After some
four (4) more hours that had passed quickly and
uneventfully, I reached around 12 noon my final
destination: Graz, Austria. It was Saturday, April
19, 1969. Exactly one week ago at the same time I
had still been working at the Romanian Observatory
in Bucharest! What a truly extraordinary week had
just passed. Snapping out of these thoughts, here I
was leaving the train that brought me to freedom.
Once in the Graz
Station, the first thing that I looked for was a
place where I could exchange my currency. I saw
not far away a Currency Exchange window. I had
with me 5000 of the Romanian currency which in
spite of their name "The Lions" (in Romanian
"Lei") were worthless. I also had with me the 20
Yugoslavian dinars --my change "leftover" from the
ticket. The Yugoslavian money, however, to my
relief, was good and could be converted into the
Austrian schillings. And if I am not mistaken, I
got an even exchange: for my 20 Yugoslavian
dinars, I received 20 Austrian schillings. Then, I
took my camera from my suitcase (I had a beautiful
Russian-made Zorki camera, picture below, in a
nice leather case) and went to check my luggage.
(In the Station there was a Room where passengers,
for a small fee, could leave their luggage for 24
hours.) Freed from my luggage and with only a
camera hanging over my shoulder, I went straight
to the Station's Information Center. There was a
small adorable chubby person who greeted me in
German. "Do you speak English?" --I asked. "No",
he responded in German. I said to myself "Thank
God!" and then, in English, I asked:
|
|
|
Zorki Caamera
|
"Listen, I am from America, and I am here to
take pictures of your Synagogue. Can you tell me
how to get there?"
To this, in
disbelief, the man came out from his booth saying:
"America, America. No one from America came here
to take pictures of our Synagogue." He then gave
me a map with the City of Graz pointing out where
the Synagogue was located. "Only three stops with
the streetcar and you will be there" he continued.
Happy with the great help just received, I left
the Information booth thanking the man very much
for his assistance. As I was about to leave the
Station, I saw a place where you could buy
postcards and stamps and immediately went there as
I was eager to write to my dear mother. [In Romania, we
agreed that I would write in coded messages. If my
escape from Romania were succesful, we agreed that
my letter must contain this coded sentence "The
birds are flying" and be signed as "Clara".] My actual lines in
my first postcard in the Free World were these:
"Spring
is a beautiful time of the year with birds that
are flying and flowers that are blooming" and
signed as Clara. [My mother, I believe, still has
this very first postcard received from me!]
After mailing my
postcard, I left the Station for the streetcar.
And with no problem, within minutes, I was in
front of the Synagogue --a massive structure
surrounded by a tall wall with heavy metal gates
at its front. To my dismay the gates were closed
and I could not understand why this was happening
on a Saturday afternoon around 1 o'clock! [My Jewish education
at that time was non-existent notwithstanding the
fact that my both parents were non-practitioning
Jews. From my father's side, almost everyone (some
60 people) were killed in the Auschwitz
Concentration Camp. From my mother's side, all her
eight (8) sisters and brothers were living in
Israel and, the father of my mother had been the
President of the Jewish Community of a small
Romanian town in Romania, Carei of Satul Mare
district, where my mother was born. Because my
parents did not know how Communists would react
towards Jews, they in 1945 changed their names to
typical Romanian names [to Bratu as family name]
and until I was 17 I was not aware of my Jewish
heritage much less of Jewish traditions.]
As I was moving
from one end to the other end of the Synagogue to
find a way of entering inside, I saw a little boy
no older than 6 playing nearby. I attempted to
speak with the boy but he knew only German which I
did not know. After explaining to the boy, through
some gesticulations, of my desire to go into the
Synagogue and see a rabbi, the boy with a smile
took my hand and through a hidden passage he was
able to put me in front of a rabbi. He was a man
perhaps in his late sixties with a long beard and
the black attire of a rabbi. I was extremely happy
and enormously excited to see him and upon
mentioning to him all of the languages that I
could speak aside from Romanian, he was glad to
learn that Hungarian was one of them as he was
born in Hungary. As he immediately invited me into
his home, I began telling him, with tremendous
excitement, that I just escaped from Romania.
