I found an Armenian rug merchant in this town, and we’re great friends. He’s going to get me a room—which is difficult if you don’t know anyone. I can already hear you saying the Armenians are “good kids”; I know that—I prefer them to the dear Austrians, who disgust me almost more than the other Boches. The Armenian M. Papzian, however, has shown me where to find the synagogue in Linz. I will go and take some pictures . . .
Well, Good Bye,
Kisses,
Your Walter
* * * *
Five days of rumor, speculation, and erroneous reports filled the airwaves preceding news that took but a moment to deliver. On one short-wave station in the BDN (Blue Danube Network, a postwar military broadcaster operated by the Armed Forces Radio Network), Cab Calloway’s crooning was cut short by an agitated voice trying to remain calm in light of breaking news: “JAPAN—ACCEPTS—SURRENDER TERMS—OF—THE—ALLIES.”
Seven words that shook the world, then a pause. The sudden silence in the absence of the reporter’s voice was deafening. Nervous chatter. Teletype machines and typewriters set the beat as fresh news came across the wire. Reporters in the background tried to maintain on-air silence but couldn’t contain their excitement and broke out in a chorus of whispers. The listener could hear them running to their typewriters. Trying to keep up with the rapid pace of events, they slammed keys to paper, tapping out new reports that were then slapped into a waiting broadcaster’s hand, so he could pronounce them to a world anxiously awaiting confirmation.
“We have been told now to temporarily hold up that flash—to disregard it. So ladies and gentlemen, those of you who may have heard that flash as we brought it to you within seconds of the time it came upon our United States press tickers, please hold that flash. Temporarily, we resume the program in progress but keep tuned to this station.” Dead air while they awaited confirmation and then a return to the scheduled program. The networks in those days relied upon wire service for their information, which filled every broadcast with the emotion of the moment. Finally, the news switches to London for the official announcement.
My father spun the dial on his short-wave Telefunken to the BBC station, his perennial favorite. He stopped. Celebrations from all over were being broadcast, with still no official confirmation, and then British Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s voice broke through with, “Japan has today surrendered. The last of our enemy is laid low. Peace has once again come to the world. Let us thank God for this great deliverance and his mercies. Long live the King.”
In an instant, my father’s head swirled with notions of possibility. The prison of war had thrown open its gates and the inmates were finally set free.
“Qui vivra verra! My God, after six years of carnage it is finally over!”
Just hours earlier, at 4:15 a.m., eighty-nine-year-old Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain had been convicted and sentenced to death for his role in the Vichy regime; Soviet troops raced unchecked across Manchuria; Times Square filled to overflowing with a roaring sea of humanity, surging to two million, as official word came from President Truman. The war was indeed over and a two-day holiday would follow.
At about 3:15 that afternoon, sure that the Japanese had surrendered unconditionally after hearing Emperor Hirohito’s high-pitched voice accept the Potsdam Declaration in a prerecorded message from the Imperial Palace, my father grabbed his portable typewriter, a Triumph acquired from a GI for twenty-five dollars, and started to write home. The machine felt awkward to him: the letters were arranged differently, and he found himself hunting and pecking at unfamiliar keys. The black market was filled with GIs trying to make a few extra bucks, and my father was not immune to the perks.
“Well,” he thought to himself.
“And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid; and I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.”
—Leviticus 26:6
* * * *
He closed the door gently behind him, loosening his tie as it clicked shut. He was tired but not ready for sleep. He had just come back from a Saturday night double feature, both of which were filmed entirely on location in New York. Watching Deanna Durbin in Christmas Eve and Judy Garland in The Clock made him forget for at least a few hours that he was in the army. It created the illusion of what he yearned for so desperately—to be a free man again. His spirits had dropped significantly. He couldn’t get over the date: it was September first, six years since this war had started. His mind wandered in every direction tonight, but he was sure of one thing, which admittedly was easy to say after the fact: he would have served in this war in any case, yet never would he have thought in his earlier life that it would be with the United States Army. If ever there was another war, and he sincerely hoped not, he would do it all over again. However, at the moment he had only one thought, and that was to get out, get home, and restart his life ASAP!
Even though they had only been on screen, seeing the city’s most famous landmarks was like visiting with old friends. He could practically smell the city. Every time a new image appeared, the audience screamed out the location. There was even a shot of West 79th Street, which left him feeling even more homesick and bereft of what he was missing. It had been a great evening, and he was anything but ready to let it go.
The week passed quickly, and the first High Holy Days after the war followed on its heels. With nothing special to do on his afternoon off, he stayed home and relaxed before the weekend ahead. That night he and his friends were having a big party to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and had organized a sixteen-piece American orchestra for the dance. The next morning he left in the company of a buddy to spend his two free days in the country. He had arranged in advance with his commander to have a car. They headed to Attersee, a small Austrian village by the lake of the same name, and got a room at a hotel confiscated by his troops. His friend was an expert sailor, and they spent a great afternoon on the lake relaxing in the sun.
