by Georg Rauch
In one of the postwar years, a nearby coal merchant delivered a load of heating materials sufficient to heat our apartment for the entire winter. He said someone outside the country who preferred to remain anonymous had paid for it. I was happy to believe the coal was a gift from another Jewish couple who had successfully escaped.
My parents divorced after the war, and I remained particularly close to my mother. She did achieve that full and happy life that she had assured me she would enjoy, even were I not to return from Russia. She would have loved being an artist herself, but the circumstances of her life, including two world wars, weren’t to permit this. Probably that’s why she especially enjoyed being in the company of the young artists who were around our apartment after the war.
When Russian tanks occupied Hungary in 1956, thousands of Hungarians came streaming over the Austrian border with no more than the clothing on their backs. Many slept on the streets of Vienna the first few nights, but my mother was soon again in her element. She sprang into action, mobilizing family and friends to take in as many refugees as possible.
Beatrix Rauch died at eighty-one in 1970, and up until her death she continued to study important books by physicists, poets, and philosophers. She was a fine pianist, and music always remained a major pleasure in her life.
GLOSSARY OF GERMAN WORDS
Anschluss
annexation of Austria to Germany, in 1938
Bussis
kisses
Cremeschnitten
Napoleon-type pastry
Freies Deutschland
“Free Germany,” German newspaper published in Russia
Funkeigenheiten
abbreviations of wireless operators’ names
Funker
telegraphist
Grüss Gott
“Greet God,” typical Austrian greeting
Hauptmann
captain
Jawohl
affirmative, yes
Komissbrot
rye bread
Lebkuchen
hard gingerbread, a Christmas favorite
Mensch
“person” or “man,” used as a slang term of address
Mischlinge
Hitler’s term for persons one-quarter or one-half Jewish
Mutti, Mui
mother
Naschmarkt
famous street market in Vienna
Obergefreiter
lance corporal
Oberleutnant
lieutenant
Oberstleutnant
lieutenant colonel
Papi, Papschi
father
Pfennige
smallest German coins
Pioniere
Army Corps of Engineers
Rollbahn
wide military road
Schnapps
brandy
Schnitzel
thin, breaded cutlet, normally of veal
Schütz
private
SS
Schutzstaffel (protective squadron); paramilitary organization that was a major component of the Nazi party
Tante
aunt
Unteroffizier
sergeant
Vaterland
fatherland
Volk
people, nation
Waffen-SS
elite police and military units of the Schutzstaffel
Wehrmacht
army
GLOSSARY OF RUSSIAN/UKRAINIAN WORDS
arestant
prisoner
banki
glass jars used in a medical procedure that draws blood to surface of skin for therapeutic purposes
Boche moi
Oh my God!
Gospodi
O Lord!
karascho
good
kasha
buckwheat groats cooked in water
kolchos
barn
machorka
crude tobacco substitute
Ponimaesch?
Do you understand?
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Phyllis Rauch grew up in Ohio and received her bachelor’s degree in English at Bowling Green State University and her master’s degree in library science at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She studied German at the Goethe Institute in Rothenburg ob der Tauber and then worked at German libraries, including the Internationale Kinderbibliothek in Munich and the Amerika Gedenkbibliothek in Berlin. She met Georg Rauch in Vienna in 1965 and they were married the following year.
Fluent in Spanish as well as German, Phyllis has written extensively in Mexico for English-language magazines, newspapers, and Web sites and has also worked as a Spanish-to-English translator. As an innkeeper in central Mexico, she welcomes visitors to her home and to Georg’s art studio (www.losdosmexico.com and www.georgrauch.com).
Unlikely Warrior, Phyllis’s first book-length translation, has been a labor of love.
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010
Text copyright © 2006, 2015 Georg Rauch
All rights reserved
First hardcover edition, 2015
eBook edition, February 2015
macteenbooks.com
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Rauch, Georg, 1924–2006, author.
Unlikely warrior: a Jewish soldier in Hitler’s army / Georg Rauch; translated from the German by Phyllis Rauch. — Revised edition.
pages cm
Previously published as The Jew with the Iron Cross: a record of survival in WWII Russia. New York: iUniverse, 2006.
ISBN 978-0-374-30142-2 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-374-30277-1 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-0-374-30143-9 (e-book)
1. Rauch, Georg, 1924–2006. 2. Jewish soldiers—Austria—Vienna—Juvenile literature. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Prisoners and prisons, Soviet—Juvenile literature. 4. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, Jewish—Juvenile literature. 5. World War, 1939–1945—Participation, Jewish—Juvenile literature. 6. Jewish soldiers—Austria—Vienna. 7. World War, 1939–1945—Prisoners and prisons, Soviet. 8. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, Jewish. 9. World War, 1939–1945—Participation, Jewish. I. Title.
DS135.A93R388 2015
940.54'1343092—dc23
2014041184
eISBN 9780374301439