Outside, beyond these walls, a shadow was gathering over their world. That afternoon, a written ultimatum had come from Germany, insisting that the plebiscite be canceled; that Chancellor Schuschnigg resign; that the figurehead President Wilhelm Miklas replace him with the right‑wing politician Arthur Seyss‑Inquart (a member of the illegal Austrian Nazi Party) with a sympathetic cabinet under him. The justification given by Hitler was that Schuschnigg’s government was repressing the ordinary Germans of Austria (“German” being synonymous with “Nazi” in Hitler’s mind). Finally, the Austrian Legion, a force numbering thirty thousand Nazis living in exile, must be brought back to Vienna to keep order on the streets. President Miklas had been given until 7:30 pm to comply.16 Though the public had no knowledge of this ultimatum, many could sense that something was wrong.
After dinner, Kurt had to hurry off to the Shabbat evening service at the Stadttempel. He was paid a schilling a time for singing in the choir, so it was an economic as well as a religious duty, and a personal delight. As usual, Fritz escorted him; he was an ideal elder brother—friend, playmate, and protector.
The streets were busy this evening, but the unruly noise had subsided, leav‑
ing behind a sense of a lurking malevolence. Usually Fritz would accompany Kurt as far as the billiard hall on the other side of the Danube Canal—“You know your way from here, don’t you?”—and head off to shoot billiards with his friends. But this evening was different.
Back in the apartment, the radio was playing. The program was interrupted by an announcement. The plebiscite had been postponed. It was like an ominous tap on the shoulder. Then, a little after half past seven, the music broadcast was halted and a voice declared: “Attention! In a few moments you will hear an extremely important announcement.” There came a pause, empty, hissing; it went on and on for three full minutes, and then Chancellor Schuschnigg came on. His voice wavered with emotion: “Austrian men and Austrian women; this day has placed us in a tragic and decisive situation.” Every person in Austria who was 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 12
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near a radio at that moment listened intently, many with fear, some with excite‑
ment, as the chancellor described the German ultimatum. Austria must take its orders from Germany or be destroyed. “We have yielded to force,” he said, “since we are not prepared even in this terrible situation to shed Germanic blood. We decided to order the troops to offer no serious . . .”—he hesitated—“. . . to offer no resistance.” His voice cracking, he gathered himself for the final words. “So I take my leave of the Austrian people, with a German word of farewell, uttered from the depths of my heart: God protect Austria.”17
The Kleinmanns, like families across Austria, sat stunned as the national anthem began to play. In the studio, unseen and unheard by the people, Kurt Schuschnigg broke down and sobbed.
The sweet, exalting phrases of the “Hallelujah,” led by the cantor’s tenor and fleshed by the voices of the choir, filled the great oval space of the Stadttempel, embracing the marble pillars and the gilded ornamentation of the tiered bal‑
conies in harmonious sound. From his place in the choir on the very top tier behind the ark,* Kurt could look right down on the bimah† and the con‑
gregation. It was far more crowded than usual, packed to bursting—the less devout Jews of Vienna seeking comfort in their religion. The religious scholar Dr. Emil Lehmann, unaware of the latest news, had spoken movingly about Schuschnigg, exalting the plebiscite and closing with Schuschnigg’s ral ying cry: “We say yes!”18
After the service, Kurt filed down from the balcony, collected his schil‑
ling, and found Fritz waiting. Outside, the narrow cobbled lane was thronged with the departing congregation. From the outside there was little to show the synagogue’s presence; it appeared to be part of a row of apartment houses.
The main body was behind the façade, squeezed between this street and the rear of the Fleischmarkt. While Leopoldstadt was properly the Jewish quarter of Vienna, this little enclave in the old city center, where Jews had lived since the Middle Ages, was the cultural heart of Jewish life in Vienna. Their legacy was in the buildings and the street names—Judengasse, Judenplatz—and their
* Ornate cabinet in which the scrolls of the Torah are kept
† Reading table used by a rabbi, facing the ark
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blood was in the cobblestones and in the crevices of history, in the persecu‑
tions and the medieval pogrom that had driven them to live in Leopoldstadt.
By day the narrow Seitenstettengasse was insulated from much of the noise of the city, but this night was different. In the Shabbat evening darkness, Vienna was bursting to life. A short distance away, on the Kärtnerstrasse, a long thoroughfare on the other side of the Nazi enclave in Stephansplatz, a mob was gathering. The brown‑shirted storm troopers of the SA, free now to bring out their concealed weapons and put on their swastika armbands, were on the march. The police marched with them. Trucks rolled along filled with storm troopers; men and women danced and yelled by the light of flaming torches.
A British journalist who witnessed it called the procession “an indescribable witches’ sabbath.”19
Across the city came the full‑throated roar—“Heil Hitler! Sieg heil! Down with the Jews! Down with the Catholics! One people, one reich, one Führer, one victory! Down with the Jews!” Raw, fanatical voices rose in song—“Deutschland über alles”—chanted, “Today we have all Germany—tomorrow we have the world!”20 The playwright Carl Zuckmayer described what he saw that night:
“The netherworld had opened its portals and spewed out its basest, most hor‑
rid, and filthiest spirits . . . What was being unleashed here was the revolt of envy; malevolence; bitterness; blind, vicious vengefulness.”21
The echoes reached the Seitenstettengasse, where the Jews outside the Stadt‑
tempel were dispersing. Fritz shepherded Kurt down the Judengasse to the canal‑
front and across the bridge. Within minutes they were back in Leopoldstadt.
