Johann and Daniel
by Charles Lacey
Chapter 17
Daniel, two years later.
It was good to be back in Linz, though it was a very different place from the city we remembered. I made contact with the pitiful remnant of the Jewish community. Rabbi Blau, who was a dear old man, learned and kindly, had perished in the death camps, along with many of his congregation. But a new Rabbi, by the name of Horowitz, had come in after the war. He was a much younger man. He promised to find out as much as possible about my family. He was surprised that I had survived, but I told him what was perfect truth, that we had spent much of the war in England teaching Austrian German to secret agents. I thought it better not to say anything about Johann's secret visit to the city and his part in the death of Oberleutnant Kremer. I also tried to make contact with Alicia, the marvellous lady who had done so much for the Resistance as well as for Jewish and other refugees, but found that she had been killed. Even towards the end of the decade there were still a few Nazi fanatics around and I have no doubt that information as to her wartime work leaked out and one of them killed her in revenge. She was a wonderful person and if anyone deserved to go straight to Heaven it was she.
It was 1948 before we returned to England. I now knew that my sister Leah had been taken on the kindertransport but had no idea where she had gone. We took a month's leave during the late summer and again went to stay with our kind friend Ruth Freeman. We had exchanged letters each month, but it was lovely to see her again face to face. We had discovered that an organization called the Inter-Aid Committee, with offices in Gordon Square, London, had deal with most of the kindertransport arrangements, and that was therefore our first port of call. Once I had satisfied them as to my bona fide status as Leah's brother and shown them a letter from Rabbi Horowitz, they were willing enough to tell me what they knew, which was not much. Leah had gone with quite a large group of children to Windermere, in the Lake District. From there she had been placed with a Jewish family called Abrams in Burnley, Lancashire. They provided me with the address, but that was as far as they were able to help me.
Accordingly, Johann and I took a train northwards. We had worked hard at learning to speak English without any trace of our Austrian accent, and we could pass muster in most situations. But we found the Lancashire dialect almost impossible to understand. However, we managed to locate Mr and Mrs Abrams, and when they knew who I was they were welcoming and helpful. They had kept Leah until she was fifteen, when she had taken a post as a kitchenmaid at a large country house near Lancaster. They were kind enough to offer us a bed for the night, though as it was a single bed only one of us could use it. Johann insisted that I do so and he spent the night in an armchair. So we didn't get a lot of sleep. However, it did mean that we had the best part of the next day available to travel to Lancaster.
Again, we took a train, and arrived at Lancaster by ten o'clock. There was nothing for it but to walk the five miles or so to Redeshaw Hall, but we were there by midday. Knocking boldly on the front door, we were confronted by an immaculate butler. When we explained why we were there, he said, "go to the back of the house, and knock at the kitchen door. I will meet you there."
Mr Hillman, for that was his name, was quite helpful. He remembered Leah well, and Mrs Carter, the cook, said that she had been a pleasant girl and hard working.
"Had been?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied, rather sadly. "The master found out that she was Jewish and sent her away."
"Where did she go?" I asked.
"That I can't tell you. I believe she went back to London, to see some committee or other there, but that's all I know."
So it was a weary trudge of it we had back to Lancaster, though Mrs Carter had given us a cup of tea and had made a sandwich for us to take with us, which we thought kind of her.
We tried the offices in Gordon Square again, and spoke to a woman who thought she might have seen Leah when she came back from Lancashire, but could not be certain. "So many girls and boys passed through here," she said hesitantly, "and it's impossible to remember them all. I'm so sorry."
So that, as the English say, was that. Johann and I looked at each other. With his invariable kindness, Johann took my hands in his and said, "we will find her somehow. It cannot be impossible, someone must know something."
By now it was late afternoon. We found a small hotel in a back street near Paddington which had a cheap room. It needed to be: it was far from clean and the furniture was all but disintegrating. But it was at least a little better than sleeping on the station platform.
We could not face trying to get a proper meal, but fish and chips, that great standby of the British working man, were cheap and filling. And as we ate them, Johann suddenly looked at me and said, "Bill Ryder! What about Bill Ryder? If anyone can find Leah, he's the man."
