The Trespassers (16 page)

“I think you have him wrong, Ann,” she said. “Anyway, to get back to what you’d like me to do—”

“This is a woman of about fifty-five, name’s Rosie Tupchik. She’s poor, and Jewish, and pretty sick by now. She makes brassieres.”

“Makes what?”

“Bras, to order, you know. Oh, and bathing suits with concealed bra and girdle-gadgets. She’d make a living here, if we could get her over. She’s got a daughter here, Bronya. She came over a year ago. The mother lives in Karlsbad, that’s in the Sudeten area.”

“Czechoslovakia? Oh, can the daughter …?”

“No. The daughter’s working as a scrubwoman in Gimbel’s. Couldn’t get anything else. She’s got a year-old infant that she boards out, while she’s scrubbing toilets. She used to teach science in a Berlin school.”

“Dear God.” An educated woman, a teacher of science, scrubbing toilets. “Well, that means passage money, too. O.K., Ann. Send me the dope, will you? I’ll start right away.”

“This is the opposite number to the Vederle kind of case. Might be tough going.”

“I don’t care.”

The full copies of her income-tax returns were mailed the next day. And before they were well out to sea, another letter came from Dr. Vederle.

I am embarrassed to bother you even again. But at the American Consul today, they added still more requests.

They say they must also have answers to the points on the enclosed, and in particular to paragraphs a, b, and d. I know this will put you to great trouble, dear Mrs. Stamford, and my wife, with me, we thank you in advance. It seems to us such an unaccustomed role to have to rely so on others. Everyone here in Zurich, and it was also so in Basel, also is so dependent now on some good friend in another country.

He signed it, “In deep gratitude, most cordially yours,” on two separate lines. An unexpected lump jammed Vera’s throat. Here was a renowned, respected doctor now become an embarrassed supplicant. She felt embarrassed herself, as though she had impertinently snooped into a private unhappiness.

The enclosure was yet another mimeographed form, probably used by all American Consulates everywhere.

Each affidavit of support will be accompanied by independent evidence of the truth of the statements made concerning financial resources of the affiant as follows:

a
.
Letter from the affiant’s employers stating specifically how the affiant is employed, how long he has been in his present employment and what wages or salary he receives;

b.
Letters from the affiant’s bankers certifying to the amount of his savings and current funds;

c
. Evidence as to the ownership and present market value of bonds and securities held by the affiant;

d.
Letters from life-insurance companies stating the present cash surrender value of life-insurance policies held by the affiant…

It went on to
e
, which wanted evidences of real property claimed, appraisals of its value by some “readily identifiable person,” and then on to
f
, suggesting to any affiant with a business of his own that he “present an analysis and statement of his net worth from a public auditor…”

She slapped the sheet away from her. A moment later she reached for it in meek defeat. All right, all right. She’d send these statements, too. Redundancies did not seem to embarrass the consulate mind. Was
this
going on in all the consulates of all the countries—this repetitiveness, this carping piling up of still new requirements? It was maddening to anybody with a tidy mind.

But apart from that, the
delay—
the weeks of needless, pointless delay. The human beings back of each such delay, families waiting, unable to continue their voyage to their new beginnings; children asking “When will we get there?” Men and women greeting each day with new hope, ending it with the shoulder sag of disappointment.

From Ann’s many descriptions, she could visualize Dr. Vederle’s tall figure turning away from some crisp young clerk in the Consulate at Zurich; could see his dark, fine eyes suddenly deepen in rage at this procession of new requests and demands; could see, apology tighten his lips as he sat down at some strange desk in a strange house, to ask still another favor of her.

Impulsively, she wrote:

Dear Dr. and Mrs. Vederle,

You must be getting exasperated. As fast as possible I’ll send still more documents for you to present to our fine Consular officials. They sound absurdly foolish and it’s dreadful that any American representative abroad should give you so bad an impression of your new country-to-be. We’re not all like that.

Do not ever feel guilty about bothering me. It is a privilege to be able to help you, for I begin to feel as though we really know each other already.

That very hour she put in motion the task of collecting the new evidence as per
a, b,
and
d.
For good measure, she threw in testimony on
c
.

