The Lady in Gold

by Anne-marie O'connor

  Eberhard Bachofen-Echt, one of Elisabeth’s former brothers-in-law, had been accepted into the SS in February 1939, and he proudly donned his crisply tailored uniform with its tall leather boots and military cap. He volunteered for the German invasion of Poland.

  In March 1940, Elisabeth finally obtained her “certificate of origin.” Based on the evidence, it said, “the examinee’s descent from Gustav Klimt is not improbable.” Elisabeth was declared a Mischling, a mongrel, of the first degree.

  Elisabeth was saved from outright murder—at least for the moment.

  The Viennese Cassandra

  In June 1940, as the German army approached Paris, Adele’s friend Berta Zuckerkandl fled. The highways were crowded with family cars stuffed with birdcages, candelabras, and dishes. Cars ran out of gas on the road, and families got out and walked. Berta’s son, Fritz, persuaded a bus driver to make Berta the last passenger on a bus headed south.

  Fritz ran alongside the overcrowded bus, waving. Then he joined thousands of people walking south.

  Berta reached Moulins as the Germans overtook the town. A French family waved Berta and another woman into their apartment and hid them. Berta shredded her identity papers. The local pharmacist was a friend of her hosts, and Berta confided in him. He listened thoughtfully and told her he would smuggle her to unoccupied France.

  He told Berta to lie on the floor of the backseat of his car, and threw a blanket and clutter over her. The pharmacist reassured her: he often traveled about, helping the ill. When the pharmacist neared the checkpoint, the bored young German guard waved him on.

  In Vichy, an old friend got Berta new identity papers. She headed to Montpellier to join her grandson Emile.

  But the Germans were closing in on Montpellier, and Emile had already fled, hitchhiking, as his mother, exhausted from surgery and wilting in the heat, sat on their suitcase by the side of the road.

  A train packed with refugees took them south. Emile found a man who drove them to Bayonne with his family in exchange for gas money. He dropped them at the harbor.

  It was a sweltering day. Bayonne was crowded with refugees. Parents walked forlornly from boat to boat, holding exhausted, uncomprehending children and whatever possessions they could carry.

  Emile found a place where his pale mother could sit. Then he walked down the docks, begging crews to take them—anywhere. Captain after captain told Emile no, we’re not allowed to take refugees.

  Emile headed to the town square. A maelstrom of sweating people with nowhere to go sat in café chairs or on the sidewalk, fanning themselves.

  Two familiar faces stepped out of the crowd: Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel! Emile was as shocked as they were, and they embraced warmly. Werfel was Jewish, and he and Alma were escaping too. Emile told them he had lost Berta. Werfel listened, gazing at the thousands of other people in the same predicament. Tears filled his eyes. Alma, hot, tired, and irritable, snapped: “Why don’t you give up on your Jewish love of the neighbor?”

  Emile felt as if he had been slapped across the face, though Alma’s anti-Semitic cracks were well-known to all of her friends.

  Werfel glared at Alma, and Emile fled.

  Back at the harbor, a crowd of people milled around a merchant marine ship. The captain was a lean, good-looking man in his forties, with arresting blue eyes. He listened, stony-faced, as refugees begged him to take them. Behind him was the Kilissi, a freighter filled with green bananas packed in crates. The captain glanced away impassively. He was under strict orders not to leave the harbor. A German U-boat had just sunk a cargo ship. It wasn’t safe.

  Perhaps the refugees sensed hesitation in his refusals. Please, they begged. The Germans are drawing near.

  The captain sighed wearily. He looked up at the ship, and at the faces of his crewmen who were standing against the guardrails, watching him expectantly.

  “D’accord,” the captain said finally. “I’ll take you.”

  A roar went through the crowd. The crew jubilantly began to throw the bananas overboard. The refugees pitched in, and a cascade of green bananas splashed into the water. Hundreds of people poured into the boat, with no questions about identity papers or money. Finally the crew raised their hands, shouting, “No more!”

  There was a small cannon on deck, and the men strained to push it into the harbor, to avoid giving German vessels any pretext to attack. It tumbled into the water with a mighty splash, and the crew took their positions.

