Flight from breslau

FLIGHT FROM BRESLAU Immediately after Kristallnacht my mother told me to get out, to leave Breslau as soon as possible before it was too late. She’d heard that the Australian Government would accept fifteen thousand Jewish refugees over a three-year period, provided they had a sponsor and ‘landing money’. My father had died two years previously, so it was left to a family friend to put an ad in a Melbourne newspaper, The Herald, offering the services of a children’s nurse. Even so, it occurred to me that my application might well be censored by the police.

Well, I’d got no qualifications and certainly had no idea about looking after children. We were an upper middle-class Jewish family and employed a live-in housemaid and a children’s nurse. We lived on the first level of a large, luxurious apartment with a beautifully decorated interior and a spacious verandah like a loggia.

I have to admit I was very spoilt. Even when I was naughty, my mother would not allow me to be smacked. I was most embarrassed to be driven to primary school in a horse and carriage, much to the envy of my schoolmates. They craved to hitch a ride, whereas I cringed at the very sound of clip-clopping hooves. I felt relieved when my father bought a posh Maybach car, an elegant black saloon, so we were a pretty swell family. My father owned a retail/wholesale silk business situated in the heart of the medieval city, but he was a refined gentleman, an intellectual, also president of the Literary Society. I was extremely close to him and loved our regular discussions on just about any subject, especially on those long holiday walks in the mountains along the Czech border. We liked to stop at one of the chalets for coffee and enjoy the views of tranquil scenery.

Sometimes I grew scared walking so close to the edge of a steep precipice. My father would be happily chatting away when a passer-by called out, ‘Why don’t you take the child on the inside?’

One day a letter arrived from Vernon Smith, who incidentally happened to be the CEO of the Shell Company. He was offering me a position in a private capacity and enclosed an entry permit. This was great news! However, due to thousands of refugees rushing to flee Germany, both Jews and non-Jews, it was practically impossible to embark by boat.

The quickest passage was by air.

As the date for departure drew near, my excitement mounted, but it was heartbreaking for my mother. ‘I can’t let you go, Leah! I can’t let you go!’ she would cry repeatedly. ‘It’s the first time you’ve gone away by yourself. How can you possibly manage, a young girl like you?’ But she must have sensed that at least one of our family had to escape the clutches of the Nazis. My brother, who was bright, very bright and fairly tall for his twelve years, was already open to Nazi abuse, but was far too young, so mother thought, to travel to a distant world.

I caught the train to the Dutch border. Through that long, dark night, travelling southeast, I was very much afraid and utterly confused about where I was heading. My fears

were confirmed when I was strip-searched by a female border guard. What a terrifying and degrading business that was! At least I’d broken out of Germany and was on my way to Amsterdam.

On February 18th, 1939 the KLM plane left the Dutch capital. In those days passenger planes did not sail through the night skies, so every evening we touched down at a new airfield: Naples, Marseille, Persian Gulf, Karachi, Singapore, Jakarta, Bali, Darwin, and, at long last, Sydney. As a reminder of those stopovers, I’ve kept my old Reise Pass encased in its khaki leather cover and signed by the Police Commissioner. On every leg of the flight I felt airsick and could barely eat anything. Besides, the food on offer at the hotels at which we stayed was too rich for my upset stomach. My earliest memories of Australia were of the bushfires raging away over northern New South Wales. The extent of all this blackened destruction made me question the wisdom of coming to Australia.

The final stage of this marathon journey was to catch a train to Melbourne on the Spirit of Progress. Arriving in the Victorian capital on Saturday, March 2nd, I was greeted by Vernon Smith’s somewhat indifferent chauffeur, who drove me to my temporary lodgings in Toorak Road and showed me St Mark’s Church, but left me to my own devices. Unfortunately, the only food in the house was cereal, but I neither knew what it was nor how to eat it. Nor did I know about the function of milk bars as I wandered about Toorak.

Yes, I was naïve in the extreme. For a start, I imagined that the sun always shone in Australia, only to discover that I had brought the wrong clothing for autumn in the southern hemisphere, so there I was shivering in my light, summery dresses. What’s more I was foolish enough to walk alone through Alma Park in the dead of night without heeding the consequences. My mother would have had a fit!

Mr. Smith quickly re-located me to another house, where I was expected to do the housework. I soon realized that wearing silk stockings was not suitable for doing the chores and that I shouldn’t dress up to serve at table but wear an apron. In short, I wasn’t very useful, being quite ignorant about domestic matters. I’d never done any housework at home, not even served at table. Nor had I any experience of cooking, so when there were complaints about my poor culinary efforts I simply replied, ‘This is how we do it in Germany.’

