The vienna writers circl.., p.4
The Vienna Writers Circle, page 4
Julian shook his head. “The point I’m trying to make, Mathias, is what was suffered in Germany over years will likely be felt here in just weeks or months.”
“I know.” I sighed forlornly. “Already they appear to be putting the screws on at Ivor’s school, defining who is a Jew or a Mischling. His headmaster tried to get my attention to have that conversation—but I avoided him. Feared I might be tempted to reach across and punch him halfway through such a discussion.”
“Well, that would certainly have got you a quick trip to a concentration camp.” Julian smiled crookedly before his expression sank again. “But as hard as it might be to do so, Mathias, you might have to start considering other options—such as leaving. Zweig saw the writing on the wall years ago and left, and as we know from that last meeting, Freud is now considering leaving too.”
I shook my head. “My mother’s too old, and she’s not well right now. She’d never make it.” Now in her late seventies, my mother, Lena, still hadn’t got over the death of my father, Isaac, seven years ago. She’d had a minor stroke ten months later, following which mild dementia was diagnosed; then last year when she’d fallen and cracked her hip, Erica and I suggested she move from the three-story Leopoldstadt family home she’d lived in for much of her life—and Erica and I had been brought up in—to a nearby nursing home. The three flights of steps were too much for her to negotiate. But she’d insisted on staying, surrounded by much of the fine furniture Isaac had made as a cabinetmaker for forty years and the fine frills, tablecloths and curtains she’d made as a seamstress. Too many memories. Erica and I saw her regularly to take care of her, well, Erica more than me; and every week I’d take Ivor to see her too. And, despite any dementia, her face would light up when she saw Ivor and she’d talk volumes about old times and past memories. I grimaced after another slug of kirsch. “And her never seeing Ivor again. I couldn’t do that to her.”
“You think it would be any easier on her knowing that her son and favorite grandson have been sent to a Nazi concentration camp?” But seeing my pained expression, my impossible dilemma, Julian hastily shook his head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Hopefully, that wouldn’t happen.”
But now I sensed he was just humoring me, trying to soften that portent, which was almost as bad.
Julian pushed an unsettled smile. “It’s not an easy decision to make, especially if there’s family involved. I have a lot of clients on my books facing the same right now. So I fully understand your desire to look at other options first. Just what I’m saying is, well...if those other options don’t look good—you shouldn’t discard the option of leaving out of hand.”
I nodded somberly. Maybe Julian was right. I should start to consider leaving. “I understand that between taxes, low valuation buyouts and currency exchange, the Nazis take 80 to 90 percent of everything you own just to allow passage?”
“Yes. Which makes the decision even harder. And also a number of people they don’t allow to leave.” Julian held his hands out. “But for those who are allowed—what price on your freedom, or indeed your life itself?”
“Yes, I know.”
And, perhaps, sensing my resigned despondency, Julian’s tone immediately brightened. “But there might be other options too—so give me a couple of days to look at those. And we also have Freud’s case example. If he does now decide to leave, how he gets on negotiating with the authorities? We can use that as a guide.”
I nodded. That’s exactly why I’d met Julian now to have this conversation. A finger in every pie, those that Julian didn’t know in Vienna weren’t worth knowing. If anyone could find a solution, it was Julian.
As I took another swig of kirsch, I clasped my left thigh, massaging. The twinges had eased now. A problem resolved decades ago, it came back now and then when I was tense. I’d been born with my left leg a fraction of an inch shorter. I got increasing back and thigh pain as I got older, but the problem wasn’t identified until my teens. From then, my left shoes were specially made with slight uplifts. The pain went and I could walk perfectly normally. But sometimes in extremely cold weather or when tense, some pain spasms would return to my left thigh and back.
“Ah, it appears to have started already,” Julian commented as a booming voice from a nearby PA system reached us, followed by loud cheering.