After only five
minutes into my story, he stopped me with the
question: "Are you hungry?" Stunned by his
off-guard question, I timidly responded in the
affirmative. Then, the rabbi continued: "You have
plenty of time to tell me your story, but now
let's go to the restaurant across the street where
you will eat first." In apologetic fashion I
warned the rabbi that I do not eat Kosher food but
only "normal" food. To put me at ease the rabbi
assured me that I could eat whatever I wanted. As
we went across the street to a very nice and
elegant restaurant, the rabbi asked me what was my
favorite food. I said "I like snitzel very much
but I do not how to translate or explain this to
you." With a warm smile, he called the waitress
over and ordered for me snitzel with potatoes! The
meal was an absolute feast with a chocolate torte
at the end. As we left the restaurant and walked
towards the rabbi's home, the rabbi stated "Now,
you can tell me your entire story!"
After some two
(2) hours of telling my story, the rabbi got quite
excited calling my escape "extraordinary." He told
me that he must contact the President of the
Jewish Community immediately. Apparently the
President was on a weekend retreat where he could
not be reached by telephone but only by telegram.
The rabbi's telegram to the Jewish President
contained this message: "Please return
immediately. Something extraordinary has
happened." After sending the telegram, the rabbi
showed me a room in his home where he said that I
could stay for as long as I wanted. I also met his
son, briefly, a student at the Graz Polytechnic
University. Overwhelmed by the rabbi's goodness, I
began wondering if my own father could have
behaved more warmly.
Some five (5)
hours later, around 9 o'clock on that Saturday
evening of April 19, 1969, the President of the
Jewish Community for the city of Graz arrived.
Since he spoke only German, the rabbi was our
translator. We talked for about three (3)
hours, telling him of my escape and of my absolute
determination to go to the Unites States and
nowhere else. As I was telling my escape story to
the Jewish President, I asked him if he could
explain what had happened at the border in
Yugoslavia and why my passport was not stamped by
either of the two Yugoslavian officials that
examined my passport. To this the Jewish President
replied:
"My
boy, you do not know how lucky you were. If you
should ever meet those two people again, you
should kiss their feet for what they have done
for you. The first young Officer clearly
recognized that you did not have a valid
passport for crossing into Austria and thus he
could not have placed a stamp on a non-valid
passport. He went and informed his supervisor
about this. The supervisor when he arrived and
saw you decided ultimately to let you go. To
protect themselves in case you were caught in
Austria, they did not stamp your passport. In
this way, they could have said that they had
never seen you. You could have been under the
train or above when you exited Yugoslavia. And
the proof that they did not see you was in the
fact that no Exit Yugoslavian Stamp was to be
found in your passport!"
I was very
impressed upon hearing all this. Clearly, there
was no chance in heaven that I would ever met
again those Yugoslavian Immigration Officials to
thank them for setting me free. Because of my
determination to go to the United States and no
other place on earth, the Jewish President
informed me that he would need to contact the
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) which would be
able to help me towards reaching my goal.
On the next day, Sunday April 20, 1969, around
noon time, the Jewish President came to see me. I
was informed at that time that he had made all the
necessary arrangements for me to go on the next
day to Vienna and see the officials from HIAS. I
was happy and grateful for his help and advise.
The rabbi was very excited by the news. "Yes, but
what about if something goes wrong? You have to
think about that and you have to have money with
you," --the rabbi insisted. I assured the rabbi
that nothing would go wrong and that I could not
accept the money. He then insisted that I had to
take with me the seven (7) letters of credit that
he prepared for me. These letters, the rabbi
indicated, were seven distinct sources in Vienna
from where I could take money, as needed. Stunned
by his genuine concern about my welfare, I took
those letters of credit with tremendous emotion
and gratitude.
Knowing that
this was my last day in Graz, I went strolling and
explored this historic city which had so much
significance for me. That was my first stroll in a
city as a free man. What a tremendous and
indescribable joy I was experiencing. I was the
happiest man on earth!
