The Runaway Family (29 page)

Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!” The hundred thousand voices swelled to a roaring chorus, echoing round the vastness of the square, rebounding from the ancient buildings that surrounded it. “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”

The crowds were packed into the Heldenplatz, crushed together, an amorphous mass of humanity, yet moving with a single purpose. Everyday people wearing everyday clothes, workmen in overalls, men in smart suits, women in overcoats pulled close about them against the chill in the spring air, people in hats of all descriptions pulled down over ears or perched jauntily on heads; gloved hands, ungloved hands, cracked, work-reddened hands, raised as one in their devotion to their new leader. “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!” Flags and banners on long poles waved above the crowd, each with its swastika, stark black within its white circle, emblazoned on a red ground. Uniforms everywhere, soldiers, drawn up in ranks before the Hofburg, police, their swastika armbands mirroring the floating banners.

Ruth looked down on the sea of faces from her perch on the plinth of the Prince Eugen statue. All were raised to salute the man in uniform on the balcony of the Hofburg, eyes aglow with the fervour of their welcome. Unwillingly she raised her own eyes to the small man who stood above billowing Nazi banners, addressing the crowd packed into the square below him. As he began to speak a hush fell over the huge square, heads craned forward to see him, hands shading eyes against the morning sunshine, but as his voice began to rise, so the excitement began to build within the crowd until, as he reached a crescendo, it burst forth. “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!” So great was his charisma that for a split second Ruth almost raised her own arm, her own voice, and almost fell from her place on the great statue.

“Careful, love,” admonished a voice beside her, and a hand grasped her arm to stop her falling.

“Thank you!” she gasped, and looked up into the face of the young man balanced precariously on the plinth beside her. She regained her hold on one of the bronze carved wreaths beside her, clutching it firmly in both hands, afraid she might truly fall and be crushed in the crowd.

The young man smiled and said something else, but his words were drowned in the rising crescendo of Sieg Heils. She smiled back awkwardly at him and then appeared to turn her attention back to the Führer, whose voice now boomed out over the crowd, which fell silent once more, listening to him with rapt attention.

What am I doing here? Ruth thought. What is a Jew doing at a Hitler rally? What would that young man have thought if he’d realised I’m a Jew? Perhaps he’s a Jew, too.

She stole another glance at him. His attention was on Hitler, his eyes filled with fervent delight. No, he was no Jew! No Jew would welcome Hitler to his city like that… unless he didn’t want to be recognised. Like I don’t want to be recognised. Arms were once more raised in salute, but Ruth continued to cling on to the wreath with both hands. No salute from her, but it was clear to anyone who might wonder why she could not. Who was to wonder? Everyone round her was carried away on a tide of euphoria, which had been building ever since the declaration of the Anschluss two days earlier. If Ruth had realised how the arrival of Hitler would take the city she would never have left home that morning, never ventured out into streets crammed with people ecstatic in their welcome for their new leader.

“I’m going to leave very early, this morning,” Ruth had told her mother. “I think there’ll be a lot of people out and about in the city today.”

“I wish you wouldn’t go at all,” said Helga. “It could be dangerous.”

“I’ll be all right.” Ruth tried to sound reassuring, though she, too, wished she didn’t have to go. “You know I can’t afford to lose this job, Mother.” She gave her mother a quick hug. “Don’t let the children out, though. No school for the girls today. You can give them some homework here, and then we’ll see how things are later in the week.”

She closed the front door of the flat and hurried down the flight of stairs that led to the courtyard below. Although it was still early, there were plenty of people about, and as Ruth made her way through the streets more and more flooded out of their homes to join the crowds. Ruth found herself being gathered into the stream of people, a surging floodtide, all heading the same way. At first Ruth allowed herself to be carried along, it was her direction too; but when she wanted to turn off and cut through the back streets to the shop where she worked, she found she couldn’t. She was being swept along by an unrelenting tide of people, all excited, shouting, chanting, laughing. Overnight, banners had appeared, hanging from windows, draped down the fronts of buildings, jagged black swastikas proclaiming a welcome… .a welcome for Adolf Hitler himself. Rumour had it that he was already in Vienna. He had travelled from Linz and was now staying, it was said, at the Imperial Hotel. Many of the people carried banners too, homemade flags to welcome the Germans to Vienna.