After dinner, they took their car to a dance in the nearby hamlet of Voecklabruck. With an hour left before midnight curfew, they stopped on their way back to take a little walk. On the road, they met a couple of very charming Hungarian dancers who were also out for a stroll. With no other language in common, they began to chat in German. Just as they returned to their hotel, they were stopped abruptly by a young GI.
“Papers. Who are you?”
My father didn’t recognize him, so he responded curtly, balking at his tone, “None of your business. Good night.” He and his buddy laughed it off and walked back to their room. A short time later, there was a loud and insistent knock at their door. They were already in bed. As the knocking continued, it became more forceful, so my father got out of bed to see what all of the commotion was about. He listened at the door for a brief second before unlocking it, and four soldiers burst in. Lining up to block the door, they shouted, “PAPERS!”
It took my father and his buddy a couple of seconds before they understood what was going on, and then they began to laugh like idiots. The suspicion that they were spies almost brought my father to his knees.
“What the hell are you two laughing at?”
Between gulps of laughter, my father explained who they were and that they were actually Ritchie Boys, former refugees themselves and now good American citizens serving with Intelligence. Regaining some of his composure, he said, “Your zeal is commendable, but now it’s time for bed no? Cigarette?” Unable to help himself, he broke out in a quieter laughter and lit his own.
Defeated, the soldiers each took one. After all, they had hoped to at the very least to be taken seriously and at best to have taken two double agents into custody.
“Look, men, if you need any other references contact the general in the morning.”
That was enough to nullify their zeal for arrest.
“Now, shall we all get some sleep?”
My father steered them to the door and shut it cordially b
ehind them. The GIs left in a cloud of quiet smoke.
The next day, the soldiers graciously came to apologize, and he said, “No harm done, men. We were just having a bit of fun with you. So long.”
Exquisite scenery is the backdrop to one of the most notorious concentration camps. Lake Traunsee is on the right.
They left town. With only a few kilometers behind them, they stopped at an inn and, in a little black market trade, exchanged goods for a hearty breakfast. Fortified, they drove on to Lake Wolfgangsee, set between the mountains like a giant deep blue sapphire, and continued along the southern side of the lake. The weather was delicious. Crisp mountain air and the strength of the mid-September sun made the scenery impeccably clear. They were deep in Sound of Music country.
Just before noon they passed through Ebensee, the town that only a few months before sheltered one of the worst concentration camps in Hitler’s web of death camps. Before arriving in the village proper, they came upon a hundred or so graves of Jews and Poles who had been assassinated while interned there. My father’s natural inclination was to shoot some photographs. As they approached the camp, he tried to photograph the cremation ovens but couldn’t get close enough. They weren’t allowed inside because, as my father states, rather tongue-in-cheek, it was “à présent occupé par des prisonniers de la SS” (at present occupied by the prisoners of the SS), in other words it was a DP camp. The unmarked graves along the road looked like so many hills of dirt. The graves had been dug under SS supervision—the photos show mounds of dirt in neat rows.
In the Torah, the Book of Numbers counts the contribution of the living. But what of the pasts of those buried in those hills of Hitler’s graves, victims of his genocide decaying en masse by the thousands? Approximately 8,200 souls were lost at Ebensee from torture, starvation, privation, violence, and finally the flames of ovens hot enough to send their ashes to the heavens. At the end, the Nazis rushed to finish the job, killing as many as humanly possible, as fast as they could. The prisoners at Ebensee were used as slaves to dig tunnels deep into the mountains surrounding them. They wore wooden clogs if they were lucky enough to have any protection for their feet. How are their contributions counted? The numbers tattooed on their arm recorded one kind of census; but the measure of their contribution was their lives, for even in death they serve to remind the living.
It had been several days of incredible contrasts. Before going to bed, he wanted to write to his parents about the atrocities he saw at Ebensee. He decided to couch the unbearable in a bit of nonchalance and black humor; it was his way. Beneath the pile of other papers was the distinctive red border of the Nazi stationery he had collected from someone’s ransacked office. He pulled out a sheet, rolled it into the typewriter, and began to write.
Barracks at Ebensee Concentration Camp, September 1945.
“Here lie buried 1,000ds . . .”
“probably the last days’ harvest.”
“of victims of Nazi Kultur.”
“They did not have time to bury the corpses.” Ebensee, September 1945.
September 9, 1945
OUR NEW POLICY: LET’S FORGET ABOUT THE PAST
LET BYGONES BE BYGONES
NATIONAL SOCIALIST [SWASTIKA IN EAGLE] GERMAN RULING PARTY
—now called: THE PARTY OF THE GOOD HEARTED? INNOCENT?—SAUERKRAUT
EATING, JEW LOVING? GERMAN PEOPLE (INDEPENDENT AUSTRIAN BRANCH)
My Dears,
To begin with, chère Mamo, thank you for your letter dated the 28th of August of this year.
