The Escape

Papa registered with the Vienna police (Besirk) station four times and changed his name (from Leib Kwittner to Leo Ehrlich) and address (moved from Kaiserstrasse to 17 Breitenseerstrasse). The police had already roughed up grandma Mela (Melanie) and his friends tipped him off that things were unsafe. He traded gold bars for passage to Shanghai.   Inexplicably, although the Gestapo was looking for Papa, they let them go.   

“On a train, safely at last. These past few months have been hell. Watching business dry up like the old hardwood floors in the hardware store, old friends turn away, a rising bile in the air, in the newspapers, on the streets. Thank God I was able to trust my friend who got the gold so I could buy the tickets, the passports. Thank God no one questioned me. My friend tipped me off that the Gestapo was looking for me. We went through the house, getting rid of everything we didn’t need, giving some things to people we could trust to hold it for us…jewelry from Marcus. Little Fredi got the stamps from all the business papers I threw into the courtyard over the wooden veranda that wrapped all the way around. Poor Fredi, his mother cannot leave and his father left illegally. Now I wish we had used that orange Oriental furniture in the living room. 

We took our final pictures in the courtyard and at the train. We joked. Luzi and Egon went along with us without too much fuss and we kept everyone’s spirits up. Mela was very upset at the police station. It was clear then as it clear now. We no longer belonged in our own home. But we can still ship things." 

Regina and Markus will take care of mama. They will stay where they live, in my house. Oskar and Yetka went to? , and Trude and Eric to England, and Berta and Fredi (and Viktor?) to Switzerland. Berta could not get out at first. Viktor left illegally. (add more from Fredi) Otto and Max will come with us to China. Otto can get work in his profession as a tailor. Max can sell anywhere (was he a storeperson? check Vienna papers)

Poor mama. Marcus and Regina will stay with her, near the Seergasse home. What can she do, she is kosher. She doesn’t know any other way. She can’t travel. 

(Max was always the peacemaker between Marcus and Papa.)

Marcus, Regina, and Menie were not so lucky. They stayed behind. Menie could not imagine traveling to a place that might not be kosher. She was too set in her ways. Marcus and Regina stayed with her until they were sent to a place unknown and Menie was sent to Thereisenstadt, where she died. (By this time, David was long gone.)  

The family poses for a final family photo in front of the train. My mother, as tall as the others, and dressed as an adult, has a dreamy look in her eyes. She has no idea what is happening. Cousin Fredi was four years old and came to see them off. Perhaps his mother Berta, who was still there and left behind (another story) was the one who took the picture.

The train takes them on a long journey to Genoa, where they board a luxury oceanliner Biancamos? through Singapore and Ceylon/Sri Lanka. Papa marveled at the retelling of it…all the monkeys! I have never seen so many.