1960

There came 1960 and we had a visitor from Australia, this time Lisl Ziegler. She had combined the trip with stops in Thailand, Israel, and Vienna, where she had her sister and her family. She stayed about one month with us, and we made many trips together, visited with her also Johanna and Martin in New Haven, and enjoyed little Nancy together, went also to many shows and I remember especially the show “My fair lady”. But we had planned a trip to Europe, a very extended tour for 11 weeks, and Lisl left New York a few days before for home, if I remember well via California and Hawaii.

Before starting with the description of our trip, it is necessary to give here a complete story about our liftvan, which had contained all our possessions, and which we had hoped to unload one day in New York. As told before, Hedy had remained in Vienna after I and Francis had left, in the first place to be together with her parents and in the second place to stay in our apartment till the liftvan would be packed. I had paid to the company Leinkauf all the expenses for the packing and transportation to Hamburg, and from there by boat to New York. It was a few months after we left, in 1939, that the liftvan was packed. We had many valuable antiquities, very valuable paintings, ceramics, fayances, a candelabra of gilded wood, very old, of the Laxenburg gothic type, oriental carpets, all our fine furniture, a fine piano, linnens, instruments of my office, books, photoalbums, silverware, etc.

I was in Cuba and undecided, where to have the liftvan shipped, to New York or to Cuba. I did not know that there was very little time to make a decision. When in September 1939 the war broke out, nothing could be shipped anymore from Germany. The only way out, and I took it, was to have the liftvan transported by railway from Hamburg to Trieste in Italy. For the cost of the transportation that part of the money had to be used, which the company had for the transportation by boat. I was happy that the liftvan was now in Italy and I thought that it was safe there, and could stay there for a long time, since Italy was a neutral country. I was often asked by the company Leinkauf to pay them for the storage of the liftvan, and my father-in-law had to intervene in Vienna on my behalf, as they had threatened that they would auction off the contents of the liftvan. I finally sent them $ 50.-, a big amount for me at that time, and they seemed to be satisfied. But I was wrong. Italy did not remain a neutral country. On June 10th, 1940, when Paris fell, Italy declared war on France, and invaded Southern France. Now my liftvan was in enemy territory, and I had reasons to doubt whether I will ever see my possessions again. When the war had ended, I found out that the Germans had confiscated all the liftvans, which were stored in Trieste, and had transported them to Germany. They had left in Trieste little slips for each liftvan, certifying that they had confiscated them, and that paper I got, an official document with a swastika.

I had now hopes that I will be indemnified for the loss by the German government. I had the complete list of the contents and expected a large amount of money. A lawyer, Mr. Geiringer, handled the matter for me, contacted a lawyer in Germany. The Germans tried, of course, to reject demands for indemnification and had their rules. They would pay only, when it could be proven that the confiscated goods were brought to West-Germany. I had no way to prove it. But they said that my liftvan No. so and so was not brought to West-Germany, but was abandoned on the way, before reaching West-Germany. It could be true, it could be a lie. They should have been responsible, because they were the thieves, they had stolen my stuff. Anyway, there was not much my lawyer and the one in Germany could do, at least for the time being.

But there remained Italy, which also had the responsibility, since the liftvan was stolen on Italian territory. Italy, when signing the peace treaty with the allies, was obliged to indemnify victims for such losses. And one day, I read in the paper “Der Aufbau” an announcement that claims for indemnification for losses in Italy should be sent to a certain ministerium in Rome, to a certain address, but had to be made before a certain date. It was just the right time, only about 4 or 5 days left. I typed the letter out the same evening, with all the data, also attached a copy of the list of the contents of the liftvan, and sent it the next day by registered mail. The answer I got from them was not very good. The amount of money I had claim was very high and they were unable to verify the value of the contents. Their rule was to pay a certain amount per pound the weight of the liftvan, and in accordance with that rule they offered a certain amount and calculated it apparently correctly, but the end sum was only half of the sum they had calculated, and they said that for the other half the Germans were responsible. When looking closer at their calculation, we found that they had again halved the end sum. Their explanation for that was that my claim was only signed by me and since the van was in the name of both me and Hedy, they could only indemnify me for my part. Their final answer was: Take it or leave it. The amount of money they offered was about $ 4.000- 5.000.- and we had to think over, whether we should accept or reject their offer and ask the U.S. Government to intervene. That would have meant a long delay, may be for years, and we decided to accept the offer, and that we would leave the money there, to be paid out to me in Italy on demand, since we intended to go to Italy and buy an automobile there. And that was all I got for my valuable possessions. I had started a new reclaim in Germany, but my lawyer, Mr. Geiringer, died, and I did not do anything anymore since then. 

