England
Charles is released from Buchenwald, but happy reunions are short-lived. Charles must report daily to the Gestapo and must get out of the country within a few weeks.
The morning sun of the 1st of May 1939 rose in Vienna. It was a wonderful spring day. Then there was a knock at Claire’s door. Claire, startled and frightened opened the door. Mama too, whom Claire had already told everything, looked up in fear. But it was only the telegram boy who handed Claire a paper with only two words GLUECKLICH GELANDET - happily landed. Both women fell into each other’s arms and cried their hearts out in relieved happiness. (SS 210-45) .
I too woke up and waited to cry when I realized that I am in London and in safety and freedom. But then one thought dominated my mind every hour day and night and in all the months ahead I MUST SAVE CLAIRE! I MUST SAVE CLAIRE! From then on I became the apostle among the refugees in London who have left their women and children and fled. I cried “Save your wives and children! Get them out of Germany before it is too late!” As I started out on the road to a new life, the obstacles in getting Claire as soon as possible out of Germany seemed unbridgeable. First, I was not allowed to take on any job. Consequently, I could not earn the money for Claire to bring her over, and I could not nominate her for an entry visa. That we were not married proved now a hindrance. On the other hand, she, being an Aryan, faced great dangers if she intends to go to London, that is following me. She was already very much suspect by the leading Nazi of her neighbourhood. Young Austrian women went to England as domestics, but this was out with Claire in her age. I got frantic with every day' moving towards the Second World War. May and June came and went. I found immediate employment when I visited my old chief Dr. Dukes. “Good Heavens! Where have you been?” he cried, “we searched London for you since Modley telephoned me that you are coming by plane. My brother was at the airport, but apparently missed you. Now, how would you like to become factory manager in a hurry?” It turned out that he had started a firm and factory for making tungsten wire for electric lamps, but the English engineer whom he hired, proved to be ignorant. The tungsten wire broke the moment it came into contact with the hammer machines. I had not done this job for 15 years, and I was a bit apprehensive. But within 6 weeks of intensive research and tests I managed to find the fault. Dukes had promised me a bonus when I would do this, but then he tried to do the old trick as in Vienna and kept me on a shoestring and low salary, which disgusted me. Besides I realized that he had not enough financial means to get on with the factory. But above all, I saw that a new world war- was approaching and that England would be involved. I was appalled about the unreadiness of Great Britain, as usual relying that somehow a powerful ally will be found should war come about. And I realized the ever increasing danger for Claire. She had saved me and got me out of Germany. I had to do the same thing for her. When I realized that it is impossible for her to come straight to London, I told her to go East, instead of West. I told her to close her home and go to my mother and family in Czernowitz. This she did, and was welcomed in their midst. Meanwhile I had got my works permit, and I had now the means to support her, and therefore I applied for an entry permit for her. But it was too late. Events moved too fast. On the first of September, when I came into the factory at Welwyn Garden City, my foreman told me “Hostilities had started!” World War II was on. The separation between Claire and myself seemed to become permanent. I started a hysteric action of trying to get her on an airplane from Roumania to Sweden, but again events moved too fast. Refugees began to stream from Poland into Czernowitz, and Claire was hopelessly stranded there. I was terribly unhappy. But at the same time I realized that she is in freedom and not more in Germany. And I set my jaw in determination to bring her to me. (SS 210-45) .
The war suddenly threw Great Britain into black-out darkness. Equally suddenly I received a call to visit a Viennese industrialist, a Mr. Erber. He too had started a factory (for making radio valves) and he too failed like Dr. Dukes. And he too saw in me the saviour. He explained that I should organize a factory for making torch batteries, now number one priority in demand. He promised me a good salary, a contract with a bonus for turnover and participation in profits. And so I left the beautiful Welwyn Garden City with my cousin, the young boy Willy, the youngest son of aunt Hermine, and we went back to London. With my old energy, I had the factory going within a few weeks, and Mr. Erber was very pleased. At the same time, he thought like Dr. Dukes and the exploiters of myself in Vienna of how to keep me on a shoestring, or better how to get rid of me, now that I had taught him all that was necessary to manufacture torch batteries. The trouble was that it took about 4 months until the home office granted a works permit. For this reason Dukes had me on a slave basis, because I had to work clandestinely in his factory and had to be glad when I received my weekly salary, because I had no works permit. Now the same slave method started with Erber. I started his factory in October. But November, December, and January came and went and I still did not get my works permit. Apparently Erber simply delayed it. Came February and Erber took the initiative. One morning I came into the factory and Erber stood at the gate, barring my entrance. “Mr. Blitz,” he said, “I cannot let you into the factory. You have no works permit and I am running great risks. Please leave and do not return!” Not a word of the next salary, not a word of our contract. But Erber had not reckoned with my intelligence and my ability to overcome difficult situations. I went straight into the Home Office, explained the situation and had within hours my works permit entered and duly stamped on my alien’s passport. Next morning I came brazenly into the factory and Erber got a red face and wanted to order me out. At this, I showed him the entry as works manager of his factory. It looked as if he would get a stroke there and then, He almost foamed at the mouth. And I explained to him that I simply had to stay, because I needed the