The Runaway Family (31 page)

“Just desert Austria, you mean? I never took you for a coward before, David!”

David sighed. “Father, I’m not a coward, I’m simply being realistic. Look at what happened to Ruth and her family. They were turned out of their home more than once, and they finally had to buy their way out of Germany. She’s now living in three rooms in a tenement block, hoping Kurt can escape and find her.”

“She was married to a shopkeeper,” grumbled Friedrich, “a nobody. They aren’t going to do the same to the likes of you, a well-known orthopaedic surgeon.”

“We don’t know that,” David replied. “Yes, Kurt was arrested, so what happens if they arrest me… or you? How would Mother, or Edith manage?”

“Why would they arrest me?” demanded Friedrich.

“Because, Father, you’re a Jew.” David looked across at his father. Sitting upright in his chair, he stared back at David out of deep-set dark eyes, his nose prominent above a mouth hidden by his luxuriant white beard. His hair was combed back from his high forehead, and he wore his koppel on the back of his head. He looked as he had always looked to David, but now viewing him through the eyes of an Austrian, rather than a son, David could see that he was the archetypal Jew, the Jew of the caricatures and cartoons that had been filling the German newspapers for four years or more.

“It’s just something we ought to think about,” David said at last. “We have to try and protect our own. After all it’s quite possible that I won’t have my job at the hospital for very long.”

“Why ever not? They’ll still need doctors.”

“I know, but Jewish doctors in Germany are only allowed to treat Jewish patients now. The same thing could happen here.”

“Well, we don’t have to rush into anything. We’ve plenty of time to think about it,” Friedrich announced, getting to his feet. “Now, I must have my quiet time.”

David stood up, too. “I’ve got to get back,” he said. “But do think about what I’ve said, and we’ll discuss it again soon.” He left his father, already turning to his books, and quietly let himself out of the apartment. He didn’t go in to say goodnight to his mother, she would have quizzed him on the reason for his visit, and he wasn’t ready to discuss the idea with her yet. Friedrich, he knew, would spend the rest of the evening studying his books.

David had long since given up study of the scriptures. He considered himself Austrian first and Jew second, only attending the synagogue near Liechtenstein Park with his family on special occasions, but he had seen what had been going on in Germany, and had heard firsthand from Ruth what was happening to the Jews there. What she had told him today simply reinforced what she had said before. He had no illusions, things were about to change, but how much and in what way he was far less certain, and taking the family out of Austria was a huge decision, not one to be taken lightly.

It was two weeks later that he received a telephone call at the hospital. Edith was on the line, sobbing so hard as she spoke that he couldn’t make out what she was saying. All he could hear were the words “Come home! You must come home, now!”

He went at once, for there was a note of hysteria in her voice that he’d never heard before. When he reached the house he found his mother there, looking extremely pale, her eyes wide with fear. She held a cup and saucer in her hands, but they were shaking so much that the cup rattled against the saucer and the tea slurped over the rim of the cup onto the front of her skirt. She appeared not to notice, simply sat, shaking, as David greeted Edith and asked what on earth was going on.

“It’s the Nazis, they’ve taken your father and…”

“Taken my father? Where? Where have they taken him?”

Edith wrung her hands. “We don’t know! They simply took him away when he started to argue…”

“Argue about what? Edith, for goodness’ sake pull yourself together and tell me exactly what has happened.”

“The Nazis want Oma and Opa’s apartment.” David hadn’t realised that Paul was in the room, but he turned to him now. His son was standing in a corner by the window, watching the street below. His face was pale, but he seemed calm enough.

“All right, Paul.
You
tell me.”

“There are some top-brass Nazis who’ve arrived in Vienna and need places to live. They’re simply taking them. They’ve found out where rich Jews live and they are just turning them out and moving in. When Opa said they couldn’t have the apartment, they sent some soldiers. The soldiers pushed Oma out into the street and marched Opa away. Maria was still in the apartment, and she came out with Oma’s coat and bag. The soldiers told Maria that she could pack one suitcase for Oma, and then she was to go back into the apartment and get it ready for its new owners.” Paul fell silent as he came to the end of his story.