I had bought an Italian car, a little Lancia, here through an agency, to be paid in Italy in Italian money and delivered to me on the 14th of July, 1960, in Naples. I found it necessary to explain the story of my liftvan, before starting my vacation trip in the new Lancia.

We started our trip with a flight to Brussels via Sabena Air Line. After arriving there we were taken by a helicopter to Paris. This was a very interesting flight, since we were quite close to the ground and could see the landscape of Belgium and later of Northeastern France, the houses, yards, gardens, and farms, see the people and animals there. Hedy was, as she later said, very annoyed by the noise, but I did not mind it and enjoyed that trip very much. At the end we flew into Paris, came very close to the Eiffel tower and landed in the heart of Paris. That flight over Paris was an especially great experience. We took then a taxi, which brought us to the Hotel Moncey, where Lucy, Raymond’s widow, had reserved a room for us. One day later, Lisa, Paul, and Ginnie arrived in Paris too. We were all invited by Suzanne and Henri de Monfort to stay with them for a week or so at their house in Agay on the Riviera.

We stayed in Paris for about one week and there was enough time to see a lot. I had been in Paris in 1938 for 14 days, before I left for Cuba. That was now 1960. For Hedy it was the first visit to Paris. One of the first sightseeing trips was to the Louvre, and I had my camera and could take pictures, but not with flashlight. During the next few days we saw most of the highlights of Paris. It so happened that Henri and Gaby Mayran were also in Paris, and we went to many places together with them.

Henri was very helpful to me, when we went to the house, where Else had lived at Rue Daguerre NO.11. Her former landlord, Mr. Lapersonne, was not there, as we could find out by talking to the concierge (house porter). She told us that he lives in Southern France, but that he comes to Paris every month to collect the rent from the tenants, and that he will come now in two or three days. We also found out that Else’s paintings are upstairs in the apartment, where the landlords wife, from whom he is separated, lives. We went upstairs, but she did not let us in, denied that there were any paintings. 

Since we had to leave the next day for Agay, Henri agreed that he will get in touch with Mr.Lapersonne and tell him that I will make arrangements with him regarding the paintings, but not to mention to him that Else had died. Henri was also very helpful in going with me to the address I had of the gallery Zivy, but could not find it there, nor did the people there know anything about such a gallery. He made for me many telephone calls, we looked up books about galleries, but could not find out anything and had to give up. We had to assume that the Germans had taken the paintings during the war, as was generally known that they had cleaned out all the galleries they could find. 