salary, for myself, for my young cousin and for Claire. But I realized too, that things could not go on like this. True enough the war was a "phony war" with little hostilities along the German-French frontier. But I realized that Hitler is planning his Blitzkriegs. I realized that Great Britain is completely unprepared for an invasion, that there were not two divisions in the country, and only a few squadrons of spitfires. When Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway, I threw myself into a mad activity. I knew that Erber would not tolerate me staying away even for one day. He would use this as an excuse that I had broken our contract. When I was sick one day, he sent a scout into my home to find out whether I am really sick. I was bound to the factory for my daily bread, but at the same time I had to find a way for me and Claire to come together somehow. I had reserved for me the right to have two hours free for lunch. At 12 a.m. I ran out of the factory, snatched a few sandwiches from the corner grocer and hailed a taxi. Day after day from 12 to 2 p.m. I dashed around London from one embassy to another, from one consulate to another. The United States were hopelessly out. I was born in Czernowitz, which became Roumania after the first world war, and the Roumanian entry quota was so small that I would have to wait perhaps 10 years. I then tried every South American country, and every Central American country. My idea was that I and Claire would proceed to Bolivia or Honduras or Nicaragua or Chile, anywhere where we could be united and face again a life together ~ But all my approaches, all my pleas at these Central and South American embassies and consulates were answered by the consul with the smile “Non semitas!” No Jews! Then I got the idea that Claire should go to Ireland, a neutral country, and I would come over. I began to make the rounds to Roman Catholic priests, monks and monasteries, pleading that a letter should be sent to the archbishop of Dublin for granting an entry visa to Claire into Ireland. But all those hypocrites could offer to a Jew with a Roman- Catholic “fiancée” in trouble were prayers. This I could do myself, and I realized the proverb which in German runs “Help yourself and God will help you” which is sheer hypocrisy. The English equivalent was better “Everything depends on me, and I depend on God.” But the task was almost impossible. I lay awake through the nights and tried to find a way out. As soon as the factory closed I was on my way to people who could perhaps help me, people who had friends and relatives in American countries. I had not the money to use taxis all the time. Imagine myself boarding buses in pitch-dark London, getting out at places which I never saw in my life, stumbling in the darkness and falling or running into a post in order to find the house where there might be help for me and Claire. Those were terrible months in London. At the same time I realized that I had to make more money. I interested a firm manufacturing tungsten wire and ingots to buy off me a treatise containing all my experiences and knowledge in this field for £85. So, in the evenings left to me I typed and typed in bad English on this treatise. Next evening I was off to visit another friend who could perhaps help me. I shall relate only one such visit which I remember vividly.(SS 210-46) .
The brothers Muenz were my co colleagues at the high school in Czernowitz. Later they too moved to Vienna, and we met occasionally in Vienna. When I heard that they are in London, I went to them. And both brothers after hearing my frantic story told me something in the following words: “Look Blitz, there are certain situations in which a single human being is utterly helpless to do anything. This is such a situation. There is a war on. Nothing can bring your Claire to London. You cannot do anything. This is fate, and you have to submit to it as we all do. There is only one thing to do: to wait for the end of the war and to hope for the best. You cannot do better. And this is our advice. We too have families and friends in Germany. And many thousands of refugees here are in the very same position. But there is nothing we and they can do. You must stay in London and hope for the best. Please listen and follow our advice. It is the best under the extraordinary circumstances.” (SS 210-46) .
The advice was sweet indeed; I had a nice flat in London. I had my contract with a firm making goods for the war effort. I was declared a refugee from Nazi oppression by the aliens court. In consequence my camera was given back to me. I could travel all over the country, and had all the liberties of an Englishman, and I was safe with 44 million British people. And Claire was safe too in the next best place I could imagine, within my family financially secure and in a neutral country. Really, why go to all those hysterical searches for a visa into Nicaragua or another country where new dangers were lurking. Really Karl, follow the advice of the Muenz brothers. Enjoy life in free London and tell Claire to do the same in free Czernowitz, and let’s hope that the war will soon be over. And so satisfied and mollified and quite happy I spent the evening with the brothers Muenz. But when I found myself again on the dark streets, when a siren wailed, announcing an air raid or only a probable one, I realized that this wait and see policy was not good. Hitler is bent on world conquest. He had smashed Poland. He would smash Roumania and other countries in the same way as he did with peaceful and free Denmark and Norway. No Karl! Claire is not safe there, and neither are you here. You must keep on trying to find a way out for the safety of Claire and your own, and also for the safety of your whole family who too are endangered in Roumania, I then began a hopeless activity of getting permits for Claire and myself and my whole family into the Bahamas, which I considered safe, because of the proximity of the U.S.A. But it was a terrible task for me, who had little time and little money and who at the same time must write to Claire every second day, relieving my anxiety by telling her of all my efforts to be united. Claire was happily received in my family and she had a good time there. She helped Henry in the shop, and she helped Mama in her homework. In the evenings she would play with my brother Isiu, and then she would sit down and write to me. (SS 210-46-47) .
