internment camp in Martinique,
- and charged every day.
- Charged you for staying in the internment camp?
- Well, for what they called food, you know.
- This is everybody on the boat?
- Except the French people.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, it was a camp.
- You know, we slept on the floors.
- And we had meetings.
- We saw this coming.
- And so we got together and said, OK, if this is a camp type
- thing with big rooms for lots of people,
- do you want again, women here and men here
- or do we want families?
- And we decided we wanted families.
- And so then, which families?
- We didn't choose.
- I mean--
- Were there leaders of the group?
- No, just for the moment.
- You know, we just got together.
- You get so versed in doing these things
- if you have to live this way for months and months and months
- that you don't need a leader.
- You get together and do this, and then it's finished.
- Yeah, it's quite easy.
- And everybody agreed anyway, so that's what we do.
- So everybody pitched in and everybody--
- Yeah.
- --was calm?
- Yeah.
- And, you know, in the tropics at 7 o'clock it's dark.
- It's black.
- You don't see anything anymore.
- Every day, it doesn't change in the seasons.
- And it was 7:00.
- And we were let off the boat.
- And so we just walked in the dark.
- There were soldiers who showed us the way.
- To the internment camp?
- To the-- yeah.
- And we got there.
- And there were rooms, no furniture.
- There was a table in our room.
- Yes, there was a table.
- And so we had said we'll be family.
- So I mean, Uli and myself and Ruth, we had Ruth in the middle.
- But there wasn't anything.
- I mean, it was a floor.
- We had a space.
- And then there was this old gentleman.
- He was an economist, I think, also in his 80s,
- quite well known.
- So we called him.
- And my husband sort of took him under his wings.
- And we gave him a place next to us.
- And then word came, you can have the straw sacks from the boat.
- So we went back.
- And I never forget this picture, you know.
- Of course, you didn't get your own anymore.
- They had thrown them out.
- You didn't know whose you got.
- You had slept in a straw--
- Yes.
- --sack on the boat?
- Yeah, on the bunks were straw sacks.
- And they threw them out and didn't need them anymore.
- So you can have the sack.
- So we got the sacks.
- And Uli got two for the old gentleman and himself.
- And I got two for Ruth and for myself.
- And the way you carried it, you put it over-- you
- carried it this way.
- It's the easiest way.
- Over head.
- And all these, you know, there was this line of 200 people--
- Carrying these--
- [LAUGHING]
- I'll never forget it, in the dark, like ghosts.
- But we had the sacks.
- And, of course, there was no food that evening.
- So we lay down and slept.
- And you could hear the cockroaches walk next to you.
- They are big like this.
- So big that you hear, [KNOCKING] hear them walk.
- It sort of screeches a little.
- But it doesn't matter at all.
- How far was the internment camp from the boat?
- Not far.
- It wasn't a big--
- No, no.
- Maybe-- I don't remember.
- Maybe 200 meters.
- You know, not really.
- No.
- And in fact, I don't remember at day time,
- we never got into that area much.
- Did the internment camp have a name?
- No.
- No.
- No.
- But it was near Trois-Ilets.
- And Trois-Ilets is the place where Joséphine de Beauharnais