By the time she had the proper documents from her bank, her broker, her insurance companies, and the store, and had sent them off to Switzerland, June was half done. The crisis over the Sudetenland had blown over after all, the fear of war drifted gratefully out of men’s minds, and from thirty-two nations, delegates were converging to the great international conference on refugees. It was to be in Evian-les-Bains in France; Switzerland, fearing German displeasure, had refused to allow it within her borders. Of all the countries invited by President Roosevelt, Italy alone had refused to attend. But three of the British Dominions had been added and the conference would represent virtually the whole of the civilized world.

Vera watched the New York papers for news of it, and knew that the Vederles and all their unknown comrades in flight were watching even more eagerly the Swiss and French and English papers. “The refugee problem” was a problem indeed. It seemed, each uneasy month, to be spreading, widening like the endless waters of a flooding river laughing at its puny shores.

But it was a man-made problem, not a natural scourge like flood or famine or hurricane which left one futile and helpless. Evil and brutal men had created this disaster; generous and decent men could solve it. There was nothing insurmountable about it.

It was a man-made problem. In Austria, less than two months after
Anschluss,
the men who wrote, edited, and published the Vienna edition of the
Völkisscher Beobachter
celebrated in their news columns the cleansing of Austria’s universities, her literary world, her press, her music, and her scientific laboratories.

They were not too specific in their celebration, these joyful men. News of suicides and arrests were proscribed by the new laws. No triumphant story appeared to tell that already, in Vienna alone, nearly 50,000 people had been imprisoned, of whom 26,000 were Jews and the rest Protestants and Catholics. No news story told how many executions had taken place, how many Gestapo inquisitions, how many Austrians had already fled or tried to flee. But here and there, in this police dossier, in that small obituary, from this mourning relative, one could piece out the tale, not perhaps of the obscure, but at least of the famous.

Dr. Sigmund Freud, eighty-two years old, left Vienna for London in early June. His family, his manuscripts and scientific papers, migrated with him, expatriates all.

Professor Otto Loewi, Nobel Prize winner for physiology and medicine in 1936, who conducted pioneer investigations on the transmission of nerve impulses, was first jailed, then managed to get abroad. His notes and plans for further experiments and research crossed the borders with him.

Professor Erwin Schredinger, Nobel Prize winner for physics in 1933, and Professor Victor G. Hess, the 1937 winner in cosmic-ray research, were removed from their university positions..

Professor Ferdinand Blumenthal, internationally known cancer specialist, who had already fled to Austria from Germany, was arrested. His colleagues were seeking his release and emigration.

Professor Heinrich Neumann, world-known ear specialist, was arrested and imprisoned. In London, colleagues and friends rushed affidavits and visa applications for him.

More than half the assistant professors and instructors on the medical faculty of the University of Vienna were summarily dismissed, Jews and Aryans alike. These included:

Professor Egon Ranzi, director of the Surgical Clinic

Professor Leopold Arzt, dermatologist

Professor Ernst P. Pick, pharmacologist

Dr. Arnold Durig, physiologist

Dr. Otto Kinders, psychologist

Professor Otto Marburg, noted neurologist

In Austria’s other universities twelve hundred professors, teachers, research workers were ousted or arrested. Most of them sought visas to other lands. These included:

The President of the Austrian Academy of Science, Professor Oswald Redlich

Dr. Armand Kaminka, founder of the Vienna Maimonides Institute

Dr. Julius Schnitzler, professor of surgery

Dr. Ernst Straussler, criminologist

But some of Austria’s leading scientific men escaped the ousting, the arrests, the pleas for affidavits and visas. They, for their personal reasons, for their secret reasons, chose suicide instead.

Professors Nobl and Oscar Frankl, the brother physicians of the University of Vienna, chose it instead. Dr. Gustav Bayer, of Innsbruck, and his daughter chose it. Professor Ismar Boas, Albert Smolenskin, mathematician, Dr. Gabor Nobl, dermatologist, Professor Denk, head of the Second Clinic of Medicine, all chose it. And also Egon Friedell, author, playwright, and actor, Marianne Trebitsch-Stein, writer, and Dr. Kurt Sonnenfeld, editor of the
Neue Freie Presse.
These also chose it.

