CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Toronto, May 6, 1945

THE DULL SOUND OF BELLS in the distance and the muted strains of music and cheering voices drifted up from the streets of Toronto and floated through Karl’s bedroom window. Somewhere in the house, a telephone was ringing. As in the early days of his childhood, he hunkered lower into his bed, reached for his covers, and pulled them up and over his head as he groaned and rolled over. It was Sunday, no work today, and the chance for some much-needed sleep.

In the preceding year, the tide of war had turned sharply and it seemed as if peace might finally be on the horizon. June 6, 1944, had been a significant and defining day. The newspapers had dubbed it D-Day when Allied forces landed on the coast of Normandy, France, in what had been called Operation Overlord, a major offensive against the Germans.

Believing that peace was at hand, Karl had realized that building airplanes for the war effort would not be a sustainable job. He looked around for a company that would thrive in the years following the end of the war, and had found a good position as a draftsman with Goodyear Tire. He enjoyed the new challenges and responsibilities of this job, which included the design of the conveyor systems transporting tires as they came out of the mold to the next stage of manufacturing.

Karl opened one eye, curious about the growing din in the distance. The chiming of church bells was a regular sound on Sundays. But why were there so many, and why were the bells clanging incessantly? Downstairs, the telephone rang again and he could hear his mother walking across the dining room and into the kitchen to answer it. The money from the sale of the farmhouse in Carlisle had enabled Karl’s parents to purchase this home. Victor had lived here until his death, and now Marie, Karl, and Hana continued to inhabit the small two-story brick house. By now, Phyllis was a frequent visitor. The family had welcomed her into their fold warmly.

Karl sat up in bed as he heard the front door open and close, and then the telephone ring yet again. This time, he could hear his mother’s voice rising in excitement. This much commotion so early in the morning on a Sunday was not necessarily a good thing. He waited a moment longer and then pushed aside his covers, reached for his housecoat, and bounded down the stairs. Marie and Hana were in the kitchen. Hana was sipping tea and watching her mother, who paced agitatedly in front of her. Marie looked up when Karl entered, and exclaimed, “It’s over!” Karl glanced from his mother to Hana and back. “I don’t understand…” he began.

“The telephone has been ringing all morning,” Marie interrupted. “The war. It’s over.” Calls had been coming in from friends and neighbors. With the collapse of its defenses, the German forces had begun to surrender to the Allies. The war in Europe had ended. “The news is everywhere.”

Karl quickly reached for the radio. The broadcaster’s voice boomed out. “Victory flags are flying high, church bells are ringing, and people are celebrating in the streets. At long last, the Allies have secured victory in Europe.” Karl didn’t wait to hear any more. He grabbed the telephone and dialed Phyllis’s number.

“It’s so exciting,” she cried. “I can hear the crowds outside my window. It’s like New Year’s Eve.”

The sound he had been hearing in the distance must have been the din of cheering voices, Karl realized. Canadians were in the streets, celebrating the end of the war. “I’m getting dressed and I’ll meet you downtown,” he said. “We can’t miss this.”

It was only as he was buttoning his shirt that he paused to think about what had just happened. As imminent as the end of the war had been, this moment was still beyond comprehension. After six years, the war that had enveloped the world had come to an end. Memories flashed through his mind like the newsreel images he watched at the movie theater: the growing anti-Semitism in Rakovník, the flight from his home, the boat trip across the Atlantic, the years of waiting and wondering when it would all end. All of that was behind him and peace in the world loomed ahead. He imagined soldiers in fields across Europe, laying down their weapons triumphantly. He pictured families gratified to know that their sons and daughters would be coming home, and those who would never again see their loved ones. The news of Hitler’s death had already reached North America days earlier. The reports suggested that he had committed suicide in his bunker underneath the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Now, not only was this monster dead, but the evil regime that he had founded and led had fallen to its knees in defeat.

There was a soft knock at his bedroom door. Karl looked up as Hana poked her head inside and asked if she could come in. He nodded, moving aside some clothing so that she could sit on the bed.

“Do you believe this is really happening?” she asked. Hana, now close to twenty, had grown into a vibrant and energetic young woman. Since moving back to Toronto, she had been taking classes at Jarvis Collegiate Institute in the adult business department, working toward a diploma in secretarial studies.

Karl shook his head. “Hardly,” he replied.

Hana paused a moment. “The first thing I thought about was Father, how he had longed for this day to come. He never got to see it.” She looked up, her eyes moist.