The excited tide of people continued to grow, and Ruth could not escape from it. She was pushed and shoved from every side, swept along inexorably. Once she stumbled, and someone grabbed her arm crying out, “Steady!” and then was gone again, swirled away in the crowd. Ruth allowed herself to be carried along too; there was no alternative, and after a while she found herself part of a seething mass of people, standing, swaying, pushing, surging to and fro, all packed into the Heldenplatz, all focussed on the Hofburg at the far end. More and more people poured into the square, crushing those already there, pushing them forwards, shoving them sideways, and all the time the excitement continued to grow, mounting to fever pitch when at last the Führer appeared on the balustraded balcony of the Hofburg. Immediately the crowd surged forward again, and Ruth found herself crushed against the plinth of the statue of heroic Prince Eugen.

“Here, lady, up here!”

Ruth looked up and saw that several people had already scrambled clear of the swarming crowd and were perched on the statue, some standing on the plinth, others, having climbed higher, actually clinging to the huge horse. A hand reached down to her and, grasping it, Ruth found herself hauled up from the crowd and onto a narrow ledge that ran round the base of the huge statue.

“Hold on tight!” ordered the young man who had pulled her up. “If you fall off here you’ll be trampled to death.” Ruth looked down fearfully and saw that he was right. She grabbed hold of a piece of the moulded edge above her, gripping it with both hands.

The young man grinned. “Good view from up here,” he called. “Look at all those people!”

Ruth had looked and was astonished at the ocean of humanity that surrounded her. She looked at it again now, and wondered if she would ever get away from such a crowd. Men and women cheering, children hoisted on shoulders, old men waving walking sticks in the air, young men tossing their hats for joy… and all for Adolf Hitler, whose armies had marched, unopposed, into Austria, and who now stood, addressing a euphoric crowd, from the seat of the ancient Hapsburg Empire.

How has it all come to this? Ruth thought wildly. How can Hitler simply arrive and take over the country and proclaim it as the homecoming of Austria into the German Reich? How can all these people, Austrians not Germans, be here, cheering him? Saluting him? “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”

Ruth had heard the announcement of the Anschluss three days earlier. She had been invited to join Edith, her family and parents-in-law for the family Shabbes dinner, and afterwards they had gathered round the Bernsteins’ wireless to listen to Kurt Schuschnigg’s final broadcast as Chancellor. They listened in complete silence, aghast, unable to believe what they were hearing.

“So I take leave of the Austrian people with a German word of farewell uttered from the depth of my heart: God protect Austria!”

The sonorous voice boomed from the wireless that stood on a table in the corner of the room, but it was a voice edged with emotion. Kurt Schuschnigg, the Austrian chancellor, had done all he could to keep the Germans at bay, but, in spite of a brave rearguard action, he had only put off the time when Hitler would put his claim to Austria to the test. Now Schuschnigg had made his final speech, his farewell to an independent Austria, ending with the fervent prayer: “God protect Austria”.

“Well, if God doesn’t, no one else will!” David Bernstein said bitterly. He leaned over and switched the wireless off with a snap. “Schuschnigg has sold out to the Nazis.”

For a moment there was silence as the family who had been listening tried to take in what they had heard, then Grandfather Friedrich shook his head, and sighed.

“That’s it,” he said. “We must thank God that at least Berta is safely out of the country.”

“Hush, Friedrich,” said his wife Marta, laying a finger to her lips and tilting her head towards the children who were sitting round the supper table. Don’t frighten the children, her expression said, but her grandson, Paul, who had just turned fifteen, looked across at her and he saw the fear in her eyes as well.

“What’s going to happen?” asked Naomi. “What was Herr Schuschnigg saying? Mutti, what was he saying?”

Edith, her mother, shushed her gently. She hardly ever spoke when in the presence of her parents-in-law unless directly addressed. She was in awe of her mother-in-law, so capable and strong, and she was just plain terrified of her father-in-law. “Nothing, darling,” she murmured. “He was just talking to the grown-ups.” But although she was only nine, Naomi sensed the atmosphere in the room, and, slipping down from her chair, went over to her mother and tried to climb up on her knee.