I looked at Johann, my mouth open wide. Why hadn't I thought of this? It was too late to disturb Ruth Freeman, but the next morning we found a telephone box at Paddington Station, and rang her up. It seemed that after the war, when The Hotel was wound up and the building sold, Colonel Ryder, as we had eventually discovered him to be, had come to London and was working in an office in Whitehall, something to do with the Foreign Office.
So to Whitehall we went. A doorman refused to let us in as we had no appointment. However, we asked him to let Colonel Ryder know that we were there, and before long he returned, looking rather chastened, and led us up a very grand staircase, followed by a much smaller staircase, to a room on the second floor. There was Bill Ryder, looking much as we remembered him. He was delighted to see us, and we spent a few minutes reminiscing.
I put my problem to him. He tapped his fingers on the table for a few minutes, and looked thoughtful. Then he said, "leave it with me. I have a favour or two that I can call in. Is there a telephone number where I can reach you?"
"Only Ruth Freeman's," I replied.
Dear Ruth Freeman! She was always pleased to see us. Though our second visit was unexpected, she made us as welcome as ever, and we spent a pleasant evening talking over old times.
The next morning, there was a telephone call from London. "I think we're on the track of your sister," said Colonel Ryder. "The miserable so-and-sos at Lancaster threw her out because she was Jewish, if you can believe it. It wouldn't surprise me to find that they were Mosleyites before the war. Anyway, she went back to London and met another girl who was in the same group that came over from Austria. This girl, Rachel Goldfarb, had found a place with a Jewish family in the East End, and we have an address for her, in Whitechapel."
So it was back to London, and across to Whitechapel by Tube. The house at which we knocked was small, one of a long street of identical houses, all joined together, but when the door was opened we saw that though it was a little shabby, it was neat and clean. There were brass ornaments, well polished, on the mantelpiece and brightly coloured rag rugs on the floor. Two girls, a little younger than Johann and I, came clattering down the stairs, and stopped short when they saw us. The one in front was a pretty girl aged about sixteen. Behind her was Leah.
I stepped in – very rudely, I fear, as we had not been invited, but Johann explained to the lady, Mrs Levy, why we were there, and she let us both in. Leah and I looked at each other, and her hands went to her mouth.
"Leah..." I began, but she interrupted me. "Daniel?... can it be? They told me... they told me you had died in Germany, in the konzentrationslager ."
"No," I told her, "I was here in England for much of the war, doing secret work. This is my dearest friend, Johann Stresemann."
"Johann Stresemann? Wasn't that the name of Mr Meyer's assistant at the bank in Linz?"
"Yes, Leah. Johann is his son."
Then the tension became too much to bear, and Leah and I embraced as brother and sister should. Leah introduced us to Mrs Levy, and the other girl, Rachel. Mrs Levy was short and a little plump, with grey hair. She can never have been a great beauty, but the kindliness that showed in her face made it light up the room. Mr and Mrs Levy had been unable to have children of their own, and they had treated Rachel and Leah as if they were their own daughters. I confess that we all (including Johann) wept a little as Leah told her tale. I explained to her how our parents had been arrested and taken to the camp at Bergen-Belsen, where they had died, but that our father had told me to run away. I told her about Alicia, and that we had ended up in England. I also had to explain that we were forbidden to speak about the work that we had done, but that Johann had carried out with great courage and resourcefulness a difficult and dangerous task ("No, no," he said, blushing, "it was a small matter") that had made a real difference to the outcome of the war.
We talked for a while in the Levys' little front parlour, until Mr Levy arrived home for his luncheon. He was a man of medium height, slightly stooped, grizzled and bearded. He was a master tailor by trade. I noticed that both girls kissed his cheek when he came in, and were obviously pleased to see him. Leah introduced us, and he shook our hands heartily. "Leah is a good girl, a very good girl, and so is Rachel," he said. "We love them as our own daughters. They have been a real blessing to us."