The Nazis were coming, along with hordes of newfound weathercock friends, flooding in thousands, tens of thousands, northeast across the city center, heading for the Jewish district. The tide poured across the bridges into Leopoldstadt, washing into Taborstrasse, Leopoldsgasse, the Karmelitermarkt, and Im Werd. A hundred thousand chanting, roaring men and women, filled with triumph and hate. “Sieg heil! Death to the Jews!” The Kleinmanns, like every Jewish family in Vienna, sat in their home, listening to the tumult out‑
side, waiting for it to burst in through the doors.
But it didn’t come. For hours the mobs ruled the streets, all noise and fury, but doing little physical harm. Some unlucky Jews were caught in the streets and abused, people who “looked Jewish” were beaten up, known Schuschnigg loyalists were attacked, a number of homes and businesses were invaded and plundered—but the storm of destruction did not break over Vienna that night.
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Amazed, some people wondered whether the legendarily civilized nature of the Viennese people might temper the behavior even of its Nazis.
It was a vain hope. The reason for the restraint was simple: the storm troopers were in charge. They were disciplined, and they intended to strip and destroy their prey methodically, not by riot. Already that night the police were wearing swastika armbands and the SA, on Seyss‑Inquart’s orders, had taken over public buildings. They were in total control. The time of the Nazis had arrived. But this was just a prelude. Germany itself was coming.
By next morning, the first columns of German t
roops had crossed the bor‑
der. During the night, prominent members of Schuschnigg’s party and cabinet were seized or fled. Schuschnigg himself was under arrest. The European pow‑
ers—Britain, France, Czechoslovakia—objected to Germany’s invasion of sover‑
eign territory, but Mussolini, supposedly Austria’s ally, refused to consider any military action; he wouldn’t even condemn Berlin. International resistance to Germany fell apart before it had even formed. The world left Austria to the dogs.
And Austria welcomed them.
Gustav woke to the sound of engines. A low drone that entered his skull with the stealth of an odor and grew in volume. Airplanes. For a moment it was as if he were in the street outside his workshop; it was still yesterday, the night‑
mare had not happened. He came awake. It was scarcely breakfast time. The rest of the family, apart from Tini, who was clattering quietly in the kitchen, were still in their beds, just stirring from their dreams.
As Gustav rose and dressed, the drone of airplanes grew louder. There was nothing to be seen from the windows—just rooftops and a strip of sky—so he put on his shoes and went downstairs.
In the street and across the Karmelitermarkt there was little sign of the night’s terrors or the previous day’s hopes, just a few stray “Vote Yes!” leaflets, trampled and swept into corners. The traders were setting out their stalls and opening their stores—fewer than usual, but life must go on. Everyone looked to the sky as the rumbling engines grew louder and louder, rattling windows, drowning out the sounds of the streets. This wasn’t like yesterday at all. This was an oncoming thunderstorm. The planes came into view over the rooftops.
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loose above them. They flew so low that even from the ground their German markings could be picked out and their bomb‑bay doors could be seen open‑
ing.22 A ripple of terror swept across the marketplace.
What came out, though, was not bombs but another blizzard of paper fluttering down over the roofs and streets. Here was a political climate that produced actual weather. Gustav picked up one of the leaflets. It was briefer and simpler than yesterday’s message, but infinitely more chilling. At the head was the Nazi eagle, and a declaration:
National Socialist Germany greets her National Socialist Austria and the new National Socialist government.
Joined in a faithful, unbreakable bond!
Heil Hitler!23
The storm of engines was deafening. Not only the bombers but over a hundred transport planes flew over; while the bombers banked and circled, the others headed southeast. Nobody knew it yet, but these were troop‑carrying aircraft, heading for Aspern aerodrome just outside the city—the first German spearhead into the Austrian capital. Gustav dropped the slip of paper as if it were toxic and went back indoors.
Breakfast was bleak that morning. From this day forward a specter would haunt every move, word, and thought of every Jewish family. Catholics and Communists too, all those who had reason to fear what was coming, experi‑
enced the same sensation, but none with the certainty of the Jews. They were all aware of what had happened in Germany in the past five years. What they didn’t yet know was that in Austria there would be no gradual onset; they would experience five years’ worth of terror in one frantic torrent.
The Wehrmacht was coming, the SS and Gestapo were coming, and there were rumors that the Führer himself had reached Linz and would soon be in Vienna. The city’s Nazis were mad with excitement and triumph. The majority of the populace, wanting only stability and safety, began to sway with the times. Jewish stores in Leopoldstadt were systematically plundered by squads of SA storm troopers, while the homes of wealthier Jews began to be raided and robbed. Envy and hatred against the success of Jews in business, in skilled trades, and in the legal and medical professions had 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 16
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built to a head during the economic depression, and the boil was about to be violently lanced.
