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2-The Anschluss - March 12,1938
When did you first notice any anti-Semitism in your town?
It happened just over night. Just like that! Just like that. My parents probably - I had heard them talk about the feeling of encountering anti-Semitism all over the place. You know it's like a feeling when you're close to someone who feels hostile towards you - you sense it right away. I used to hear them talking about that, but there were no overt signs.
When the Anschluss happened - which is the annexation in March '38 - I sort of became one hundred percent conscious. I was eight years old at the time. I became a different person overnight.
What was your day like before the Anschluss happened?
An ordinary day - playing with my little friends in the compound, sailing big ships down the brook, pretending. I used to love pretending - stones were people, and I would serve them food and things of that sort.
What happened that morning when you woke up?
We were awakened by the most amazing noise and racket that was going on outside. Such thunderous and storming sounds we had never in our lives heard. It awakened us with tremendous fear because something was going on. So we ran out of the compound to look and there was this total transformation. We were in another city. Every single apartment - the apartment houses or small houses - huge banners with the swastika were flying from the windowsill. It seemed like the whole town was covered.
We were invaded. Of course the Austrians, politically, like to say they were invaded. But the history is up to you. The Germans walked in to Baden and were greeted by the people of Baden like they were beloved relatives coming to town. They threw flowers at them, and sang songs. How you greeted foreign visitors who you loved. It was very untypical of an invasion. When you think of an invasion of a country, I think the way is - tanks come first and above the tanks there are airplanes and other vehicles follow. And at the very end you have soldiers with rifles. It's a very terrifying sight and people usually ran and hide.
Here you have the German soldiers marching in, SS in all different kinds of uniforms and colors. SS are all wearing black, terrifying black boots and all of that. And they're smiling and laughing and everyone else is greeting them. Except we're standing there and trembling like leaves. We know that this is bad news.
How did you know that this was bad?
Actually my father always listened to the radio - to the news - and he was very well acquainted with the facts that Hitler was already in great power since 1933 in Germany. He and the local Jews - I later found out - were constantly listening to the radio and had a lot of fears that this sort of thing might happen.
However there was no notice because all of our neighbors were so sweet. And Austrian Jews especially have this false quality of this sweetness, this superficial sweetness with poison lurking behind, as I would like to say. So there was no hint. No one said "Wait, wait until the twelfth of March. You're going to find out what your life is going to be all about." Oh no, nothing.
I know that in the compound the mother of one of the children that I used to play with - and I don't remember her - threw a bucket of garbage on my head that very same morning and called me a "filthy Jew." I didn't even know where that came from! So, that changed our lives forever because we were occupied suddenly. They spread out and we knew that their presence was here and we didn't know what was up the pipeline.
Being so young, what were you feeling? What was going on inside?
Just terror. Just fear. Just to hear that kind of noise, which is like - like we're sitting here and it's so quiet outside. What if tanks came rolling in and airplanes and shouting? But it wasn't that kind of noise as I say. It was happy noise, but thunderous and menacing for us, for Jews.
You said that you overheard conversations between your parents talking about what was going to happen. Do you remember any of those conversations?
No. I knew - actually it gave us all this feeling, this uncomfortable feeling because you feel the tension of people in the family. We could see my father always glued to the radio and my mother listening also. Your mind takes a snapshot of it and then when the real event comes, you put the pieces together, "Ah, this is what they have been expecting." Sort of an unconscious, conscious thought that goes through your head.
Did you know about Hitler?
Myself no, not at this age. I may have heard the name. But once it happened, my mind opened up and I began to view life as a very different thing - to view it with many eyes for self-protection, I guess.
What was the first thing that your parent did when they...?
By nighttime my father had picked up news. He of course went out and quickly connected with some of the leaders of the Jewish community. He had heard that Jews were running to Vienna - which was about a half-hour train ride away from Baden - they were all running to Vienna to the American Embassy to line up and to try and get a visa to come to the United States. He was preparing to do that the next morning himself.
Fleeing to Vienna
Did your whole family flee to Vienna or was it just your dad?
No, no, no. Actually, he went. Let me tell you about this because it's quite an amazing story. Actually, the fact that I'm alive today and my family's alive is due to a series of miracles, and that was the first miracle about to happen. He went to Vienna the next morning and went to the American Embassy, but he couldn't see it. There were thousands of people in line. They were just ringing around buildings and streets. Oh my God, he couldn't even get to the end of the line because he was looking for the end of the line so he could get in line, but he couldn't even see the end of it. He was walking and walking and people and people and people and he said, "This will never do. I'm never going to get in."
So he decided to walk back again and walk toward the embassy to see if he knew anyone in line, if they knew anything to tell him because you are always looking for information to try and help yourself. So he walked and walked and he came in sight of the embassy, that's how close he came, when suddenly he heard a person call out his name. And there he saw a friend of his and the man called him over and said, " Oh I'm so glad to see somebody!" He says, "You know, I've been standing in this line for six hours and I can't stand anymore. I'm going to die. I'm going to just drop and die because I haven't had anything to eat, anything to drink, haven't been able to go to a bathroom and I just can't stand here another minute. I was just thinking to myself that I'm going to leave the line and if I can only give my space to someone I know." And he said, "Here, Yonah Meier that was my father's name take my place because I can't stay. I have to go home and save my life."
And so of course my father tried to talk him in to "Look how close you are! You may be a half hour away from there. Stay." "No," he says. "Believe me I would stay." Anyway the man left and my father got his spot and within a half hour he was in the embassy and, in fact, he got a number, a visa number, which would eventually get us all to the United States.
When did you end up in Vienna?
Well as you know from your own research we stayed in Baden and then Kristallnacht came. That was November '38. He, as well as all other Jews in Baden and elsewhere, were arrested. They were all taken to Vienna. At the time there were three holding centers two new ones that were set up, and one holding center was a normal prison where criminals would be put. That's the place where my father went.
That's the second miracle. Because the other two holding centers where they threw Jews in, many of them were murdered right there or beaten or shipped off to Buchenwald or to Dachau. Now the place that my father was sent to, as I said, was an ordinary prison and the guards there were not Nazis necessarily. They were guards who had a job and the other people in there were just thieves or thugs, so they were not treated harshly. In fact my mother would send sweaters and warm clothes through my older sister Nina. She would bring it to the prison and the guards were happy to take it in and give it to my father. He was there during "Hanukkah" and he made a menorah in that prison. That would not happen in the other two places. He made it out of old bread and water and he turned it into clay by kneading it. He turned it into a menorah. And the prison chief allowed him to light candles for "Hanukkah". When he was released three months later, he brought the menorah home and we brought it to the United States and then it disappeared, unfortunately.
