By Chance Alone Page 17
My permit for Canada was still being held at the embassy in Prague. After making some inquiries, I found out that there was no Canadian consulate in Vienna; however, there was one in the American zone in Salzburg. This presented a problem, though. How could I get from Vienna through the Russian zone to Linz and a displaced persons (DP) camp called Ebelsberg, which was four kilometres outside of Linz in the American zone of Austria? The DP camp was the only option for food and shelter because I had no money and no means of getting any.
I sought advice from everyone I encountered. In the meantime, my friends and I did a lot of sightseeing in Vienna, the imperial city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We visited the Schönbrunn Palace and the Spanish Riding School and many other beautiful places. One day when we were out sightseeing, we passed a group of people who were speaking Czech. I stopped them and asked what they were doing in Vienna. As it turned out, they were also refugees seeking passage to the American zone, and I asked them how they were planning to get there. They told me there was an underground Czech organization that would help refugees cross the Russian zone for ten American dollars. They said they were leaving in a few days and gave me the address of the organization.
The next morning, I went looking for the address that was given to me. There was no sign of any kind on the door, and the group occupied only a small room. When I entered, I told them how I found out about the organization and said I needed to go to Linz in the American sector. At first, they said they couldn’t help me. After they questioned me, I realized that they were afraid to trust me for fear I would report their activities. I told them that I had been a prisoner in the Pankratz prison in Prague and a survivor of the camps, and this appeared to assuage their concerns. The man in charge told me that they sent a group of ten people to the American zone every three days. This was the most they could accommodate because he had only one guide he could trust to lead each group. He said the next three groups were booked, so if I still wanted to go, I would have to wait nine more days. He asked for the ten American dollars, which I handed over to him. He told me that I would have to come to this office one day before departure for a briefing on how the overnight crossing would work. I felt a sense of relief because at least now I had a fixed day for the next step of my adventure, which would be critical. I hoped that the journey would be successful, and that we wouldn’t encounter any problems.
***
As I counted down the days until my departure from Vienna, I reflected on how I would feel about leaving my good friend Mike, with whom I had shared many wonderful, restorative years in Marienbad. I felt that we had practically grown up together during those three formative postwar years. I had learned a lot from him, and he had truly motivated me in many ways. I would also be parting with Tova, who was lovely and kind and a wonderful companion. It was very difficult to say goodbye to her, even though I had known her for only a month. I was torn between going with her to Israel and joining my friends from the orphanage, who were already in Canada. Parting with Tova left a big hole, and I found myself alone to cope with my upcoming journey to the American zone.
After Mike and Tova left, I went for my briefing about the journey. There were nine young Czech men and me. We were told to arrive at the railway station at six the next morning. We needed to dress as if we were going for a hike, and to pack provisions such as bread, cheese, fruit, and water to last for about two days. The guide would be at the station dressed in lederhosen (leather shorts with suspenders) and a hunter’s hat with bristles. We were not to talk to him, but simply to follow him when he boarded the train and spread out behind him throughout the car. We were told that when he got off, we should get off as well. We were to avoid looking like a group and to spread ourselves out as inconspicuously as possible. These precautions had to be followed because we would be going into the Russian sector and it was impossible to know who would be watching us there. While it was easy to enter the Russian sector, exiting it was harder. We would be asked to show our papers, and if the Russians were not satisfied, they could arrest us and ship us off to the Gulags in Siberia.
After the briefing, I went shopping for my food supplies and came back to the Rothschild Hospital to prepare for my trip. That evening, a few of us went out to a small restaurant and had some food. My remaining friends knew that I was leaving, and they were also preparing for journeys of their own. Early the next morning, I got up and left while the others were still asleep. At the railway station, I bought my ticket to Linz and spotted the other members of my group and the Austrian guide on the platform. We did not communicate but followed the instructions we’d been given. As the train pulled out of the station, I kept my fingers crossed and hoped for the best.
Four years earlier, after my liberation in May 1945, I’d returned home to Czechoslovakia from this very region. Now I found myself en route to a displaced persons camp near Linz for shelter until the next step of my ongoing quest to immigrate to Canada. What a drastic turn of events this was! How could I face the Austrian people, many of whom were perpetrators, collaborators, and bystanders during the Nazi era? It was hard for me to process this new reality.
The train came to a stop and our guide stood up and exited the railway car. When I stepped out of the car behind him, I had an uncanny feeling of familiarity, as if I had visited this place in a dream before. I looked for the name on the station and saw that this was Melk, where I had spent two months working in those underground tunnels as a slave labourer. I was consumed by feelings of dread and worried that I was caught up in some kind of a plot. I turned around and saw the Franciscan monastery on the hill.