“What are we going to do?” cried Edith. “What are we going to do?”

“First you’re going take Mother upstairs to her room and make her comfortable. Then ask Cook to make her some nice hot soup.” He looked at his panic-stricken wife. “Come on, Edith, you’ve got to be strong. Dissolving into tears isn’t going to help anyone.” He turned to his son. “You stay here with your mother,” he said, then on a sudden thought asked, “Where’s Naomi?”

“She’s having tea at Hilda’s.”

“Right, well I want her home straightaway.” David went to the door to call Anna, and found her on the point of coming in. “Ah, Anna. I want you to go round to Frau Schweiz’s. Collect Miss Naomi and bring her home at once. If necessary you can say there is an illness in the family, but she must come home at once.”

Anna glanced at the old lady sitting, still shaking in the chair, and gave a half-smile. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” she said, and left the room.

“What about your father?” Edith had slumped into an armchair beside her mother-in-law. She looked up at David now, her eyes huge and staring in the whiteness of her face.

“I’ll try and find out where they’ve taken him and see if I can get him released. I’m sure they’ll let him go again now that they’ve made their point.” David sounded far more assured than he felt. He had no idea how to find his father, or whether they, whoever
they
were, might release him. All he could do was go first to the police and work from there.

His car and driver, Jacob, were still waiting for him outside and he had himself driven straight to the local police station. Although it wasn’t in the same area as his parents’ apartment, he went there because he knew the local police chief.

“Wait here,” he told Jacob, and went inside in search of Superintendent Müller.

When he asked for the superintendent, the desk officer looked him up and down and said, “Who shall I say wants him?”

“Dr David Bernstein.”

“Wait here.”

The officer disappeared and was gone some time. David waited in the front office. There was nowhere to sit down, so he stood, reading the posters up on the walls. One or two were quite old dealing with reported crime from several months ago; another explained how to register for the plebiscite that had been planned for Monday 13th March, but most of them were new, and mostly related to restrictions for Jews. Jews were not allowed to attend Austrian schools. Jews were to register as Jews on pain of deportation. Jews were not allowed to shop in Austrian shops. Jews were allowed to ride only in certain parts of public transport. David read them all and then read them again. He knew of many of the directives, but had not really understood the number of them, nor the heavy restrictions. Jews no longer had any rights as citizens, because they were no longer citizens.

The desk officer returned to his place, but did not speak to David, simply began writing notes in a ledger.

David approached the desk again. “Is Superintendent Müller there?” he asked.

The man looked up, as if surprised to be addressed while he was working. “He is in his office. He will see you when he has time.”

David felt his temper rising at the young man’s impudence. “I’d like to see him now, please,” he said.

“He will see you when he has time,” repeated the man, and returned to making his notes.

David waited another ten minutes, during which several people came into the police station, and were dealt with swiftly, efficiently and politely by the desk officer.

David looked at the door that led into the inner part of the police station. He knew the way to Superintendent Müller’s office, he had been there several times when he had helped the police with some medical matters. Normally he would have been shown straight upstairs, given coffee, asked what he wanted. Today he faced the blank expression of a young desk officer and a closed door.

He was about to walk through the door and run up the stairs before the young man could stop him, when a bell rang and the desk officer looked up.

“The superintendent will see you now. Follow me.”

“It’s all right,” David said mildly, “I know my way.”

The young man stopped in the doorway, and turned to face him. “We do not allow Jews to wander round the police station,” he said. “Follow me.”

David followed him. They reached the superintendent’s office and the young officer knocked on the door. When called to enter, he stepped inside and said, “The Jew is here to see you, sir.”

“Thank you, Lombay.”

Lombay moved out of the way and allowed David to go through the door, then he stood behind him as if to prevent his escape.

“Thank you, Lombay,” repeated the superintendent. “Go back to your duties on the desk.” Lombay looked disappointed, but he closed the door and David heard his feet on the wooden stairs.