At that I could not restrain myself. I stood, and clasped both of Mr Levy's hands in my own, and then embraced him. Truly, after long wandering, Leah had found a home and a family. The Levys were clearly not well off, but they had opened their hearts to these two war orphans and treated them as if they were their own children.
At that point Mrs Levy came in with soup and bread, and we all sat down at their table – it was a bit crowded, but no-one minded.
I explained that we were hoping to move to Denmark, but that at present we had to return to Linz as that was where we had work. I promised that as soon as we were settled we would be in touch.
And so we went back to Linz, to our little flat. We enquired about University places in Linz and in Vienna, and I also wrote to the university in Copenhagen. I had decided that I wanted to study Law, with a view to possibly practising as a lawyer after I qualified. The problem was, of course, going to be paying the university fees, as well as finding somewhere to live and enough to live on while I was studying. There were not the education grants in those days that there are now!
We always dined with Johann's parents every Sunday, and so we took the opportunity to ask Papa Stresemann for his advice. He fitted his finger-tips together, and said, "I have been expecting this question. Daniel, do you remember Markus Ascher? He was a friend of your parents. No? Let me tell you a little about him."
We sat up straight and gave Papa our best attention.
"Herr Ascher ran a successful business in Linz before the War, making and selling chocolate. When the Anschluss came, he handed over the business for the duration to his foreman, Paul Heinemann, on the understanding that it would be restored to him when it was safe to do so.
"He retired into private life, and lived very quietly. However, in 1941 he was taken, with his wife and their eldest son, to Bergen-Belsen. His wife and son died there, but when the camp was liberated Herr Ascher was by some miracle still alive. He returned to Linz, and after a long period of illness he became strong enough to return to his business.
"Under the management of Herr Heinemann the business had done well, and so Herr Ascher found himself a wealthy man, but with no family to spend it on or even to leave it to when he died. He therefore devoted his life and his fortune to working for the betterment of Jewish people who had suffered under the Nazis. As Herr Ascher is still a sick man, for he never fully recovered from the ill-treatment at Belsen, he uses me as his contact and all transactions are handled through the Bank.
"As I said, I anticipated this question, and have already put your problem to Herr Ascher. You may take it that your University fees will be paid, for as long as necessary. I have been very glad to help him and you in this matter. I well remember Jakob Meyer, the manager I worked with for quite a number of years. He was a good man, scrupulously honest in business and kind and generous in private life. I miss him and his wise counsel every day. Daniel, you are the son of his closest friend. Whatever we can do to help you, we will do. You have only to ask."
I looked at Papa Stresemann, barely understanding what he was saying. But Johann was looking at me and smiling.
I wrote to three universities: Vienna, Copenhagen and Oxford, enquiring about places to study Law. I had two excellent referees: Colonel Ryder and dear Papa Stresemann. Because I had had to leave school early I had no previous qualifications, but I hoped that my history would be taken into consideration.
The first one I heard from was Vienna. They regretted that they were unable to accept new undergraduates without the necessary school certificate, and recommended me to attend evening classes in order to obtain that.
The next one I heard from was Oxford. They regretted that there were no places at present, as they were filled to capacity with young men returning from the Services, but that a place might be available in a year or two.
Then a letter came from Copenhagen. They asked me to contact them to arrange a preliminary interview.
The good Herr Ascher, through Papa Stresemann, gave me money to buy a new suit of clothes, and my fares to Copenhagen. I knew no Danish, beyond a few basic courtesies, but hoped that my English would be acceptable.
This proved to be so. I was interviewed by Dr Hansen, the head of the Faculty of Law, and two other people, a man and a woman. The interview took from ten in the morning until after three in the afternoon, with a break for luncheon! But the upshot was that they offered me a place for the following year, dependent upon my learning the Danish language to a sufficient standard in the intervening time.
While I was at the University, Johann was looking into the possibility of finding work in Copenhagen. He had found that he thoroughly enjoyed gardening, and although Papa Stresemann rather looked down his nose at his son working at an outdoor job rather than in an office, he admitted that it was better to do a job one enjoyed and was good at.
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