Johann and Daniel
by Charles Lacey
Chapter 7
Daniel.
I was a very ordinary Jewish boy in Linz, until the Nazis came. My parents and my sisters and I went to the Synagogue, we observed the usual festivals and held the Sabbath meal in our house, often with the Meyers, my parents' closest friends.
As there was no specifically Jewish school in Linz, I attended the Realschule in the Steingasse . Ironically, it was the same school which Adolf Hitler had attended thirty-five years earlier. There were, of course, a few taunts of "Jew-boy" and the like, but on the whole we Jewish students were well accepted into the school community. I was lucky enough to find the work fairly easy, though mathematics and the sciences were a challenge. I did best at the Humanities subjects: Geography, History and Literature.
I even made a few friends. Noam Abrams was one, and Mordecai ben Shaul. I already knew them from the Synagogue, of course. But I was suprised to find some Christian boys welcoming me; in particular Michael von Bremke. This was doubly surprising as the 'von' indicated aristocratic descent. But Michael, though his manners could be lordly, was too proud to treat anyone as inferior.
There had been a Jewish community in Linz for hundreds of years. From time to time we had been blamed, or at least made scapegoats, for some disaster. The Black Death, for instance: when that happened we were branded "Christ-killers" and driven from the city. The Synagogue was pulled down and a new Catholic Cathedral built. But that was just one episode in an ongoing story. A new synagogue was built in the nineteenth century and little by little a new Jewish community was established.
We watched the rise of the National Socialists – the Nazis – in Germany, with profound misgivings. The rantings of Adolf Hitler, who hated Jews, would have been ludicrous if they had not been so frightening. When the Anschluss happened, we could see the writing on the wall. We held out as long as we could, mainly as we had nowhere else to go. A small number of Jewish people, seeing the way things were shaping, escaped just in time, going to America or other places where they had relations who would take them in.
Then came Kristallnacht – Crystal night, the night of broken glass. A Nazi official in Paris had been shot by a Jewish boy - Herschel Grynszpan, who came from Poland - and that was all that was needed to unleash all the fear and hatred that had been building up. All over Germany and the German occupied territories, including Austria, Jewish businesses were wrecked, synagogues destroyed and Jewish shops had their windows smashed.
The next day, at school, I found the place buzzing with news and rumour. "Hi there, Kohn," said Michael von Bremke when I met him on the way in, "I suppose you've heard all the news?" His kind face looked troubled.
"No, I've heard nothing out of the ordinary. We don't have the radio on in the mornings, and the newspaper had not arrived when I left the house."
His face clouded further.
"Look, Daniel…" his use of my given name worried me, "… you'd better keep a sharp look-out. A Jewish boy killed a German officer in Paris, and there are bound to be reprisals."
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean is that the Germans will want revenge on the Jews for that killing. They caught the lad who did it, and I expect he will be dead by now, probably killed by a firing squad, unless they want him for a show trial. But that won't be enough for them. You know that Hitler… well, perhaps I had better not say any more. But you know where I live, in case you ever need somewhere to… to go."
I think he was going to say, somewhere to hide. After the war, when I returned on a visit to Linz, I called at his parents' house. I was grieved to hear that he had died. He had joined the Army and had been killed leading an attack in Italy. He was a good man, and a good friend.
Then the inevitable happened. By ones and twos, Jewish people disappeared. We learned after the war that the Kindertransport organized by some kindly English people had managed to take altogether something like ten thousand Jewish children to safety from Germany and the occupied countries. It was an amazing achievement. Many of them live in England still, my little sister Leah among them.
We held out as long as we could, but eventually the soldiers came. There was a thunderous knocking on the door at five o'clock in the morning. Outside there were four armed soldiers, all with the Hakenkreuz armband, and a civilian in a black raincoat. The soldiers were probably just ordinary German men, carrying out their orders. But the civilian had the coldest eyes I have ever seen. He had a long, livid scar across one cheek.
"Josef and Rachel Kohn?" he said.
"Yes," replied my father, "we are Mr and Mrs Kohn."