“What’s that?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Julian was looking at me curiously. “There’s a big rally and speech today from Hitler in Heldenplatz. His first public address since Anschluss—there have been posters about it all over the city. That’s why the guards at the end of the street.”
“Oh, I see. Yes.” I had in fact noticed the posters, but the date and time hadn’t registered. I’d been too numbed with my own problems.
Julian got up and stood looking out of the window. “We should go and check it out. ‘Know thy enemy’ as Sun Tzu said.”
“I... I couldn’t,” I stuttered, pointing vaguely. “The guards on the corner.”
“They won’t pay much attention to you with the people flooding past now.” He smiled tightly. “Besides, you’ve got more chance of losing them in a big crowd than if you’re passing them on your lonesome.”
Minutes later, we joined the crowd heading down the street and, sure enough, the guards on the corner, or indeed the next one, didn’t pay us any attention—probably didn’t even spot us with the press of people around.
As we spilled out into one side of Heldenplatz, Hitler’s voice boomed out, “...First and foremost to make Austria flourish and expand to become a fortress of national willpower...”
Hitler stood on the balcony of the Hofburg Palace, the new Austrian chancellor, Seyss-Inquart, Vienna mayor Neubacher, and Goebbels at his side. I’d never seen such a crowd in Heldenplatz, filling the square and the park behind, some even having clambered onto the statue of Prince Eugen at its center to get a better view. Long swastika banners were draped behind Hitler on the balcony and hung from practically every other lamppost around the square.
“There must be over two hundred thousand people here,” Julian remarked. His incredulous leer became more lopsided after a moment. “Outgoing Chancellor von Schuschnigg claimed there was a lot of opposition to Anschluss and the Nazis taking over—but you’d never guess it from this crowd here.”
“Maybe that’s because everyone who might protest or stand against it fears getting arrested,” I muttered, my voice low for fear of being overheard.
“There is that,” Julian conceded with a tight grimace. “I hear Schuschnigg and many of his inner circle have already been arrested.”
“...The splendid order and discipline of this tremendous event is proof of the power of the idea inspiring the people. Not just the two million people in this fair city, but sixty-five million of our Volk in an empire!”
The crowd cheered raucously, chanting Heil Hitler... Heil Hitler! I felt the press of them all around me. Suddenly it wasn’t just the SS soldiers I’d passed to and from Ivor’s school or on the way here and now interspersed around the edges of this throbbing, surging throng—it was as if every other eye in the crowd was now singling me out... Jew! Jew!
“...I am Austria’s son. I am coming home to the place of my birth. Do not doubt for a moment that I do not hold Vienna in the highest esteem. Vienna is a pearl...and I will place it in a setting worthy of a pearl!”
The cheers grew stronger, welcoming Hitler as if he was the rightful returning emperor he proclaimed to be rather than any sort of invader. Heil Hitler... Heil Hitler! The sound of it started to spin and throb in my head. I had to get away.
“Are you okay?” Julian asked with concern, close on my heels as I started to push back through the crowd.
“Yes, fine...fine. Just think I’ve seen and heard enough, that’s all.” But the crowd seemed tighter around us now as more people had flooded into its edges. More eyes on me as now I tried pushing my way through, the pain spasms in my thigh biting more intensely. Jew. Jew!
“...As Führer and chancellor of the German nation and Reich, I now report to history that my homeland has joined the German Reich!”
The roar of the crowd reached a crescendo. My legs felt weak, my throat dry. The feeling that I might collapse at any moment with the heat, press and noise. Edging, squeezing through the tight-packed throng. “Please...let me through.”
But something else, too, in that moment. The sudden realization of why more eyes were on me keenly. I was practically the only one at that moment moving away, unlike the rest of the crowd—their eyes fixed with fervor on Hitler ahead, enrapt by his speech, arms thrusting out again in straight-armed salutes. Heil Hitler. Heil Hitler!
Here was Julian suggesting I escape Austria, but at this moment I wasn’t even sure I could escape this crowd.