We then left for Agay by train. Suzanne had made arrangements for that trip, paid for sleeping-cars for us and the Roseggs and we arrived there early in the morning, and Suzanne was waiting at the station with her car and chauffeur. It was Sunday and she was in a hurry, since she had to go to church with Henri. We were taken to their home, which was a beautiful large house, rebuilt by them and looking like a castle, decorated with exquisite taste. It was on the shore, on the Bay of Agay, and to go to the water, one had to go down many, many stairs. They had a few boats there, many so-called pedalos with two seats, which allowed one to ride like on a bicycle far out in the bay, and they had also a very big boat, with which they had made a trip to Corsica later on. We went swimming every day. Both, Henri and Suzanne were very hospitable and treated us very well. There were many other guests there and the meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner were big affairs, gatherings of many people. The weather was gorgeous, Claude, the daughter of Henri, was also there. There was constant coming and going. Suzanne arranged for us a trip to St.Tropez, and one bigger trip to Monte Carlo, where she had made reservations for us and the Roseggs in a fine restaurant, and we were taken there by their chauffeur. But there was no time to go to the casino in Monaco, and we could see it only from outside. We also went to the palace and on a tour through all the rooms, except the ones to which the prince and princess Grace, the former movie actress Grace Kelly, had retreated during visiting hours. There I stopped and told Ginnie that I had to wait there, since I had a date with princess Grace, and she will come out in 5 minutes. She got excited about it, but then, after a while, looked at me, and she found out that it was only a joke…I always made jokes, when being with her. She had a good laugh then.

Every day, when we came up from the water for lunch, Henri waited for us and he offered me especially a drink, Pastice, a kind of anis liqueur, which was quite strong, but I had to drink it.  And in the evening, after dinner, there was a gathering in a living room, usually for playing cards or domino, and there again I had to drink, Framboise, which was strong like vodka, and made me quite drowsy.

One day before we left, Henri had birthday and we were all invited to a celebration in a fine restaurant in a near-by village. It was a very fine meal and I got up for a toast and Henri answered in a very nice way. When we left with two cars for home, I remembered that I had forgotten my hat in the restaurant and I ran back in. But when I came out, they were all gone, had not waited for me. So, I had to walk the long way along the bay, which took me about half an hour. When I arrived there, Ginnie told me that she had seen me walking. They had there on the terrace a very big telescope, and it happened to be directed toward the road and Ginnie happened to look through that telescope and was astonished to see me clearly, walking. She called out and some others came to look also, and they had a good laugh too.

There came the time for our departure, and we had agreed that I would leave one day earlier to get my car in Naples on the 14th, so that we would have it ready for our trip, and that we would meet there at the Hotel Ambasciatori. I left early on the 13th for Nice, to take there a plane. There was no direct flight to Naples, and I had to go to Rome, flying over Corsica, and there I had an interruption for many hours, till I could get a flight to Naples. That gave me a chance to go into the city and visit some interesting places there, I was in Rome the last time 25 years ago.

In Naples I went to the company, which was supposed to give me the car. It was not there yet, but the man there told me that he had spoken by phone with Torino, where the factory is, and that he was told that the car is on its way and will certainly arrive on the 14th. I had now the whole day free for walking around in the city and finally went to the aquarium, which, I was told, was worth visiting, which it really was. I came back to the hotel just in time, when Hedy and the Roseggs had arrived. We had still time to go on a boat trip in the Bay of Naples, for dinner in a good restaurant, and for a walk in the city late in the evening. Late at night, the car had not arrived yet. 

But the next morning, it was there, had arrived, I was told, before midnight. It was a beautiful car. I had seen a model of  that car many months before in New York in an auto show in the Colosseum. It was silver-gray, not automatic, but easy to drive. The only thing that was missing was a rack for baggage, that I had ordered too, but the man at the agency went with me to a place near-by, and it was put up in no time.