Now I was desperate to obtain a landing permit for my family. Eventually I received one from the Immigration Department. Passage for my mother, brother and aunt was booked for October. Cruelly, war in Europe had broken out in September. I was to hear nothing from my mother, but I continued to send messages home via the Red Cross in Switzerland.

Although I was good at English, I could hardly understand the Australian accent.

However, in Breslau I had been apprenticed to a chemical firm where I learnt shorthand and typing and gained some administrative experience. I very much regretted not being permitted to take matriculation by the Nazis. After Kristallnacht they destroyed all the

prayer houses and Jewish schools. Jewish teachers did open their own schools, but were forced to call them ‘classes’, not ‘schools.’ However, it was easy to find work in Melbourne. You could hand in your notice one afternoon and commence a new job the next day, a situation that was to last until the early seventies. The standard weekly wage for women in domestic service in those days was one pound including keep. For office work the boss might occasionally slip me a few shillings extra under the table. One of my short-term jobs was to act as children’s nurse in Caulfield. Goodness knows what my mother would have thought of that!

Though very homesick, missing those beautiful walks in the mountains and visualizing the familiar sites of Breslau from the tram routes in my mind, I gradually made contact with fellow Jews. There was a big intake of Jewish immigrants in 1939. Already rumours were spreading about the labour camps amongst the Jewish communities, but Australians refused to believe the horror stories about concentration camps. I had no idea about the fate of my family in Germany, not until many years after the war when my younger son, William, made a remarkable discovery.

Later still, some sixty years or so later, I finally heard about the siege of Breslau. How Hitler had decreed in 1945 that my birthplace should be turned into a fortress; the last stronghold of the Third Reich must be defended at all costs against the advance of the Red Army. All civilians were forced to leave – thousands died in the bitter cold. It was feasible that some fled to Dresden, but that beautiful city was bombed weeks later by RAF Bomber Command. German troops, namely the Wehrmacht and Volkssturm or home guard, as well as slave labourers occupied Breslau from February 13th, but their task was hopeless. After fierce house-to-house fighting, the city centre was laid to ruin by the Soviet artillery. The Red Army encircled the city and the garrison surrendered on May 6th, the last major city in to Germany to do so; in fact, one day before the end of war in Europe. It was estimated that thousands of civilian and military personnel were killed or taken prisoner.

None of this I knew, but I dreaded to think what might have happened to my loved ones.

Had it not been for eventually finding the truth about my family’s fate, I might have assumed that in September, 1941 they’d been caught up amongst the Jewish contingent driven from their homes in Breslau and crowded into Judenhaeuser, then deported a few months later to Auschwitz or Theresienstadt.

Then one day, quite out of the blue, William, my son, who was determined to find out what had happened to my mother and brother, was scanning the records of Nazi victims on his computer. Those Nazis kept meticulous documentation. Incredible though it seems, he recognized the names of my mother and brother. Such a terrible, terrible thing, but it’s all such a long time ago now. They were shot by a Nazi firing squad in Lithuania in 1941.

Why was I spared that most dreadful fate? Why was I blessed when every member of my family was murdered? At that time I did not feel guilty. I could barely make sense of what was happening. However, in later years I have felt the burden of guilt weighing on

my shoulders. You see, I did have quite a good time here in Melbourne during those war years. I’ve always been a curious person and I was eager to discover more about my adopted country. I read a lot, gathered a circle of friends, enjoyed dancing. And I married my first husband, Fred, who was also a German Jew. Ironically, our two sons became lawyers, a profession forbidden to Fred under the Nazi regime.

Besides, I’ve never been a religious person. My father expected me to attend the synagogue, but my mother did not care to go herself. She said I could pray at home. I am a little superstitious, though. I can’t help wondering whether my back condition isn’t a punishment for my survival. Or rather the cost of enjoying those pleasures I found in my new homeland. For nearly thirty years I have suffered a debilitating condition of the spinal canal, where the nerves are all bunched up. Consequently, I’m often in pain, but I do have my good and bad days. Nevertheless I still go to the gym every other day to work through some exercises for my back. Weights, pull-down, cross-training, the treadmill. Not that it’s getting better, but it may slow down any deterioration. What more can you do?

Of course, I could never go back to my old home. Breslau is now part of Poland, thanks to Stalin’s claim for compensation for the atrocities of war. The city has been completely rebuilt and even has a new name: Wroclaw. I wouldn’t recognize the place, nor would I understand the language spoken. I too have tried hard to change my identity, to erase any trace of my Germanic past and embrace my Australian identity. I am most thankful to have been given a second chance in life.

Michael Small July 23-August 23, 2012