  The captain headed out of the harbor, going toward the Bay of Biscay. The passengers had no idea where they were going. The deck was covered with people. When Emile told the captain his mother was recovering from an operation, the captain invited her into his cabin, where she lay on the floor, exhausted.

  The freighter hugged the shore to avoid German U-boats. There was a storm that night, and waves washed across the front deck. The captain ordered the people to crowd inside, where there was barely room to stand. He steered through the pitching sea, his handsome face grave and focused, looking up only to tell Emile where he could find his mother an extra blanket. He let other women join her, until the floor of his cabin was covered. Emile found the captain very chevaleresque—gentlemanly.

  By dawn the storm had abated. A few days later the captain steered into Lisbon. The Kilissi anchored offshore. No one was permitted on land, except the tired, sunburnt captain, who walked off the boat stoically with stern-looking local authorities. The refugees remained onboard, hungry and exhausted. After a few more days, they were ordered to board a much larger French ship that was to take them to Casablanca.

  The refugees filed up to the deck in their filthy, wrinkled clothes, under the gaze of the Kilissi’s crew, now in freshly starched uniforms. As Emile walked off the Kilissi, the crew stood at attention and gave a formal respectful salute to them—the weary, tattered rejects of Europe. Tears sprung to Emile’s eyes at this small show of gallantry. The refugees began to sing the “Marseillaise,” and Emile jubilantly added his voice: “The day of glory has arrived!”

  But glory seemed distant. Their ship finally pulled into Casablanca. Emile reveled in his elegant white Moorish rooms and his hot showers. His mother convalesced on a soft bed with clean sheets. They exchanged gossip in cafés and nightclubs, and found that Emile’s father and Berta had made it out of France. They were in Algiers, which was occupied by France’s Vichy government.

  In Algiers, Emile and his parents moved with Berta into a small white villa with a sunny courtyard. It was a peaceful haven where Berta could grieve the collapse of her treasured Vienna.

  But sadness didn’t paralyze her. Berta was concerned about her grandson Emile, and she had an idea that she thought might save his life. She asked her old French playwright friend Paul Géraldy to visit.

  The elegant French writer arrived with presents and his usual bonhomie. A few days later, Géraldy donned a smart linen suit and walked down to the dilapidated but architecturally splendid building of the Gouvernement Général, the local seat of the new French Vichy government that had surrendered to Germany in June and allied itself with the Axis powers. Géraldy was a French celebrity. He didn’t wait long. Upstairs, in a cool office shaded from the heat by wooden blinds, a petty French official greeted him warmly: To what did he owe this great honor? Géraldy explained, sotto voce, that a young man in town was actually the illegitimate son he had fathered with a married woman who was now in Algiers. Géraldy wished to register his paternity. Géraldy spoke in a low, meaningful tone of how the knowledge of this indiscretion might of course be traumatic for a young man like Emile. He lied well.

  The French official nodded with understanding, or at least compliance, taking careful notes on this delicate situation with an air of sophistication. A philandering French playwright—but of course!

  The official pulled out some papers, placed them on the desk, and filled them out. Géraldy signed, and the French official wrote his own signature and affixed an endless series of colonial stamps and seals.
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  The papers denied Emile’s connection to one of the most distinguished families in Vienna. Under German racial laws, being half “Aryan” meant a chance to escape death. Should the worst come to pass, Emile could apply for survival as a Mischling.

  Ferdinand in Exile

  In early 1941, German-language radio propaganda in heavily Germanic areas of Yugoslavia began to sound a familiar propaganda alarm: defenseless Germans were threatened by predatory Slavs. Ferdinand monitored this with agony from Switzerland. Why hadn’t Baron Gutmann and Luise brought the children to Switzerland? Ferdinand’s world was darkening.

  On April 2, 1941, Ferdinand picked up his pen and wrote in despair to his old friend Oskar Kokoschka.