Around noon time, we started our trip and we went along the shore south, passing Herculaneum and the Vesuvius to Pompeii. We hired there a guide, and took him up with us, on the steep, narrow, winding road, as far as we could go, and wherever we looked, there was nothing else than fine gravel and cinder, gray or black. Then we had to leave the car, and walk, and the man gave us canes, and we progressed slowly towards the crater. Hedy did not go all the way up to the edge of the crater, as it was very strenuous, but all the others went. It was quite a view from up there. The diameter of the crater was about 2300 feet and the height of the mountain at that time was 3891 feet. The last great eruption at that time was in 1944. The oldest recorded eruption was in 79 A.D.described by Pliny the Younger in two letters to Tacitus. That eruption buried Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae under cinders and ashes. We descended also a little into the crater of the Vesuvius, and there was smoke coming out on many places. The guide showed us a little hole between rocks and asked us to put our hands near it. There was very hot air coming out from that hole. Looking down from the rim of the volcano, we had a beautiful view of Naples and the Bay of Naples. Pompeii was a resort city up to the year 79 A.D., and the cinders and ashes preserved the ruins of the city with magnificent completeness, down to the fresh colors of the wall paintings. The city was rediscovered in 1748, and many of the finds from excavations are scattered among the museums of the world. Herculaneum was also buried by that same eruption in 79 A.D., but rediscovered before Pompeii in 1709. We descended back to our car and drove down to Pompeii, where we first went to the museum. They had there on display statues, which they had dug up and found in the various houses. They were still digging and so far had completed the work on about 2/3 of the city, 1/3 to go. More valuable things were in show cases, gold jewellery and small statuettes, wonderful things. I had my camera with me all the time and have beautiful pictures from that trip.

In that museum they also have on display a number of casts of corpses of the victims of that eruption in A.D.79, reconstituted by an ingenious process, invented by a man, whose name was Fiorelli. This were people who had tried to flee when the eruption started and could not make it, as the ashes and smoke that filled the air, choked them to death. The eruption lasted four days and covered the entire city with ashes, cinders, and lava up to a thickness of over 30 feet. The lava cooled and formed a hard layer over it. Many people must have succeeded in the beginning in leaving the city, but many did not. Some were hiding in the houses, also dogs, and the corpses were found there and in the streets, almost 2000 years later. The bodies had disintegrated, and only pieces of bones were left. Fiorelli had the idea of removing carefully the outer layers, filling the cavities left in the rock-hard ashes and lava with liquid gypsum, and then the gypsum had hardened, carefully removing the lava and ashes, thus getting an exact replica of the bodies and things, which they were carrying.

I have a fine book about Pompeii, in which I read the following “It is a disturbing sight, to encounter there bodies tormented with suffering, anguish, and fear, and petrified by suffocation in their appalling postures, each of which reveals the pangs of an agony individually lived through, the horror of a death swift or slow, as the case varied, but inexorable.” Important facts were learned from these excavations and more is to come, since the digging is still going on.

Great wonders were also the houses, the remainders of the once wonderful city. We walked through streets with rows of houses, some of them miraculously preserved, except for the roofs, which were missing. But the walls inside were beautifully decorated with wall paintings, and beautifully executed, the colors marvelously preserved. The painters were Greeks, as we were told. Some wider streets had stepping stones in many places for crossing the street, but leaving a space open for the horses and wheels of chariots to pass. The sidewalks were very elevated in these streets to make it easier for people in the chariots to step to the sidewalks, or to enter the chariot from the sidewalk. There were faucets with large basins for watering of horses, taverns, where hot drinks were served from counters to people in the street. There were innumerous temples with columns, some of them standing, more or less intact, enormous amphitheatres, a large forum, surrounded by larger buildings with columns. There were “thermae” for bathing, with large pools, with large toilets with many seats next to each other, where people used to sit and have conversations. There were many altars in the streets, also inside the houses, for praying, some even with crosses, supposedly Christian. Great valuables were found inside the houses, gold and silver jewellery, bronce figurines, ceramics, terra-cotta vessels, pots, and pans, furniture, mosaics, various utensils, eggs, nuts, and lentils, found in a temple, bread found in a shop, many on display now in various museums of the world, even whole walls with the beautiful paintings, and whole rooms. They had running water in the houses, as parts of lead pipes, sticking out in many places, showed. This is a short outline, just to give an idea, what wonders came out of there.

We had spent many hours in Pompeii and went now back to our car and drove south to Salerno, where we spent the night.

