CHAPTER 14

FAREWELL JANUARY 1939

In Milan, Poldi has been working in an underground resistance movement in an attempt to rescue Jews trapped in Italy. He has begun to forge exit visas, a risky business, trying to help those who need a way out. He was not able to write about this to me but I have heard about it from his parents who have been in contact with Italian relatives. I have just written to him about our latest turn of events, about my meeting with Herr Berger, and the results which are the best that we could have hoped for, that all of us will get out safely.

By January of 1939 we have managed to get tickets on a train that will leave Vienna next month for Trieste, then our passage is booked on the next ship from Italy to Shanghai. We still need the permission of the Viennese government to allow us to leave but with this proof of our exit route there is a greater chance that we will be successful.

Mama has tucked the documents from Herr Berger carefully into her purse. In them he has guaranteed our travel arrangements and confirmed train and ships’ passage. Willi and I set off with her for the Emigration Office. An endless line of people is queued day and night, waiting to be seen. As we await our turn, the faces of those leaving the office make our skins crawl in fear. They are bruised from beatings, trembling fingers touching red splotches on their swollen cheeks or wiping trickles of blood from a cut lip. They look shaken from the ordeal they have endured, yet the fortunate ones who have procured exit visas wear weak smiles of triumph and several nod to us as a sign of encouragement. We have no choice but to wait and pray that we can somehow get the documents that will allow our escape.

Inside the building we watch as those ahead of us approach the desk, heads bowed in dread. We have witnessed the uniformed men, tall and muscular, standing, legs astride, suddenly strike women, old men, whomever they choose, for questions they have dared to ask or been unable to answer. We flinch every time, as if the blow had hit each of us.

We must face Eichmann like everyone else, trembling as our name is called.

“Karpel!” The bark is like a warden announcing the name of the next to be executed.

Mama steps forward, holding the papers shakily, and presents them to be read by the first man, to the left of Eichmann.

“Shanghai,” he says, chuckling in disgust. “A good place to send you Jews to die. There will be a slow death for you all. Go to the stinking hole of yellow-skinned mongrels. At least you won’t be here to spread your contagion.”

We are choking back the fear rising in our throats, afraid that Mama will respond in indignant outrage and that she will be beaten for it. She has always been outspoken and would not have suffered this kind of insult before, but she says nothing. Her head is lowered in meek silence as the brutish words are hurled like darts.

Shuffling timidly, we move before Eichmann and are confronted by a man of icy demeanour, his jagged features carved into his face of stone. He shows no sign of emotion as he methodically examines the papers we have presented to him. He meticulously scans them, searching for details that will give him a reason to deny exit. His steel-grey eyes reveal the contempt he has for us. As I observe his actions, a shiver of nervous terror tingles down the length of my spine and prickles the skin on my arms. We don’t dare to speak, hardly even to breathe. He waves his hand to dismiss us and we move along towards the next desk. Finally the officer seated to his right stamps our papers with several loud thuds. Each of us is required to sign one more affidavit, that we renounce forever our rights as Austrians and that we will never return to this country. We are then released and find our way out into the street again, the passage to freedom clutched in Mama’s quivering fingers.

We hurry home through streets already dark and then upstairs to our apartment. Not until the door is latched and we find ourselves seated, with hot tea soothing our parched throats, can we feel our limbs again. Mama is seated in Papa’s chair as usual, her teacup held in both hands to steady it and warm herself. She is the first to speak, saying aloud the thoughts that are in our minds: “I thought I might collapse at first from fear, standing before those Nazis. Then the anger rose like boiling blood when that beast insulted us, but you see, I said nothing. What could I say, after all? They have all the power over life and death now. They have stolen more than our money and property. They have taken away our humanity.”

We try to regain some composure, following Mama’s lead, but Willi is still incensed. “They are just trying to undermine us, to destroy whatever they have still not taken away. How can we preserve dignity when we are so degraded?” Willi suddenly appears old although he is just seventeen. He sips some tea, then sets the cup down. A cigarette as always is held in his fingers and the remnants of others already smoked down to twisted curls fill an ashtray. The smell of nicotine drifts in the musty air of the room

“Vienna is no longer our home,” Mama says with finality. “We have become outsiders here. Tomorrow we will begin to pack our belongings and maybe, I can hardly hope for it, maybe we will get away with our lives. We have been spared until now – we’ve been lucky. The only thing to do is to look ahead to the future and try to forget this place.”