Her father got to his feet and paced the room. “He’s given in,” he said, bitterly. “He’s given in to Hitler. Now there’ll be no plebiscite on Monday. The Germans will be here by then, and Hitler will have won.”

“Time you were in bed, young lady,” Naomi’s grandmother said, determined that there should be no more of such talk in front of the little girl. She reached for the hand bell on the table at her side and rang it loudly. Almost at once, Maria, the maid, came into the room. She responded so quickly that Paul wondered if she had been listening to the wireless broadcast through the door. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she had. He’d noticed before that these days Maria always seemed to be close by, listening.

However, his grandmother didn’t seem to notice. All she said as Maria came into the room was, “Ah, Maria, please take Miss Naomi up to bed,” adding as she saw that Naomi was about to protest, “your mother will come up to tuck you in, in a little while. Say goodnight to Opa and Papa and then off you go with Maria, like a good girl.”

Naomi did as she was told, saying goodnight to each of them in turn. When she reached her grandfather she reached up and hugged his neck, whispering in his ear as she did so, “Opa, what’s a pleb… pleb thing?”

Friedrich Bernstein, who had been completely captivated by his granddaughter from the moment he had first held her, hugged her to him and smiled down. “Nothing for you to worry your head about, dumpling. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.”

Naomi reluctantly allowed Maria to lead her away, and as the door closed behind her, Oma spoke quite sharply. “There was no need to frighten the child, David,” she said.

“She’ll know what’s happening soon enough,” replied her son. “We’re all going to have to face up to what this Anschluss means. Austria has become a German province, that’s what it means. We’re now part of Germany, and we all know what is happening to the Jews in Germany.”

“Poor Ruth!” cried Edith, her hand flying to her mouth in alarm. “What will you do now?”

“The same as before!” Ruth replied curtly. “Keep my head down and pray… the same as you’ll have to.”

“Us?” Edith sounded surprised.

“Perhaps our own people won’t behave towards us as the Germans have been doing to their Jews,” suggested her mother-in-law. “I mean, we don’t know things are going to change here too.”

“Yes, we do,” David said quietly. “Hitler will come here and when he does, everyone will be falling over themselves to show him how dedicated they are to the Nazi line.”

“But the Nazis were banned!” protested Edith. “Only in January. Why has the chancellor given in?”

“You really should try and keep up to date, Edith,” said her husband sharply. “They were reinstated weeks ago.”

“Well, I don’t understand politics,” wailed Edith. “Why did the chancellor do that?”

“I imagine he had no choice,” replied David, wearily. “How does anyone stand up to a man like Hitler?”

“He’s not a man, he’s an animal,” asserted Marta.

“Maybe,” David agreed, “but now he’s got his hands on Austria he’ll be even more difficult to stop.”

“But what about the plebiscite on Monday?” asked Edith.

“There won’t be one!” answered David. He was pacing the room now, unable to still his nervous energy. “What is the point of asking people if they want to be part of the German Empire, when the Germans are already here?”

“But they aren’t here… not yet.”

“They will be… in a few hours.”

“Hours?” Friedrich stared at him. “Surely it will take them longer than that.”

“Father, this has been very carefully orchestrated. Hitler had to move before the plebiscite, in case Austria rejected him on Monday. I’ll bet his troops are already across the border, and he’ll be here himself in the next few hours.

“Is there going to be a war?”

His parents and grandparents looked at Paul in surprise. They had almost forgotten he was in the room.

“That depends on how the rest of the world reacts, and the English in particular,” replied his father. “They don’t want a war, not after the last one. Hitler knows that. He’ll promise not to go any further, and they’ll probably let him get way with it.”

“And will he go any further?” asked Paul.

“Almost certainly. He’s power crazy.”

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” remarked Marta, rising from her chair. “We should go up and say goodnight to Naomi, Edith.”

Ruth also got to her feet. “I must go home, too,” she said. “And tell Mother what has happened. She won’t have heard yet.”