Words caught in Karl’s throat. It was true that his father had dreamed of the end of the war every day that he was in Canada. In the early days of their arrival, it had been one of the only things he had talked about – when the war would end, when they might return to Rakovník, when they could reclaim some of their property. In the days leading up to his death, he had grown silent on the topic, perhaps resigning himself to a belief that he would never live to see the day when peace would arrive. Karl reached out to touch Hana on the arm and she smiled briefly in response. Then he shook the memory from his mind. He did not want the joy that he was feeling on this celebratory day dampened by his father’s absence.

“I’m going out, Hana,” he said. “You should, too. Go and call your friends. It’s a day to rejoice.”

Hana nodded, stood up, and left the room. Karl followed her down the stairs. In the time it had taken him to dress, the kitchen had filled with neighbors and friends. Marie was already busy serving up the cakes and biscuits that she always kept on hand in case there were guests. Among the visitors was Arthur Brock, the man who had helped them find their farm in Carlisle. Arthur’s wife had died years earlier, and in the months following Victor’s death, he had come around on a regular basis, offering support and friendship to the family. He had become a much-needed confidant to Marie. Karl watched as Arthur whispered something in her ear, and draped his arm affectionately through hers. She smiled and moved closer to him. Karl hoped they would marry. He himself already had one foot out the door with his pending marriage to Phyllis. He knew it wouldn’t be long before Hana would follow suit. Though Arthur would never be Victor’s intellectual equal, more than anything, Karl wanted his mother to be loved and taken care of. And Arthur was offering both.

Karl quickly maneuvered his way through the throng of visitors in his home, waved good-bye to his mother, and headed out into the streets. The buses were full of excited people chatting about the end of the war.

“The boys will be coming home soon,” one man said.

“Life can only get better for all of us,” another replied.

When Karl got off the bus, he was enveloped by a mob of cheering people. It was difficult to push his way through the masses. He strained to see above the crowd, searching for Phyllis. He finally spotted her standing on the steps of City Hall, waving and chatting amicably with passers-by. They stood arm in arm in the middle of the festivities, reveling in the moment. There couldn’t have been a more perfect day to celebrate. The sky was a deep and clear blue. The sun shone as brightly as the joyful faces of those who had come out to rejoice. Traffic had come to a virtual standstill. The buildings on Dundas Street were already festooned with Union Jacks. The pavement was littered with confetti and more floated from the sky like unexpected snowflakes on an early spring day. The crowd pressed together until it was almost impossible to breathe. And the word that was on everyone’s lips was “Peace!”

In the days that followed the newspapers carried detailed information about the end of the war. The headline in the Toronto Daily Star on May 7 proclaimed, “Unconditional surrender.” The article that followed read:

Reims, France, May 7 – Germany surrendered unconditionally to the western Allies and Russia at 2:41 a.m. French time today. The surrender took place at a school house which is the headquarters of Gen. Eisenhower. The surrender which brought the war in Europe to a formal end after five years, eight months, and six days of bloodshed and destruction was signed for Germany by Col. Gen. Gustav Jodl….⁶

It would be three more months before the Pacific conflict with Japan would end with the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9. The joy felt by everyone at the end of the war was dampened by the memory of fallen soldiers and civilian casualties in Europe. Tens of millions had lost their lives in the conflict.

As the reports of the losses were emerging, the news began to trickle in about the impact of the war on Jews. At first, the reports of the numbers of Jews killed under Nazi oppression were modest. But, as one concentration camp after another was liberated, the reported numbers of Jewish casualties grew to staggering proportions. And the conditions under which Jews had been killed were horrifying. Gas chambers, ovens, death camps, Zyklon B, all unheard of before the war, now became associated with the massacre of millions of innocent Jewish citizens across Europe. In North America, families were desperate for news of loved ones, friends, and neighbors. No one was exempt. Luck was being measured not by whose families had escaped death, but by how few family members you had lost.

“Sometimes I think it’s a good thing your father isn’t here to hear this news,” said Marie one night as the family sat around the radio. This was now becoming a daily ritual, first scouting the newspapers for the most recent reports of Jewish victims, and then listening intently to the radio to try to understand how so many could have died with no one coming to their aid.

“How could the government not have known what was happening?” asked Karl angrily. “The armies of Canada, the United States, and Great Britain knew everything that Hitler had been planning as far as his armies were concerned. I can’t believe they didn’t know that Jews were being slaughtered by the millions.”

The photographs and movie news reels haunted them all, skeletal figures staring in dazed confusion at the camera with ghostly eyes that seemed to say “Thank you for rescuing me,” while at the same time questioning “Why did you take so long?”

It was inconceivable to Karl, as it was to so many, that the death camps could have existed under the noses of Allied military intelligence and planning. And it left Karl and others enraged and helpless at the same time. All they could do was wait and hope that someone they knew, a relative, friend, colleague, or neighbor, might have survived the carnage. And, slowly, letters began to arrive along with other bits of news.

