CHAPTER 27

Ebelsberg DP Camp

I arrived at the gate of the Ebelsberg DP camp at approximately 9 p.m. The guard told me that I needed to report to the office of the UNRRA (the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). I did so and I was told to go to a certain barracks, where I would be provided with a cot. The main office was closed, so I was told to come back the next morning to register. The first thing I needed to do was wash my muddy clothes and shoes and hang them up to dry. It had been a very long day, and I was exhausted and went immediately to sleep. The next morning, I was awakened by a vigorous discussion taking place among my barrack-mates. As it happened, they were all Hungarians, so we made our introductions and I asked them about the workings of the camp. Many of them had been there for years and were waiting for an opportunity to leave, but they couldn’t obtain any permits from countries that were willing to accept them.

I went to the UNRRA office to register, and I was given an identity card. Then I walked around to familiarize myself with the camp and its layout. The barracks—approximately twenty in all—were originally built for an SS tank unit. Some of them housed married couples and children who had been born in the camp. The camp was full of people who were milling around and whose abilities were not being utilized. They did not seem very happy living under these circumstances. The gates were closed in the evening at a certain time, and after that you couldn’t enter the camp. The food was very basic, but we had ample bread and cheese, and if you had money, you could supplement your diet with fruit and vegetables.

Next to the camp, there was a large army motor pool where many trucks and jeeps were parked. These belonged to the American military police. Nearby was a barracks used to store provisions. I noticed a big truck pulling into the warehouse loading area. It contained many loaves of bread and huge wheels of Emmenthal cheese. The driver was a boy approximately my age, and I asked him if I could help him unload the supplies. He said yes and introduced himself as Sandor. When the truck was empty, I got up into the cab with him and rode along as he returned it to the motor pool. I asked him if I could drive with him and help him with whatever he was doing, since I’d just arrived at the camp and didn’t know anyone. I was impressed by his ability to drive this big truck and felt that I could keep myself busy by tagging along with him. He agreed.

Every second day, we drove to Salzburg to pick up provisions for the camp. The ride took approximately three hours each way. One day, I told Sandor that I had a permit to go to Canada but I needed to get to the Canadian embassy. On the next trip, he told me he would wait for me while I went to the embassy to open a file. It was June 1, 1949. The secretary was a young British woman, and she was very kind. I told her that my permit to Canada was in the Prague embassy, and she said she would arrange to have it transferred to Salzburg by diplomatic pouch. In the meantime, I needed to go for medical checkups and X-rays. She told me to come back in two or three weeks to find out the results of the medical exams and see if I had passed or not.

Ebelsberg Displaced Persons Camp, 1949. The driver, Sandor (left), and I (centre) were on the army truck hauling food supplies.

In addition to the big trucks, Sandor also had access to a jeep from the motor pool, and on weekends we drove to Salzburg and he showed me around the city. It was beautiful and I was impressed with the Mozarteum concert house. There was a Mozart festival taking place, and I could see people lining up to attend. I wanted to listen to the music, but I didn’t have the means to do it. Instead, Sandor and I went swimming in the Enns River and he introduced me to my first bottle of Coca-Cola. It tasted terrible, but after the second bottle I was hooked.

I was struck by the beauty of the city, the shops full of merchandise, the restaurants and sidewalk cafes doing brisk business, and the well-dressed people on the streets. I wondered how these people had managed to rebuild their city and become so prosperous while my compatriots and I were still sitting in a DP camp.

At the end of June, I returned to the Canadian embassy to find out how my visa was progressing, only to be told that I’d been rejected because the X-ray showed a spot on my lungs. That was devastating news, and I think the secretary felt just as bad as I did. She told me to come back the next month and reapply. In July, I went to the embassy to apply for the second time. This meant that I again had to go through the process of medical examinations and X-rays. I was told that I could expect my results by the end of July.

In the meantime, the UNRRA posted notices indicating that the camp would be closed by the end of the year. This created a panic because many people had no alternative plans or places to go. Some of my friends from the orphanage in Marienbad had already arrived in Toronto, and I was in touch with them by mail. I wrote to them about the difficulties I was having getting a visa. They encouraged me to keep going. In the meantime, I kept myself busy with Sandor on both weekdays and weekends. I felt privileged to be seen in a jeep as we took our weekend trips. I also practised speaking English with Sandor, who spoke the language fluently. This helped me prepare myself for Canada. At the end of July, I returned to the embassy and was again refused entry into the country. I couldn’t figure out why I and many other Jewish people from the camp were being refused.

The embassy was always full of people applying for visas. I noticed that many of the men who were applying were big and strong, and spoke Slavic languages. Some were Hungarians and some were even Frenchmen. They all seemed to be getting visas without any problems. These people, I learned, were staying at another camp a couple of kilometres from Ebelsberg. Somehow word got out that they were all former members of SS volunteer units that fought under the Nazis. Whenever I saw these men at the embassy, we never exchanged any words. Years after I arrived in Canada, I found out that in many cases, the perpetrators were allowed to immigrate to Canada and other countries before their victims.

In early October, I went back to the embassy, and the secretary looked very happy to see me. She told me that she had wonderful news. “I have your visa for Canada,” she said, “and tomorrow morning you need to board the train from Salzburg to Bremerhaven, Germany, where you will get on the Samaria, a Cunard steamship liner bound for Canada.”

I arrived in Canada on the SS Samaria.