6
Soldiers and all proud members of the Reich are encouraged to picket and hold placards in front of Jewish-owned shops and stores, urging fellow Aryans not to shop or trade there.
Johannes
“Jew, Jew... Jew!”
Stefan Namal, Johannes’s nine-year-old son, stood with three classmates chanting at him in the playground. Or, more accurately, their ringleader, Horst Braun, was chanting loudly, while the other two, Erich and Franz, just tamely chimed in.
“I’m not a Jew!” Stefan defended. “My mother’s Catholic, like yours. And my father’s mother was Catholic as well.”
“But your father’s father was Jewish,” Horst said. “And a very prominent one too. We’ve seen his photos in books in the library.” Horst looked around for support. Erich and Franz nodded eagerly. They’d obviously seen the photos and entries too. Samuel Namal, the prominent statistician and political agitator.
“So what.” Stefan shrugged. “If it wasn’t for my grandfather, half the Luftwaffe and Austrian air force wouldn’t have got off the ground.” Simply a repeat of the bold claim his father had shared with him. What he didn’t go into detail about was how his grandfather had prepared vital wing-airflow and lift statistics; already this little group appeared to have been hit with enough to leave them slightly baffled, uncertain.
“So you admit he was a Jew?” Horst latched on to the only bit he could.
Another shrug, but this time Stefan added, “Yes. And I’m proud of him.”
Horst looked horrified, and for a moment Stefan wasn’t sure if that was because it was unexpected, so he didn’t know how to respond, or its implications? To Horst’s side, Erich pulled a face.
“Uuugh. That’s disgusting,” he said, as if he had a mouthful of dirt. “How can you say you’re proud of a Jew?”
Stefan felt his blood boiling. Images flooded back of sitting on his grandfather Samuel’s lap and hooking one finger around the pipe dangling from his mouth—it was never lit when he held Stefan—then pulling it and throwing it away. Only small at the time, it would go no more than five or six feet. His grandfather would just gently smile, get up and put the pipe back in Stefan’s hand. Let’s see if you can throw it further this time. Let’s have a pipe-throwing contest!
“My grandfather was a good man,” he said.
But perhaps with his voice more uncertain, defensive—or because Horst was still stuck on the last comment—Horst sneered back.
“Yeah. And now you’re left with his filthy, disgusting Jewish name—Namal. Namal the Jew... Namal the Jew!”
It became another chant, with Erich and Franz quickly joining in: Namal the Jew... Namal the Jew...ringing in Stefan’s ears as his anger rose. Their faces moved closer as they chanted, Horst pushing at him to prod the message home... Namal the Jew!
On the third prod, Stefan pushed back hard, and they quickly went into a tussle.
The punch that came through that grappling caught Stefan by surprise on the side of his head, bringing an extra ringing to his ears, a red haze suddenly gripping him. Stefan punched hard through that haze, felt it connect—the haze becoming a bolder, brighter red as he saw Horst fall away from him, clutching at his burst nose, blood running down his face and chin.
Horst screamed in agony as he fell to the floor, lapsing into a wail, “You’ve broken it...you’ve broken my nose!”
Erich had scampered off the second he saw Horst falling, but Franz seemed rooted to the spot in horror, holding his hands up in front of him. A “Please don’t hit me as well” gesture.
That red haze lifting, Stefan was suddenly gripped with panic that he’d gone too far. Horst’s nose was still streaming blood, some of it now dripping on his shirt. But as Stefan tentatively reached one hand out to lift Horst up, the voice of their class teacher, Mr. Pichler, came sharply from across the playground.
“Namal... Namal—get away from him! What have you done?”
And Stefan thought: God, I am in so much trouble.
* * *
I knew we had a fight on our hands as soon as I viewed the countenance of the panel of four sitting across the table from us.
St. Joseph’s was the best local Catholic school we could find, only a third of a mile from where we lived, so an easy walk for either of us to take Stefan, even when Hannah had little Elena in a pram. Though from the age of eight onwards, Stefan had generally gone on his own, meeting up with other school friends not far up the road to make the walk together.