The next morning we took the wonderful Amalfi Drive, a very narrow winding road high up along a steep mountain range, with a beautiful view of the ocean, difficult to drive on, when a vehicle came in the opposite direction and especially a bus, requiring very slow maneuvering. There were olive trees all the way along the road, in the villages Amalfi and Positano, through which we passed, Bougainvillas, Oleander, and Camellias all over. Our aim for the end of the day was Sorrento, which we reached in the late afternoon, early enough for a nice stroll and enjoyment of the village, high up above the bay, and for arrangements for the next day for a boat-ride to the island Capri. To get to the boat landing, we had to take an elevator down to the water, where a large motor boat was waiting for us and many others to take us to Capri, for a ride of about half an hour. 

It took us there first to the famous Blue Grotto, where we had to wait on line for a small boat to take us through a very narrow opening, requiring every person to bend down to get through into the grotto.  It was a very large hall, very dark, and the only light was coming through the entrance opening, which had the effect that the water took on a beautiful deep blue color. I took, of course, pictures there, as always, wherever we went, with my excellent Leica camera. Outside, we had to get out of the small boat and then back to the large motor boat, which took us to the main port of Capri, where there were many boats. We went then on foot through very narrow streets into the village, with great many people, many coming in the opposite direction, till we had crossed the very narrow island and reached the ocean again on the other side, where we had an amazing view of steep rocks along the water, and a few very large ones sticking out of the water. There were beautiful houses there along the walls on narrow streets, surrounded by flowers all over. Then back through the village and to a bus, which took us first to a good restaurant for lunch, and then up the mountain to Anacapri and the isolated House of San Michele, another highlight of the trip. That is the house, which the famous physician Axel Munthe (1857-1949) had built and where he had lived for many years, completely blind at the end. He was working as a psychiatrist, a pupil of the famous Charcot, in Paris, had seen the island Capri on a trip and dreamed about it, till he finally bought a piece of land there, near a chapel of San Michele and built a house, with some help of a mason and a carpenter, which became, if I may say it, one more of the wonders of the world. Digging there, he found innumerous pieces of sculpture in the ground, which he placed with fine taste in the many rooms of the house. He found out that the Roman emperor Tiberius had had his summer palace near there and had spent many years right there or near the place, where Axel Munthe had built his house, and it was not only a house, but colonnades and beautiful gardens with flowers everywhere and pathways to stroll, terraces on look-out points with the view of the ocean, all of it a splendor, difficult to describe. He had written a book about his life and this place, titled “The House of San Michele”, in English, which came out in 1929 and became a best-seller, a must to read, and we bought one right there, and read it during our trip. Now back by bus to the motor boat, then to the mainland, by elevator to Sorrento and to our hotel. 

The next morning we continued our trip by car and we reached Rome, where we stayed for four days, which gave us enough time to see the highlights, the Capitol, in Italian Campidoglio, the Roman Forum, the arch of Constantine, the Colosseum, the St.Peter’s Church, the Vatican with the Vatican museum, containing one of the chief collections of antiquities in the world, the Sistine Chapel, the Borghese Palace, the Pantheon, the church of San Pietro in Vincoli with the statue of Moses by Michelangelo, and the many other wonders of Rome. When in Rome, I liked to look up to the balcony in the Via Nacionale, from which Mussolini used to speak to his people. 

I went once early in the morning to the Capitoline Museum with my camera, when there were no visitors yet there and took many pictures of the art objects there, among them the Capitoline Venus, which Goethe had once called the greatest work of art in the world. We all went once in the evening to the Bath of Caracalla to see a performance in the open of Il Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana, beautifully done.

Then on with our car along the Via Appia and then through the Apennine Mountains to Florence, where we stayed for three days, to see the highlights there, the Palazzo Vecchio, the statue of David by Michelangelo, the Uffici museum, the Palazzo Pitti museum, the Ponte Vecchio, the bridge over the Arno river, went once for dinner to Fiesole, high above Florence. In Florence, the Roseggs left us, as it was the end of their vacation. 