Phyllis’s Aunt Renia, her mother’s youngest sister, had survived. One of Karl’s cousins, Vicky, was also alive. It was Vicky’s sister Irene who had married Mr. Schmahl, the man who had brought Victor the four paintings. But the Schmahls had not survived. In fact, there were few in Karl’s and Phyllis’s families who had made it. It was as if the Nazis had taken a machete to their family trees, hacking off limbs and branches and discarding them.

There was one bit of happy news. Karl discovered that his beloved nanny, Leila Adrian, was still alive. She had left the country right after the war had ended, when Czechoslovakia had expelled all remaining Germans in what the country believed was retribution for years of Nazi occupation. Despite the fact that Leila had cut her ties to the former Sudetenland years earlier, her identity as an ethnic German marked her and millions of others as traitors to the country. Leila was now living in a village near Frankfurt. The letter that Marie received from her was a bright spot in an otherwise bleak picture.

In the days following, Karl’s family learned about more and more of their friends and acquaintances who had also perished. The Zelenkas were all gone, caught in the Nazi net when they stayed back to care for an ailing son. The day that Hana learned that her good friend Rita Popper had perished was just as hard. In fact, no one from George Popper’s immediate family had survived, with the exception of George himself, who had managed to get to the United States, aided by an uncle who had sponsored him to go to university. Hana recalled Rita’s lovely smile and sweet innocence. “I can’t believe anyone would want to harm her,” Hana said. “Why?”

But that was a question no one was equipped to answer. And why were we so lucky? Karl wondered again and again. We never really saw the future, never imagined the scope of what was to come. How is it that we made the right decision to get out when we did? How did my mother have so much foresight? If only there had been more like her.

On June 28, 1946, Karl and Phyllis were married. The man who performed the ceremony was Rabbi David Monson, known affectionately as the “people’s rabbi.” The exchange of vows took place in his basement recreation room where he had constructed a permanent chupa – or wedding canopy – for these occasions. Only a handful of people were present: Karl’s mother and Arthur Brock, Hana, a couple of uncles and an aunt, and Phyllis’s parents and a few close relatives of hers. Neither Karl nor Phyllis wanted a lavish wedding. In truth, this Jewish ceremony was not even part of their belief system. But civil ceremonies were unheard of at the time, so this was the only possibility. Following the service, the family and a few other friends gathered at the King Edward Hotel for a small luncheon, and then Karl and Phyllis left for Niagara Falls and Lake Placid on their honeymoon.

The couple settled into a small apartment in the west end of Toronto, close to Phyllis’s parents and Karl’s work at Goodyear. With his mother’s marriage to Arthur a few months later in early 1947, Karl felt as if his life was indeed settling into a normal and fulfilling existence. He was content. He had found a loving partner in Phyllis. Hana was grown and becoming more and more independent. Karl had a good job and even dreamed of one day starting a family of his own. It therefore took him by surprise when Marie announced shortly after her marriage that she and Arthur were moving back to Prague.

“What do you think you’ll find there?” Karl asked after listening to Marie explain that she had been thinking about this return nonstop since the end of the war was announced. “Go for a holiday. Go and see if our home is still there. But don’t give up everything we’ve established and worked for here for something that may not even exist anymore.”

“I think about our house so often,” Marie continued. “And everything we had before the war. Since discovering that Mr. Schmahl was amongst those who perished, I’ve wondered more and more about the paintings that he gave us.”

Karl listened but did not respond. It was virtually impossible for him to think about the Czechoslovakia he remembered from before the war.

“The paintings were all beautiful, but I especially loved the one of the children washing up. I haven’t had any letters from Alois Jirák,” she added, naming the colleague who had taken possession of the paintings along with the power of attorney for their estate. “I wonder if he even managed to get through the war safely, let alone take care of our things. It would be a miracle if any of it is still there,” Marie said. “I know they were just things, irrelevant compared to the loss of lives, but I can’t help but wonder about everything we left behind.”

Marie’s eyes revealed her unshakeable determination, a look that Karl had seen many times. “The Nazis took everything and forced us out,” she said calmly and deliberately. “We had to run, like mice from a sinking ship. Well, now the war is over and it’s time to return, to take back our country and our home.”

“This is home,” countered Karl, shaking his head emphatically. “That’s only an illusion.”

But Marie’s mind was made up. “I have to find out what's left,” she said firmly. “I have to try to get it back. If necessary I’ll spend the rest of my life fighting to regain our property.”

At that, Karl fell silent, knowing that once his mother had resolved to do something, there was no stopping her. He knew that if anyone was capable of reclaiming their property and belongings, his mother certainly was.

Karl and Phyllis, 1947.