I should have questioned a couple of days ago when I saw out the window those friends appear to walk faster ahead of Stefan, as if keen to keep separate from him. Only six days since Anschluss and already the effects were being felt. And now we had the culmination of that with Stefan involved in this fight at school.
I’d insisted that Hannah be with me for the meeting. Not only to put on a stronger Catholic, less Jewish front at the school, but also her father was good friends with one of the school’s Catholic governors, Mr. Mayr. We knew that Mayr was not a fan of National Socialism, fearing they might sideline the Catholic Church in Austria—but he was careful not to voice that too openly. No doubt fearing that might threaten his position as a school governor. The panel was being chaired by the headmaster, Mr. Stadler, and the other two were Stefan’s class teacher, Mr. Pichler, and another governor, Mr. Rosch. We suspected Rosch’s presence was to counterbalance Mayr.
Headmaster Stadler started proceedings by reading aloud the details of the fight from a file before him, concluding with a huffed sigh as he looked above his pince-nez glasses, “I’m sure you can appreciate, Mr. and Mrs. Namal, why such an attack on a pupil is totally unacceptable here at St. Joseph’s.”
“But I understand that this other boy threw the first punch,” I ventured.
“That hasn’t at all been established,” class-teacher Pichler commented. “The other boy concerned said they were just grappling with each other when your son hit him.”
“You’ve talked to the other boy first?” Hannah clarified.
“Yes,” Pichler said.
We’d seen young Horst Braun sitting with his father, Dieter, in the waiting room when we’d gone into the meeting. We hadn’t been sure if they’d already been in or were yet to be seen. Perhaps they’d been advised to wait to hear the outcome after we’d finished or might be asked in again.
I held a hand out. “What about the other two boys there? They’d have witnessed that first punch thrown by their friend.”
Pichler glanced down more uncertainly at his notes. “They said they couldn’t see a first punch thrown—or at least couldn’t be sure with the tussling.”
“Not sure?” I shook my head. “They were close enough to see the punch thrown. It’s obvious they’re just protecting their friend.”
Headmaster Stadler eased another sigh. “I’m afraid that can’t at all be ascertained here, Mr. Namal. So I’d prefer you refrain from such remarks.”
“Yes. I think it’s patently clear already what’s happening here,” Governor Rosch asserted. “This was obviously an unprovoked assault, and Mr. Namal is clumsily attempting to clear his son’s name by laying blame on these other boys.”
“Unprovoked assault?” My voice rose an octave. “Whether these two other boys saw the first punch or not, they were part of that provocation against our son. Chanting and calling him a filthy, disgusting Jew.”
Stone silence. The ugly side of Anschluss was becoming increasingly apparent, particularly these past few days, but now it sat uncomfortably on this schoolroom table. As if this small, primary school clique had hoped to insulate themselves from all of that. Now I’d slapped it down before them like a rotting fish.
First to break the silence, Rosch smiled gently. “Come now. I’m sure it’s not as bad as your son makes out. Besides, national sentiments are riding high right now...but we can hardly blame our children for that. Boys will be boys.”
“So, out of the mouths of babes?” I held my stare steady on Rosch. “But how would you feel if the situation was reversed, and my son had called these boys filthy, disgusting Nazis?”
I felt Hannah’s hand reach across and grip my thigh at that moment. A clear signal that I’d gone too far. Following in my son’s footsteps.
Rosch glared back for a moment, then his ingratiating smile resurfaced. “That’s hardly the same.”
“Isn’t it? What? The ideals of National Socialism must be protected at all costs?” That grip on my thigh tightened.
Rosch’s smile became strained. “I think you’re intentionally trying to deflect from the violence demonstrated by your son in this incident.”
“Yes. We can hardly have violence shown from Jews toward Nazis—that really would be going against the grain.”