"You will be coming with us. Get dressed and pack a case quickly, with a change of clothes. Bring your passports, your papers and any portable valuables."
"Where are you taking us?" whispered my mother, who was pale and trembling with fear.
"You will be going to a factory in eastern Germany, to work for the Reich. To work . It will do you good. Work sets you free. More than that, you do not need to know. Make haste, or these soldiers will find a way to hurry you up."
My father whispered to me, "Run, as fast as you can. Go through the kitchen and down the fire escape. We'll find you again somehow."
So I ran. Thank goodness, it was still only just starting to get light and no-one saw me coming down the fire escape two steps at a time. I ran through the streets, towards the Synagogue which, in my ignorance, I thought might be a safe place. I ran straight into a lady standing by. I owe my life to that lady. She was a Gentile lady, a Roman Catholic Christian from Linz, but she was a brave, brave soul and countless people bless her for her courage and her kindness. She took me to her house and hid me in the cellar. It was dark and rather chilly down there, but for a dim electric light. But it was dry and there were some chairs. I was startled to find a boy of about my own age there. His name was Johann Stresemann. I later learned that his father was the same Otto Stresemann who was the assistant to Herr Meyer, my father's closest friend. Johann soon became my closest friend.
What I'd never told anyone was my deepest secret. Of course my parents had a girl in mind that I was going to be expected to propose to when we were old enough. Miriam was her name, Miriam Meyer, the daughter of my parents' friends. And in all truth she was a pretty girl and very sweet-natured, and if we had married I would have done my very best to make her happy and give her children. But my heart would not have been in it, for I liked boys very much better.
Yes, I was a confused young man. I didn't often see naked boys, except sometimes in the showers at school. But I knew that I liked to look at them. In my bed, at night, sometimes I would lie with my head on one pillow, and another pillow clasped in my arms. In my imagination, the pillow was always another boy, never a girl.
I liked Johann immediately. He was just a thumb's breadth shorter than me, slender and wiry, with light brown hair and hazel eyes. But under a diffident manner he had a kind of stubborn courage which would never allow him to admit defeat. I had never had a Gentile friend, and I was very afraid that he would find out that I was Jewish, and turn against me. The Nazis did that; they filled people's minds with all kinds of cruelty and lies, and it was a brave and free-thinking person who could make up his own mind. I didn't know Johann so well then as I do now, or I would not have worried.
I hid with Johann in Alicia's cellar, until she arranged for us to be taken to München by a friend of hers in his car. The idea was that we should then make our way by whatever means we could find, to Geneva, where hopefully we would be safe and able to make more plans.
That was a very uncomfortable journey, much of it under a blanket crammed together with Johann. We couldn't see where we were going, of course, and I had to keep swallowing as the movement of the car made me feel very nauseous. But part way the car stopped, and the driver let us sit up and talk. But he asked us a great many questions. He wouldn't say why he asked so many questions, but he let us know that there was a good reason; it wasn't just idle curiosity. But what really shook me was Johann's admission that he had been caught in bed with another boy. That really made me sit up, as I am sure you can imagine. Because he was a very good-looking boy, and very gentle and kind. He had let me hold onto his hand while we were in that cellar, frightened for our lives. And he was brave, too, much braver than I was. I was already hoping that we would be able to stay together. I wanted more than anything else let him know how I felt, but I didn't dare for fear of what he might think. And for the moment we just needed to get as far from Austria and Germany as we could.
The driver's name was Christoph Waldmann. We later found out that he was actually an Englishman called Christopher Woodward, though he spoke excellent Austrian German, and that all the questions he asked were designed to elicit any information that he might be able to send back to England to help them build up a picture of how things were in Austria. I hope it was so; the Allies needed to win the war in order to stamp out the evil of Nazism. I've never understood how it can be that there are people in the world as evil and cruel as the filthy Nazis, and yet alongside them people as brave and kind and good as Christopher or Alicia. Or, indeed, my wonderful Johann. We've been together for thirty years now, and hope for at least another thirty. With each year that goes by we love each other more.
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