The guide kept walking out of the station, and I followed despite my reservations. He led us toward a hilly, forested area. Once there, he stopped and we gathered around him. He told us that we were now in the Russian zone, and we would need to keep away from inhabited areas and Russian patrols. Our goal was to reach a town called Steyr, which was approximately sixty-five kilometres away in the American zone. It would not be easy, he said, but we were all young people and we could do it. We followed him in a single line and watched him for any signals in case of danger. There was no loud talking permitted. We walked until after sundown and then stopped at a shelter that had a roof but no walls. We lay down for the night after eating and having some water. It would have been an ideal place to make a fire and discuss the day’s events, but that would have drawn unwanted attention to our group. I fell asleep and was out like a light.
In the morning, I felt someone prodding me to wake up. The guide told us that we would be starting out again in fifteen minutes, and we should have a bite to eat before we left. It was a beautiful sunny morning and we walked at a steady pace, doing approximately three kilometres per hour for many hours straight. Finally, we came to the end of a lightly treed area and stopped. It was 7 p.m. We gathered around our guide while we were still concealed by the bushes. Below us, about five hundred metres away, there was a meadow and some thick bushes that followed the edge of a stream. The guide told us that we would have to wait for a Russian horse-mounted border patrol to pass, stay hidden for another fifteen minutes after that, and then run like hell, jumping over the bushes and the stream. If we made it, we would be in the American zone. We did exactly what he said. Sure enough, two mounted guards arrived and we waited until they’d passed. I realized that this was the crucial moment, and that we had to reach the bushes to safety. We took off and ran like the wind, leaping over the bushes and flopping into a muddy stream on the other side. We were covered with mud from head to toe, but we couldn’t take the time to rinse off in the water.
Now that I was safely in the American zone, I was eager to keep going because I still had to take a train from Steyr to Linz and then travel another four kilometres to the Ebelsberg DP camp. The rest of my group had other destinations. I went into the railway station in Steyr and saw that a train to Linz would be coming in half an hour. In the waiting room, I received many looks from the neatly dressed local citizens. I mus
t have looked like I had just come in from doing a messy job making mud bricks.
The train got me to Linz at about 8 p.m., and I immediately started to walk toward the Ebelsberg DP camp. I was very tired and wanted to get there before dark. Walking through Linz, I was surprised to see how quickly the city had been rebuilt. When I came through on that river barge in 1945, there were bomb craters covering a very large part of the city.
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.
CHAPTER 28
Canada
On board the Samaria, I was housed, along with the other displaced persons, in the hold of the ship. We slept in hammocks that hung from the ceiling, while the paying passengers above us stayed in cabins to which we never had access. We could observe the outside world through the portholes of the liner, and I recall seeing the White Cliffs of Dover as we left the English Channel and sailed out into the Atlantic Ocean. The weather was windy and the waves tossed the ship from side to side. Many people were seasick as the weather got worse, and the foul stench soon became unbearable. The crew was not able to keep up with sanitation issues, and the passengers in the hold became unruly and delirious, shouting that they wanted to get off the ship. Many had to be forcibly restrained. I began to feel nauseated, but a sailor advised me to keep eating because seasickness was worse on an empty stomach. I took his advice and went to the mess hall to eat. There were very few of us at the table.
The storm lasted for approximately eight days and then finally subsided. Afterward, we were stuck in a thick fog, and the ship’s horn blared frequently to warn other vessels of our presence. Without radar, the ship had to coast along at a very slow speed to avoid collisions. Eventually, it came to a complete halt and I could see through the portholes that we were in the estuary of what I later learned was the St. L
awrence River. I could see the church spires and the citadel of Quebec City. A boat approached and a pilot came on board to bring the Samaria into dock. I had arrived in Canada at last.
The paying passengers were the first to disembark the ship, and then it was our turn. All the displaced persons were escorted to a terminal, and I was handed a tag with the name “Toronto” and told to wear it around my neck. There were many large signs with the names of different Canadian cities, and our destinations were determined by the organization that had sponsored our visas. Our UNRA papers were stamped with a landing certificate—it was October 25, 1949. At another table in the terminal, I received a wrapped sandwich and a cup of coffee, and I set off with this in hand to board the train to Toronto, which was ready and waiting. I was hungry and ate the sandwich immediately, not realizing how long the journey would take. The ride lasted overnight and into the next afternoon, with the train stopping at every station along the way. I had no money to purchase food from the porter and I was hungry all the way.
As I rode in the train, I wondered what lay ahead for me in Canada. I knew it would be up to me to put together a life in this country, a sobering thought that made me quite anxious. As the train continued through the night, I saw lights from dwellings and I imagined people living safe and comfortably inside. This was my dream: to live in a secure environment with a future that was up to me. From the Jack London books I had read as a child, I imagined Canada as a vast land with open skies, a relatively small population, and indigenous people in traditional dress. I wanted to live in the midst of nature, not in a huge American city like New York.