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:
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Zorki
Caamera
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"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!
