1938 to 1942, Austria, the Netherlands, and England

By Hans Knight

The train was waiting in Vienna’s Westbahnhof station, gaining steam, and as the hissing grew sharp, we knew that it was time to board.

We were some 40 kids trying to escape from the Nazis, who had taken over Austria on March 12, 1938. Now, 11 months later, there were hugs and kisses on that railway platform in the half-light of midafternoon. The parents were happy to see us moving away from the lurking danger, and we saw it all as an adventure.

At 15, I was one of the oldest of the refugees. My sister Lilly was just 9, and although she must have been puzzled and even frightened, she put on a brave face as she kept close to me, holding my hand ever so gently.

On the train, we all rushed to the windows. Parents and kids clutched outstretched arms, but as the train began to roll, the parents stopped and began to wave with white handkerchiefs. Their faces became sad as the wheels turned with rumbling finality.

All the adults stood still. All except my father. We had clasped hands with warm, strong grips. As the train gathered speed, we had to let go. But my father sprinted along, right to the end of the platform. But soon the train clattered around the bend, and we lost sight of each other.

How had it come to this?

We had lived in Moedling, a sylvan spot of Earth at the edge of the Vienna Woods, 12 miles south of the Austrian capital. It was flanked by vineyards.

In the center of Moedling, my father ran a tiny music shop. The Great Depression had wafted across the ocean, and the radio sets and phonograph records we offered were considered luxury items.

Just before dusk, crowds of unemployed citizens gathered to listen to the records my father played for them over the loudspeaker. Joseph Schmidt, a diminutive operatic tenor, sang the most popular songs. He was a Jew, and nobody seemed to give a damn.

My father loved chess. He had many friends who shared his passion. They would all squeeze in behind a black curtain that divided the store and play raucous games, neighbor against neighbor. Sometimes, I sneaked in on the battles and put my hand on his shoulder. In my dreams, I can still feel his warmth.

Being a boy in Moedling was close to heaven. We played soccer in the woods. When we grew tired, we climbed the fir trees and watched the young couples make love below, jeering or cheering as the spirit moved us. The men shook fists at us, but they couldn’t reach us because the branches would snap under their weight.

School was less pleasant. It was there that I first realized I was different. Twice a week, the pupils had Catholic religious instruction. Four of us were listed as Jewish, and we had to leave the class while the Christians studied.

I never felt especially Jewish. I had two Jewish grandparents, who died long before I was born. My mother was Catholic. My father considered himself a “free-thinking” Viennese: “I don’t care what religion a man has, as long as he is decent. We’re all human beings.”

Our idyllic life ended abruptly the night of March 12, 1938. Hitler had decided to annex his homeland to the Third Reich. The German troops crossed the border into Austria to make it a Nazi land.

But the citizens of Moedling - too many of them - beat them to it. I was standing in the shadow of a bank building amid an expectant crowd. Bonfires blazed in the hills. Off the main street, the ancient synagogue was burning. The firemen carefully doused the adjacent houses. A boy in lederhosen and white knee socks climbed up a ladder, drew a dagger from his belt, cut down the Austrian flag, and put up a swastika banner.

In the next few days, the town that had been a demiparadise transformed into a hell.

By now it is an oft-told tale. Swastika flags and banners sprouted in the town like poison mushrooms. Overnight, gangs of Brownshirts forced Jewish shopkeepers to deface their storefronts with the word “Jew.” Restaurants posted signs saying “Jews are not welcome here.” In our school, professors displayed shiny little swastikas on their lapels. Park benches were marked in white paint, “For Aryans only.”

Through it all, my father kept his nerve. He had been a sergeant major in the First World War, when Austria fought on Germany’s side. In a firefight on the Western front, a piece of shrapnel had torn into his hip. He had received the Iron Cross and a medal for bravery, and kept the awards in a shoebox. “It is laughable,” he told me once. “I was no hero, only lucky.”

But a hero he was to me. When the thugs tried to bully him into painting “Jew” on our shop, he refused. They promised to come back the next day to arrest him. His best friend, a baker named Herr Toegel, stopped them. “Get lost,” he told them.

They obeyed because Herr Toegel wore the brown uniform of the SA (Sturmabteilung). He was the only good Nazi I ever knew.

Soon I was kicked out of the school. I did not mind that. What hurt was being kicked out of the hockey club. One of my best buddies stole my shin pads, explaining, “You’re a Jew. You have no rights now.”

Our young bands of brothers dissolved ignominiously. And no more music floated from our loudspeaker to the appreciative crowd around our shop. The Nazis kept an eye on us. The business died.

With no money left, my father and I took the short train ride to Vienna to live with my aunt Helene. She made a precarious living as a maker of ladies’ hats.

My father made a few schillings running errands for others, and I carried packages and suitcases at the railway station. My aunt’s hat business crumbled fast. Somehow, we stayed alive. We even laughed, thanks to my father’s indomitable ironic wit.

In the end, luck smiled on my sister and me. After months of effort, a British family we found was willing to give us a home. Our guardian angels were the Quakers, who organized the Kindertransport.

Lilly and I were in the train that had awaited us at the Westbahnhof in Vienna. A few hours later, we looked out the window and beheld a wondrous sight. In the dark sky, there was a brightly lit cross above an invisible church tower. “We are in Holland,” somebody shouted. Pandemonium erupted. We screamed for joy.

We got out of the train at the Hook of Holland. For the first time in my life, I smelled the salty scent of the sea. And suddenly we were aboard the Volendam, the Dutch ferryboat that took us to Harwich over a heaving sea. It was cold in the boat, and a few little girls cried for their mothers. A large, gruff Dutch woman told us to behave, and then she spent the rest of the voyage calming the crying girls.

That morning, bleary-eyed and exhausted, we got onto a slow train that eventually rolled to a halt in an enormous station. London. We stood around, waiting for people to pick us up. We had large cardboard signs with our names around our necks. One by one, our crowd dwindled as strangers collected the kids they had chosen.

At long last, we knew we were free.

The war years in England were harsh and frugal; the work was hard. But we were safe with our new family and free to say what we liked. No more swastikas, no more insults, no more lurking in corners.

Through a family friend who had escaped to Shanghai, we were able to exchange letters with my father. His reports were always cheery and optimistic. They were in good health and doing just fine. And we’d be back together again someday soon.

Then, one day, he wrote that they were moving. “We are going to live in the East, so you may not hear from us for a while. But don’t worry. We are facing the future with confidence and hope. Be good always. Love and kisses, your Dad.”

Many years later, as a reporter in America, I interviewed a group of high-school honor students. I asked them what they knew about Hitler and the Nazis. “Oh,” one said with a trace of boredom, “You mean that six-million bit?”

I now wish that I had taken the time to tell him about a man who loved sports and books and music, who was a friend to all who crossed his path and had no enemies. I could have told the student that the man was deported from Vienna for “racial reasons” on September 14, 1942. He wound up in the Maly Trostinec camp near Minsk, and he was killed four days after his arrival. He was just short of 54.

Had I told all that to the honor student, told him about the man who had sprinted alongside a moving train to get one last look at his children, the kid might have been more polite.

I’d like to think so.

Hans Knight is a former writer with The Bulletin in Philadelphia. He has contributed to The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Arizona Republic, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and numerous other publications. He was born in Austria and raised in England. For two years, he worked as a translator for the U.S. Department of War at the Nuremberg Trials. He has co-authored three books and lives in Arizona with his family.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 | Email This Post

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