After that I had no time to spare for anything, not even for eating and sleeping. I was in a mad rush to embassies and consulates, to refugee and welfare organizations. I found however time to look after the son of a distant relative of mine. He was a young man of 16, and I had watched over him in Vienna and secured for him an apprenticeship with a maker of electro-medical apparatuses. His name is Walter Wender. When I came back to Vienna from Buchenwald I visited his mother and learned from her that he had gone to England with a childrens action. She implored me to watch over him. When I came to England I found that he is in a camp for refugees, Walter was born in Vienna, and therefore was on the German immigration quota, and had a good chance to go soon to America. But I had no money. At the same time I realized that I had to help him if I want that help should come to me and Claire. This is my “religion” which I had expounded at length in my manuscript GOD AND YOU AND LOGIC. Whatever force reigns in the universe, whatever name we give it, I believe that a-good deed will bring a good deed. The law of action and reaction works in the very same way. Therefore, with all my worries about Claire and myself, I had to help young Walter, as I had promised his mother who said good-bye to me, weeping and crying that my heart was rent asunder. Alas, she must have known her fate. She was gassed by the Germans. (SS 210-52) .
A man in that refugee camp whom I knew promised to see to it that Walter would go to America on a free ship ticket, provided I in turn take him (that man) into my flat in London, so that he can leave the camp. I did, but he did not help Walter a bit. Seeing that Walter would have to remain in England if I cannot find the money for the ship ticket, I asked his mother to give me all addresses of her near relatives. Then I started on a frantic letter begging action to get from them the money so that Walter could go to America. I got a little money, but not enough. $85 had to be found somewhere in order to pay his fare, so I had to find it in my own pocket. Later on when I arrived in Shanghai, I began corresponding with Walter who had found friends and employment in America, I asked him to send me installments of the money I gave him in London; because I had not enough money to bring Claire to me. He did send me $5. After the war I wrote to him and found that he has now his independent business, but he would not send me anything, and in the end stopped writing to me. (SS 210-52) .
So the days and the weeks went by, and I still had no entry visa, into any country. And then one terrible morning, I believe it was the 10th of May 1940 I switched on the radio for the morning news and heard with my blood freezing in horror that the Germans had invaded Holland and Belgium, that they had bombed in ashes a free and undefended city Rotterdam, without warning and without a declaration of war. Within a few days Holland and Belgium gave in and the way into France, outflanking the Maginot line was open to Hitler, and he took immediate advantage of it. There was turmoil in France, and retreat everywhere. It seemed only a matter of weeks or months that France would be conquered, and then the next natural target would be Great Britain. And Great Britain was wholly unprepared. Everyone could see that. On the barrack grounds we saw young recruits exercising not with rifles but with sticks simulating rifles. There was a call over the radio that everyone should notify the authorities if he has a Shotgun or something which could shoot. Meanwhile the remnants of the British army were rescued from the beaches of Dunkerque with small pleasure boats, and there was no other army to replace them. This was England in 1940, and this was the prospect when Hitler planned the invasion. (SS 210-52-53) .
In foregoing pages I had presented to you two Viennese industrialists who saw in me their saviour and who kicked me as soon as I had saved them. Now I present to you a third industrialist Mr. Robert Lang, also from Vienna, who did the very same thing. All of them wanted to profit from my knowledge, talent, industry and honesty and all of them acted shamelessly as soon as I had served their purpose. For me, I had no choice, because I had no money, and they had it. I simply had to work for them and had even to be grateful at first, believing each time that I will be treated fairly. These experiences made me resolve later on, never to go into employment, but to be my own master. (SS 210-53) .
Mr. Lang and I met in Buchenwald. He admired my organisatory talent, how I managed under most difficult situations to provide winter garments for all prisoners of my hut and how I managed to get them extra amenities. He admired my utter honesty and my willingness to help others in need. When we met again in London, I had my full-fledged job as a factory manager, but he was utterly lost. He had inherited a brass foundry from his father, and with the help of the old employees he was certainly an industrialist. But alone, on his own, although he had an engineer’s and even doctors’ degree from the University of Technology he was afraid to take on the smallest job. And often he said to me, that should he ever go into industry again, only with me would he dare to try. (SS 210-53) .