  Dear friend and professor,

  It pleased me very much to hear from you after such a long time, especially that you are doing well and that you are still the brave fighter! In your position I would have gone to America and if it is still possible go immediately! Europe will be a heap of ruins, perhaps the whole world; for art there will be no place here for decades! My people are in Canada in Vancouver, [and] would like me to come, but I am already too old! I think about it, although I believe that I have missed the “ferry” [alluding to his nickname, Uncle Ferry]. For months there is no seat on a ship, not a clipper available! Your friend Dr. Ehrenstein was here with me yesterday. He obtained a visa for America, but how can he get over there?

  In Vienna and Bohemia they took everything away from me. Not even a souvenir was left for me. Perhaps I will get the 2 [Klimt] portraits of my poor wife, and my portrait. I should find out about that this week! Otherwise I am totally impoverished, and probably will have to live very modestly for a few years, if you can call this vegetation living. At my age, alone, without any of my old attendants, it is often terrible. Luckily, I have a few good friends here in Geneva and Lausanne.

  Now that I am already “amortized,” I will wait and find out whether justice will still come, then I will gladly lay down my hammer! What one hears from Vienna and Prague is terrible! Now I wish you, from my heart, all the best and remain with heartfelt greetings,

  Your old dear true Ferdi.

  P.S. [Franz] Werfel is in Hollywood

  P.P.S. Carl Moll is an “über-Nazi!”

  Kokoschka shared Ferdinand’s outrage. He was painting a protest work, Anschluss—Alice in Wonderland. The painting showed the Ringstrasse in flames, as Austrians hold their hands over their eyes and ears, and soldiers prowl Vienna.

  Four days after Ferdinand wrote Kokoschka, his worst fears came true. On April 6 the Luftwaffe bombed Belgrade, and German troops invaded. Yugoslavia surrendered eleven days later. Ferdinand’s niece, Luise, was now living in the “Independent State of Croatia,” a Nazi puppet regime run by a fascist movement called the Ustasha.

  The Gutmanns

  It was never clear why Luise and Viktor ignored the clouds on the horizon in early 1941.

  A British intelligence officer warned the family of the impending German invasion. But Viktor was adamant. He would not consider abandoning everything the Gutmanns had built in Yugoslavia.

  It was a beautiful spring. Generous rain had yielded a glorious carpet of wildflowers in full bloom across the meadows. Luise and Viktor’s daughter, Nelly, took walks through the Gypsy village at the edge of Belisce and rode her “black beauty,” a filly named Baba, through the sunflower fields. Trained by a hussar who had fled the Russian Revolution, Nelly was an expert rider.

  Nelly’s father was often deeply preoccupied that spring, and there was much he didn’t tell her. Authorities had confiscated the property of twelve thousand Jews in Zagreb and ordered their possessions handed out to non-Jewish Croats. Jewish students were banned from universities. Jewish government employees were fired, and Jewish lawyers and physicians were forbidden to practice. Synagogues were closed.

  Nelly, twelve, had no idea of this. Viktor and Luise tried to shield their children from these realities. The family had converted to Roman Catholicism and thought this might protect them. They were already very secular, and celebrated Christmas and Easter. Now Nelly couldn’t go to school. Jews couldn’t go to movies, either, lest they “contaminate the environment with their presence.” Life became more incomprehensible.

  It was difficult for Nelly to imagine that her distant, glamorous parents were anything but infallible.

  Outwardly, Nelly’s life was very privileged. Her father was a wealthy baron from a celebrated family that had married into nobility for hundreds of years. Her mother was a great beauty from a clan that traced its lineage to fifteenth-century Portugal. Her pediatrician was Dr. Gertrud Bien, one of Vienna’s finest doctors. But her parents often seemed preoccupied with their own lives, and Nelly grew into a reserved, serious child. Luise’s nickname for Nelly, Trottel, meaning “idiot,” was ostensibly affectionate but seemed indicative of the gap between magnetic Luise and her small, shy daughter.

  Nelly spent part of every year in the backwater of Belisce, far from the balls and opera her mother thrived on. Belisce was a few miles south of the Hungarian border, not far from the Danube port of Vukovar.