Superintendent Helmut Müller was sitting behind his desk. Once the door was closed he got to his feet, but he didn’t extend his hand to David as he would once have done, and David was immediately aware of a difference in his attitude.

“Herr Doktor,” Müller said, politely enough, “what can I do for you?” He did not offer David a seat, though he sat back down himself, leaving David to stand in front of him, making David feel like a schoolboy called up before the headmaster. He fought to quell a rising anger; he needed this man’s help.

“I’ve come for your help,” he replied. “My father has been arrested, and I don’t know where they’ve taken him.”

“And you think this has something to do with me?”

“No, I’m sure it hasn’t,” responded David quickly, “but I thought you might know where he would have been taken.”

“So, who arrested him?” The superintendent sounded a little more relaxed.

“My mother says it was some soldiers. They came to move my parents out of their apartment so that some German officers could live there, and my father argued with them.”

“That was very stupid of him,” remarked the superintendent.

“Superintendent Müller, my father is an old man. He has lived in that apartment for the last twenty-five years. What would you have done?”

“If I were confronted by the SS and I were a Jew, I’d have left without a fuss, and thanked God that I had not been arrested,” replied the superintendent. “Look, Herr Doktor, we have worked together occasionally over the years and I’ve nothing against you… or most Jews actually, but you are going to have to realise our political masters have changed. I cannot afford to be seen as a friend of Jews. I cannot afford to be seen taking a sympathetic line. I am in as much peril from my own men informing on me to the authorities as you are. The laws of Austria with regard to Jews are now the same as those of Germany.”

“I understand,” David replied quietly, “but I have to find my father and try to get him released.”

Superintendent Müller sighed. “You know the Hotel Metropol in Morzinplatz?”

David nodded, the colour draining from his face. He did indeed know of the Hotel Metropol, who did not after these last few weeks?

“He will probably have been taken there. It’s become the Gestapo headquarters… there are cellars…” His voice trailed off. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you any further, Herr Doktor, except to say, if I were a Jew, I would go nowhere near the place. Heil Hitler!”

“Thank you, Herr Superintendent,” replied David quietly. “Good day,” and he left the room.

Jacob drove slowly along Franz-Josef-Kai until he was within two hundred yards of the Hotel Metropol, when David said abruptly, “Stop here and let me out. Keep driving round and pick me up again here.” He opened the back door of the car as Jacob drew to a halt and was out before his driver could open his own door. David stepped onto the pavement and mingled with the throng going about their business there. He walked towards Morzinplatz where the Hotel Metropol stood in all its elegance and style. Four storeys high, its main entrance dignified with tall columns, its windows tall and wide, it was an imposing building. A beautiful building, once the preserve of the rich and famous, and now, draped with swastika banners, a house of terror. The Nazis had been in Vienna for only three weeks, but already the rumours were circulating about the horrors of what went on within. People disappeared inside, not through the graceful portico at the front, but through a small, back entrance that, it was said, led straight to the cellars where prisoners were kept and tortured.

David stood across the square from the hotel and looked at it in despair. How could he discover if his father was in there? There were SS guards outside the front door, and, even as he watched, a long, black sedan drew up at the front. The two sentries snapped to attention, while the driver of the car leaped out to open the door for his passenger. All three men saluted the man who strode inside, returning their salutes with a casual “Heil Hitler”. David had seen pictures of that man in the papers, and seeing him in the flesh now he shuddered; Heinrich Himmler was an extremely powerful man, and every Jew with any sense of self-preservation was in mortal fear of him. David shrank back into a doorway, and watched as the black car glided away again, disappearing round the back of the hotel. He knew his nerve had failed; he knew he dare not approach the hotel. Keeping his head down, he crossed the street and walked beside the canal until he reached the Salztor Bridge. Standing on the end of the bridge, David looked along Salztorgasse towards the back of the hotel, but although he could see the building, he could not see the infamous door leading to the cellar. Could his father really be in the hands of the Gestapo? How could he find out? Müller’s advice was good advice. No Jew should go within a mile of the Hotel Metropol. If his father was in there, there was nothing he, David, could do, certainly not immediately, certainly not without careful thought.