Franz Werfel, novelist, was already in exile.

Gina Kaus, biographer of the Empress Catherine, escaped to Switzerland.

Siegfried Geyer, author and translator of Molnár, was jailed. So too was Ludwig Hirschfeld, the witty publicist. Richard Bermann was captured as he tried to escape, but he tried again and succeeded. Anton Kuh escaped to Prague. René Kraus, and the essayist, Alfred Polgar, escaped also.

The Vienna Opera dismissed half its orchestra players for “tainted blood.” Dismissed too were its featured singers, Else Flesch and Margit Bokor, its director, Lothar Wallerstein, and its conductor, Josef Krips.

Fritz Lohner, who wrote librettos for Franz Leháor, was sent to the concentration camp at Dachau.

The Vienna Philharmonic ousted Dr. Hugo Burghauser, its chairman.

Hermann Leopoldi, composer of comic songs, lighthearted and merry, got his visa in time and fled; so too did Bruno Walter.

Dr. Ernst Lothar, who leased Reinhardt’s Josefstadter Theater, managed to emigrate; Friedrich Rosenthal, director of the Burg Theater on the Ring, was dropped, as were also the Burg’s featured players, Hans Wengraf and Franz Strassni. Albert Basserman escaped, but Rudolph Beer, head of the Reinhardt School of Acting, wrote some farewell notes and killed himself.

From museum walls certain canvases were banished, from the keys of Austrian pianos and the strings of Viennese fiddles certain melodies were outlawed, from the pulpits in Austrian churches many voices now spoke only in parables.

Celebrate the cleansing. Celebrate,
Völkischer Beobachter,
celebrate. Austria is whole now.

And on a breakwater in the Danube, fifty-one Jews crowded together, watching the waters, watching the skies. The night before, Austrian storm troopers had brought them there, left them without food, money, water, or identification papers. There was, obviously, nothing else to do. All three of Austria’s neighboring countries, Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, had refused to give them even transitory admission.

Celebrate, celebrate.

Dr. Vederle reread the letter from America. She must be a very understanding person, this Vera M. Stamford. Ann Willis had done them a good turn in her choice of a substitute.

“…so bad an impression of your country-to-be. We’re not all like that. Do not ever feel guilty about bothering me…feel as though we really know each other already.”

It was kind of her to offer this small personal assurance of continuing interest. As if she were saying, ‘What does it matter if April and May and half of June have already gone by and we are still not successful with the visas? I am not going to turn away in boredom; how could I, since we are in this together? The Consulate is behaving badly, we must humor them, but we shall succeed before long…”

He wondered what she was like actually, what she looked like, this woman who had become so important to himself and Christa and the children. It was strange not to know whether she was tall or short, homely or beautiful; he knew her age, knew of her education and marriage and divorce, of her work and success, for all that was in the affidavit. But the face? The eyes and mouth, the smile, the tone of voice, all the features and mannerisms and timbres that described the contents of a human being? He was beginning to be curious about her as a person.

Affidavits should really be less austere, more gossipy and informative. He chuckled to himself.

“Deponent is a pretty blonde, with blue eyes and appealing feminine charm.” Now, that’s the way an affidavit really ought to read; that would give ne something to go by in one’s attempts to visualize the person to whom one owed so much. “Deponent has a soft, low voice, a warm and ready smile; she is a woman men admire. Deponent is tall and willowy, with charming legs like Dietrich’s. She loves music, she owns a Bechstein piano, no, no, a Steinway, and is an admirer of the Beethoven sonatas and the Schubert

“What are you smiling over, Franz?”

Christa came out to join him in the small garden.

They were living in a small summer chalet, east of the lovely town of Erlenbach. The town was only nine miles from Zurich, and their own chalet only a few minutes’ walk from the slow crescent curve of the lake. The whole region smiled in beauty, cradled by the Zurichberg and the Ütliberg, not very imposing mountains but all the friendlier, for that, in contrast to the regal snow-tipped Alps in the farther distances.