  Baroness Luise Gutmann, here with her daughter, Nelly, and son, Franz, ca. 1940, underestimated the danger Hitler posed to her family in Yugoslavia. (Illustration Credit 43.1)

  Just down the road was Osijek, with its ancient fort and Secessionist and Art Deco architecture. The breakup of the Empire had long ago dulled its luster. Farther south was the picturesque mountain city of Sarajevo, with its minarets, onion domes, and veiled Muslim women.

  Belisce owed its existence to Viktor’s grandfather, Aladar, who had founded a timber company and built a railroad line through the forest between Hungary and Yugoslavia. This earned him a title, a visit from Emperor Franz Joseph, and an imperial gold watch.

  Here Serbs and Croats intermarried. Gypsies lived peacefully on the outskirts of the village. When dusk fell, they lifted their violins and cimbalos and played the hauntingly seductive music that a Czernin count had likened to “making love standing up.” Nelly volunteered to deliver the charity food and clothes to elderly Gypsy widows so she could listen to their sad, strange songs. Her mother hired the Gypsies to play at parties.

  The three branches of the extended Gutmann family lived together in a great house, each branch with its own apartment, with common rooms for eating and entertaining. Viktor’s brother Erno—an affectionate uncle to the children, and a doting father to his daughter, Elinor—amused everyone by doing their astrological charts.

  Here, one day had passed into the next like the pages of Nelly’s schoolbooks.

  Until now.

  Viktor and Luise were under strong family pressure to leave Yugoslavia. To Viktor, this was unthinkable.

  Erno was less certain. One night, at dinner, he unveiled his latest astrological chart, that of Adolf Hitler. It predicted a terrible future.

  The family shrugged this off. They had rolled their eyes and smiled at Erno’s astrology for years. His Hitler chart seemed a reflection of his own fears.

  Still, Erno thought his wife should take their daughter to Switzerland. Little Elinor wept forlornly at the idea of being separated from her father. If Belisce was not safe enough for them, why was it safe for her father? As their suitcases were loaded into the train, Erno helped his distraught little girl up the ramp, waving as Elinor pressed her tear-stained face against the window.

  To Viktor and Erno, defending their family’s business empire seemed more urgent after the sacking of family properties in Vienna. But the dangers of staying were evident.

  The Swiss government, citing the threat of war, had already recalled its citizens, including Nelly’s Swiss governess. Nelly couldn’t have been more delighted. The governess had been cruel, pulling Nelly’s long braids to punish her.

  When the Germans marched into Yugoslavia, the Gutmanns were still there.

  For a while, life for Nelly went on as usual. Her father was so calm in the early days that when a delegation of o
fficials from the Nazi puppet government came by, they were asked to wait while Viktor finished playing a piece on the piano.

  Then, in May, an Ustasha government official drove up to the administration offices of the timber factory. He was furious that most of its shareholders had already fled and registered their shares in banks abroad. He wanted to take control of the factory.

  Baron Viktor Gutmann, Luise’s husband, stayed in Yugoslavia to protect the timber empire his family had spent generations building; shown here ca. 1935. (Illustration Credit 43.2)

  A few days later, Viktor drove off with some officials and didn’t return. The men sent Luise a flippant message, that they were thinking of shooting Viktor “to settle the matter of the shares quickly.” But it was a bluff. Viktor was worth more to them alive than dead. He promised to try to obtain signatures for the shares. They released him. For now.

  In October, the authorities grew impatient. They summoned Viktor and Erno, and ordered them to speed up the delivery of the shares. Erno, dressed for the meeting in one of his best suits, politely objected. He said he spoke for the entire family when he asked why they should hand over the country’s biggest timber concern after the family had spent generations building it and were running it so well.

  Why indeed? Authorities said they’d like to talk things over with Erno in Zagreb and would come and pick him up. Erno asked the housekeeper to pack his dress shirts and enough insulin to treat his diabetes for several days. But as they neared Zagreb, the men turned down an unfamiliar road. They drove into a barbed-wire enclosure, where there were crowds of forlorn people with terror on their faces.

  Erno stared in disbelief. He was at a secret concentration camp called Jasenovac, a ghastly place where Serbs and Jews were killed by hand, to spare the cost of gas or bullets. A few hours later, Erno was standing in line, and a guard casually slit his throat.