During those terrible days after the invasion of Holland and Belgium I rang him up. He was terribly downcast. If Hitler should come to Great Britain, he would take poison, he told me. He was also desperate. He had some money with him when he came over, and this enabled him to go idle for a year, whereas I had to work to earn my daily bread. But now all his resources were down to £1000, and after that, he did not know what to do. And he hoped from me that I would be his saviour. “Robert,” I said, “you always wanted to go into partnership with me. Now is the time for an undertaking which will save us from Hitler and give us a new life. Let's go away from England. Let's go overseas!” “But this is impossible now,” he would say, “you can't get an entry visa anywhere. You can't get an exit visa. And you can’t get out of England. And besides, the Bank of England will never convert my £1000 into foreign currency!” (SS 210-53) .
“It can be done!” I said to him and began to tell him of my plan, a plan on which I had laboured during the previous months. And it all hinged on the possibility of being united with Claire. Therefore, I must now go back a few months and tell you what happened to Claire in Czernowitz. She was safe within my family, but her personal and the general situation had worsened almost daily. First, her permission to stay was only granted for one month and this permit had to be renewed. The political situation for Roumania, and especially for the northern part of Bukowina with Czernowitz became very grim. It appeared that Hitler had given his blessing that Stalin may take away from Roumania the northern part of the Bukowina with Czernowitz as its centre. This was a hostile act against Roumania, and therefore people with German passports in Roumania were suspect and not wanted. Claire wrote to me with ever growing anxiety about her difficulties to have her monthly permit renewed. Henry bribed the officials, but he too saw that somewhere, and sometime final refusal to extend the permit would come. Claire had to get out of Czernowitz. But where to O Lord, Where to? (SS 210-53) .
All my endeavours to get her a visa into America failed. I had to think of a rescue action and fast. Any time the Roumanian officials might deport her back to Vienna and there she would be more suspect than ever. I wrote to a number of friends in various countries, asking for a possibility for Claire to come there. Of course, no one wanted to be burdened with a woman in these difficult times. No wonder that one after the other declined to help. But there was one friend, and he proved a true friend indeed: my old colleague at the Kremenezky factory, Ing. Simon Klein. He was in Greece, where he worked for two industrialist brothers for whom he had organized an electric lamp factory. And they too took advantage of his precarious position. They would simply not recognize the contract they made with him and the salary they had to pay him. They would give him only as much money as was necessary for him, his wife and daughter to survive. And Klein had no choice, because he too could not go abroad. He had to be grateful to be in peaceful Greece and out of the war. And friend Klein, although he had his own great worries, told me to get Claire over to Greece. I cannot tell the reader how many letters I wrote to how many people in order to save Claire. But my perseverance in trying to find a real friend won through. At last, I cabled Claire to make herself ready with her passport and ticket and go to Klein in Greece. I knew that my brother Henry would provide her with the ticket, and also with some money, but he had not much. Nevertheless, he did what he could and accompanied Claire to the black sea port of Constanza, where she would board a small Roumanian steamer for Greece. Imagine the poor woman sitting on deck with two suitcases which contained all her belongings. And in her purse there was barely money to stay alive a few months. What bad luck did I bring to her, when I met her in 1920? Had she not known me, she would be today secure in her small flat in Vienna with her pension and without worry_ Now that she had thrown her fate with mine, she had to flee Vienna, where she had exposed herself too much with the Gestapo in fighting for my release. And now she had to flee even the safety of my family in Roumania and go to Greece. Will I be able to send her money? Will Hitler not invade England during the next months and carry me back to the concentration camps of Germany? Will Greece not be attacked by Mussolini? What then? What then with poor Claire? (SS 210-53-54) .
But Claire had faith in me, and I had faith in myself, and also in the belief that somehow the eternal force which works in the universe will help me in my frantic efforts to save Claire. No sooner had I received the cable telling me of her safe arrival in Athens, then I got my first shock, a notification of my Bank that the Bank of England had refused the monthly transfer of £ 10 from England to Greece, on account of the war situation, and also on account of the fact that the money is to be sent to a German national. “Show me your letter to the Bank of England” I said to my bank manager. He showed me and I saw that it was just a formal app1ioation. '”This is no way to try to rescue a woman from the German concentration camp. Let me write the letter and you send it off.” And then I wrote a letter, explaining everything, and telling that official who is going to decide, that the fate of a poor woman, who is an anti-nazi and a valiant fighter of the Hitler Gestapo, is in his hands. I got the £10, and Claire got it with utter relief. She had found a place where she could live with this money, and now she had new hopes again. But I had to fight the same fight with the Bank of England the next month April, and the next month May. And then came Hitler's invasion of Holland, Belgium and France. Soon he will be in England, and soon I shall be in his hands, never to come out alive from Germany. (SS 210-54) .