I have just finished my “midnight snack,” which consisted of bouillon, American Jewish ham, Austrian bread, and German wine—extraordinary combination, but I must admit, excellent. The meat, however, was furnished by my friend, the French cook—in exchange for a couple of Slovakian cigarettes, which I employ for just such “business.” Oh yes—the Columbia Broadcasting System is furnishing the South American music.
The letter continued with descriptions of his weekend on the lake and culinary adventures. In between, he gently placed his description of Ebensee. It is so unexpected that the first time I read it, I actually got nauseous.
Before noon we passed through Ebensee, a town that only a few short months ago sheltered one of the worst concentration camps. Before arriving in the village proper, we saw a hundred or so graves of Jews and Poles who had been murdered there. Naturally, I took some photographs. Later I tried to photograph the cremation ovens in the camp—which is presently occupied by SS prisoners—but we weren’t allowed to get close enough, because the ovens are inside the camp. Next we ate with a unit occupying Ebensee. We had chicken.
It is, if I may say, one of my favorites, and later when I found the photographs from that day, the first thought that popped into my head was, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . I fear no evil. (She’ma Yis’ra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad).” By hand my father wrote a caption across four of the photos: “Ebensee Concentration Camp—Here lie buried thousands . . . of victims of Nazi Kultur . . . probably the last day’s harvest . . . they did not have time to [bury] the corpses.”
* * * *
Several days later he went on a special mission to Salzburg, to do much the same kind of work as he did at Ghedi, sorting through the POWs and interrogating suspected war criminals. He would remain there for about two weeks. After he and his buddies finished their first day of work, they took a short drive to Hellbrun, the summer residence of the cardinal of Salzburg and then arrived back to Salzburg that evening, just in time to see a revue of the Rockettes from Radio City in New York, who were at Festspielhaus, which had been renamed the Roxy. Salzburg had changed since he was last here. It was much more lively, there was quite a bit of traffic and it was well lit.
While there, and for the third time since returning to Europe, a POW by the name of Wolff was brought to him for interrogation. The first time the soldier had been Jewish, the second time it was the notorious SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff, and now here was SS Unterscharführer Walter Wolff: “Today I interrogated a Waffen SS Sergeant named Walter Wolff. That was pretty funny. No, not a member of our family. In any case I locked him up. Generally speaking, I don’t like people using the same name as me, especially when they’re members of the SS.” An Unterscharführer in the SS was the equivalent of a noncommissioned senior corporal in the paramilitary rank of the Nazi party; his duties might run the gamut, but chiefly, the million-man army of the SS was in place to implement Hitler’s order for the Final Solution.
Over the next few days, with the approaching change of season came a lot of rain. My father blew into the entryway of his hotel, swung his umbrella down, and shot it open and closed a few times, shaking the water off before neatly snapping it shut. He wiped his feet at the threshold then politely stepped aside to allow someone by.
“Hey Wolff, did you hear the announcement? Come winter, men with two years of service will be demobilized.”
The other Ritchie Boy’s accent betrayed his origin. My father turned, looking over his shoulder to the other young man and said, “Why, of course, on my TSF. It was all over the radio. Hope you’re prepared. It’s raining ‘à la Bruxelles’ today—cats and dogs! Why don’t you wait a little while? Come in, have a coffee and cigarette with me until it lets up a bit?”
“Why not? Its been raining like this for days already, no?”
The two men found seats at the bar. As they peeled off their trench coats and settled in, my father continued, “That means I’ll be going home, probably sometime in May, because our unit can keep us for three months more, in view of the special work we do.”
“A lot of guys leaving for the States in a few days have all but forgotten what it’s like to be a civilian.”
“In our department alone, there are two leaving. I’m having a devil of a time getting the minimum requirements done. Personally, I could care less. I think those guys are right to go, but at the same time I ha
ve to show that our department is still functioning. Naturally, I don’t do anything myself, because that would set a bad precedent. I’ve asked for replacements, so I suppose in two weeks’ time I’ll get a couple of overzealous new Ritchies who’ll do everything I ask them.”
They chatted for a while until my father excused himself. He wanted to pass by his room before meeting a friend for a concert later that evening. He walked back to his hotel the Gasthof zum Eisernen Mann. He had an excellent bed, a table for his TSF, an armoire, a pretty little buffet with cut-glass doors, a small dry sink, and some couches and comfortable chairs. He had management put up a chandelier with six lights. Very chic. By the time he redecorated, there were ten electric light bulbs in the room—taking full advantage of the electricity, as he did when he added a new electric heater to replace his old one.
On the wall were beautiful engravings. Not knowing what to do with his excess of money, he bought enough to decorate and was about ready to send thirteen home that he thought they would make nice gifts if his parents didn’t use them for their new apartment at their hotel on the Upper West Side. He framed them, using Third Reich stamps to attach the artwork to the mats. All in all, his new room was pretty livable. It even had running water, central heating, and a bathroom next door as well as a toilet.
Someday You Will Understand Page 20