There was a myth that it wasn’t in the nature of civilized Viennese to conduct politics through street‑fighting and rioting. “The real Viennese,” they said in dismay as the Nazis filled the streets with noise and fury, “discusses his differences over a café table and goes like a civilized being to the polls.”24 But in due course “the real Viennese” would go like a civilized being to his doom.
The savages were calling the tune in this country now.
Yet Gustav Kleinmann, a hopeful man by nature, believed that his fam‑
ily might be safe. They were, after all, Austrians more than Jews. The Nazis would surely only persecute the devout, the openly Hebraic, the Orthodox . . .
wouldn’t they?
Edith Kleinmann kept her head high and her gaze steady as she walked. She felt she had no reason to be fearful, although there were were signs every‑
where that she should be. Like her father she thought herself an Austrian more than a Jew. The boys she went out with were rarely Jewish. This made Gustav uneasy; being Austrian was a fine thing, but he felt that one should still cleave to one’s people. If there was a contradiction there, Gustav didn’t recognize it. Edith thought little of such things—she was eighteen years old.
By day she was learning the craft of millinery and had ambitions to be a hat designer; in her free hours she had a good time, went out with boys, and loved music and dancing. She was, above all else, a young woman, with the drives and desires of youth.
A couple days had passed since the arrival of the Germans. They had marched in on the Sunday, when the abandoned plebiscite had been scheduled to take place. Most Jews had stayed indoors, but Edith’s brother Fritz, typically daring, had ventured out to watch. At first, he reported, a few brave Viennese threw stones at the German troops, but they were quickly overwhelmed by the cheering, Heil‑Hitlering multitude. The next day came the grand parade, when the full German force made its triumphal entrance into the capital, led by Adolf Hitler himself. The columns seemed endless: fleets of gleaming staff cars, motorcycles, armored cars, thousands of helmets, rifles, crisply peaked caps, field‑gray uniforms, and tramping jackboots. The scarlet, white, and black flags were everywhere—held aloft by the soldiers, hanging from the buildings, 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 17
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fluttering from the cars. Behind the scenes, Reichsführer‑SS Heinrich Himmler had flown in the day before and begun the process of taking over the police, filling its upper ranks with SS men.25 The plundering of wealthy Jews went on, and suicides were reported daily.
Edith walked briskly. There was some kind of disturbance going on in the little platz at the corner of the Schiffamtsgasse and Leopoldsgasse. A large crowd had gathered along the street near the police station;26 Edith could hear laughter and cheering. Some kind of celebration. She went to cross the road to skirt around it, but slowed her step. She had seen a familiar face in the press—a young man named Vickerl Ecker, an old schoolfriend. His bright, eager eyes met hers.
“There! She’s one!”27
Faces turned toward her, she heard the word Jüdin—Jewess—and suddenly hands were gripping her arms and propelling her toward the crowd. She saw Vickerl’s brown shirt, the swastika armband. Then she was through the press of bodies and in the midst of a ring of leering, jeering faces. About half a dozen men and women were on their hands and knees with brushes and buckets, scrubbing the sidewalk. They were all Jews, all well‑dressed. One bewildered woman clutched her hat and gloves in one hand and a scrubbing brush in the other, her immaculate coat trailing on the wet stones.
“On your knees.” A brush was put in Edith’s hand and she was pushed to the ground. Vickerl pointed
at the Austrian crosses and Say Yes! slogans.
“Get rid of your filthy propaganda, Jewess.” The spectators crowed as she began to scrub with the others. There were faces she recognized—neighbors, acquaintances—smartly dressed businessmen, prim wives, rough working men and women, all part of the fabric of Edith’s world, all melded into a gloating mob. She scrubbed, but the paint wouldn’t come off. “Work suitable for Jews, eh?” somebody called out, and there was laughter. One of the storm troopers picked up a man’s bucket and emptied it over him, soaking his camel hair coat, to a storm of guffaws from the crowd.
After an hour or so, the victims were given “receipts” for their “work” and permitted to go. Edith walked home, struggling to contain herself, brimming over with shame and degradation.
In the coming weeks these Reibpartien—“scrubbing games”—became an everyday part of life in the Jewish neighborhoods. The patriotic markings proved impossible to shift, and often the SA added acid to the water so that 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 18
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it burned and blistered the victims’ hands.28 Fortunately for Edith she wasn’t taken again, but her fifteen‑year‑old sister Herta was among a group forced to scrub the Austrian crosses from the clock pillar in the marketplace. Other Jews were forced to paint anti‑Semitic slogans on Jewish‑owned shops and businesses in livid red and yellow.
The suddenness with which the genteel Viennese civilization had turned was breathtaking, like tearing the soft, comfortable fabric of a familiar couch to reveal unimagined ugliness inside. Gustav was wrong; the Kleinmanns were not safe. Nobody was safe.
They all dressed in their best outfits before leaving the apartment together.
The Stone Crusher Page 3