Mama’s determination is fierce, and we gather whatever strength we can muster from her lead. Taking more gulps of the warm tea, filled with sugar and milk, a luxury we can scarcely afford but necessary now to revive us, I can feel the terror melting away. My words crack like dry twigs as I speak. “I was so frightened in that office I felt myself growing faint too. My knees were wobbly as jelly and every time that Nazi spoke, I thought I would drop to the ground.”

Willi, holding his teacup shakily in his hand, drawing heavily on the cigarette, his eyes watery with restrained tears behind the steamed lenses of his glasses, adds, “My heart was beating like drums every time the papers were stamped and all the time I was praying to just let us out, let us be free.”

Willi and I are both smoking now, the room filling with the filmy grey puffs of our exhaled breath. Willi squishes the butt of his cigarette in an ashtray and immediately reaches for another. His cheeks are hollowed as he draws the soothing nicotine deeply into himself. I drink the smoke as well, forcing it into my lungs and waiting for its sedating effect.

We can hardly sleep that night, but the next morning, we begin the task of packing our belongings for departure. We can take only the most important and precious things. They will be loaded into trunks and valises and sent ahead by courier to await us in a holding warehouse in Shanghai. We pay for the service and hope that we will see our things again. The men from the transport company load our trunks into a truck waiting outside which will take them to the train station, but before the cases are locked they have to be inspected by the SS. We will not know what has been approved or confiscated until the day we may arrive in Shanghai to retrieve them once more.

We separate those things that are too cumbersome to carry; they will go into the huge trunks. We fill suitcases with things that will be taken aboard ship for the month-long journey to the Far East. If we’d been told to pack for a voyage to the moon, I might be more settled in my thoughts, but China, what could that possibly be like? Sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the empty steamer trunk, I wonder which few bits of my life could be stowed into that case and how much more I must leave behind. I examine the twelve square pieces of petit point, each hand-stitched over many tedious months with a swirling floral motif, each petal shaded and contoured with bits of vibrantly coloured thread. They are meant to be seat covers for dining room chairs in my home when I marry. I roll each one carefully into tissue paper and place it into my suitcase. Another of these pieces of needlework, a larger one to be used as a wall hanging, portrays a typical Austrian pastoral theme. It too is rolled and packed in the same way.

There is my wedding dowry, consisting of linens, in cream and pale blue, monogrammed by hand, sheets, pillowcases, duvet covers with little buttons covered in matching fabric. I place them inside a large trunk. Pieces of silverware, enough for a complete dinner set, and crystal goblets, are individually wrapped in tissue. Plans made since the very day of my birth, now overturned, my future life, which had seemed so clearly defined by the things in this chest, are now of no more relevance than last winter’s melted snow. I touch each piece tenderly. Where, I wonder, will these things come to surface once again, what voyage will they have to endure before a real life can begin?

I begin to fold my sweaters, running my fingers over the thick stitches and embossed patterns, and then the other pieces of clothing, tailored by hand, that remind me of days and evenings of a happier time. I place each inside the trunk with care. There are shoes of every style and shade, things that were so important to me as a young woman. Finally, into the packed trunks of memories, I place my skis, ski boots, and poles, my most treasured belongings. Then I go to tell Mama I am ready.

When Mama comes into my room to check my progress, she is dismayed to see that I have packed my skis.

“You must leave those behind, Nini. They’re heavy and bothersome and will only cause trouble.”

Although I see the sad pleading look in Mama’s eyes, I begin to storm uncontrollably in the only show of defiance I have allowed myself. Although my words pour out in angry frustration, they are not really directed at her. All the energy and emotion of my thumping heart spill out for the most trivial of reasons.

“These skis are a part of me!” I shout through hysterical tears, with all the dramatic flourish I can muster. “What more do they want to take from me than every single thing I care about? Wherever we go in this wretched world, I swear I will find the snow again one day and will feel the wind in my face. That is my right as much as the air I breathe! I will not go without them!”

Mama knows how stubborn I can be. She shakes her head in exasperation and walks out of the room.