We continued our tour north through Bologna to Verona, where there was also a lot to be seen, among other things the balcony of Romeo and Julia, then on to the West to the Garda Lake and along its western shore to Riva, where we stayed over night, then on north through the beautiful Adige valley to Bolzano. We were now deep in the Alps. We had there time to make an excursion north to the Brenner Pass, where Hitler and Mussolini had met a few times and had concocted their devilish plans to destroy the world. We did not get to the Brenner Pass, it got late and we had to return to Bolzano.

The next day, we went along the phantastic Dolomite Road to Cortina d’Ampezzo, and crossing into Austria, to Lienz. Now we had to speak German. From there, the next day, north along the magnificent Gross-Glockner Strasse to a point, where we could rest at the edge of the Pasterze Glacier, coming down from the highest peak in the Austrian Alps, the Grossglockner, 12.460 feet high. We could feed there some mormots, coming quite close to the many, many tourists. 

Then, going down in the direction of Salzburg, which we wanted to reach for the night, I passed a turn-off point near Zel-am-See, should have turned to the right, but the street sign was not clear and I went north. I had vowed to myself never to put my feet on German soil again, and here I was on my way to Lofer. I did not want to turn back, since it was already late in the afternoon, and so, in order to reach Salzburg, we had to cross German territory. It was only a stretch of about ten miles, and I did not have to get out of the car, and therefore, in reality, did not touch German soil. Near Bad Reichenhall we came back into Austria and were soon in Salzburg and in our hotel on the Gaisberg. 

The next day, we started early and made the 270 mile trip to Vienna in a few hours, with a short interruption for lunch in Amstetten. We went straight to the home of cousin Klementine Dietrich in the 4th district, where we stayed as guests. We had not seen Vienna for 22 years, and looked at everything with mixed feelings. Everything was so well known to us, and as to myself, I had the strange feeling that I had been away only for one or two weeks. And then I had the feeling that everything was so very small, since I could reach places, which were before distant from each other like Schoenbrunn from the center of the city, now, going by car within a few minutes. And then the people: In every man, whom I saw in the street, if he was about 40 or 50 years old, I saw a murderer, and certainly a Nazi. What I especially hated was the friendliness, where the falsehood, the hypocrisy, could be felt easily.

One of my first trips was to the house, where I had lived, at 64 Taborstrasse, also to the house of Hedy’s parents at 87 Taborstrasse. Both of them must have been partially destroyed by bombs, had partially new facades. I also went into the house on Taborstrasse 64, but then, getting to the door, did not want to ring the bell and look inside. It would have been too exciting for me. The house across the street on Darwingasse was not there anymore, was completely gone, and the drugstore Dormann, which was there before, was now diagonally across the street on Taborstrasse, where there was once a hardware store.

We had in Vienna get-togethers with cousins, with Liese Mueller, Antoinette Ziegler, also with Hella Leinkauf, who was also on a visit in Vienna, and also the Zimmermanns, Lisl Ziegler’s sister and brother-in-law. We also went to visit my cousin Egon Mechner and his second wife in their home in Hietzing. But, unfortunately, Egon was quite sick, had severe high blood pressure. We visited them even a second time. He died a few years later. We made some trips to the Kobenzl, to Schoenbrunn, went to the museum twice,did a lot shopping. Alltogether, we were one week in Vienna and left with Klementine, Hella and Antoinette for Altmuenster on the Traun Sea. We met then Maurice Ziegler in Ebensee and stayed there with him for a few hours. The next day, we all went to Ischl, where we met Martha Honig. Hella and Antoinette left us there, and we went first to nearby Goisern for lunch with Martha Honig and her granddaughter, a teen-ager, then with Klementine to Hof-Gastein, where she left us, and we continued our trip, went to Zell-am-See and Kitzbuehel. The next day we went up the  Kitzbueheler Horn, 6000 feet high, by cable car, then on to Innsbruck, where we stayed in the Hotel Hungerberg high up above Innsbruck. We knew Innsbruck quite well and therefore did not stay there long, only did some shopping and strolled in the streets. 

Then on with our car for Soelden in the Oetz valley, where we arrived at 5 P.M and met the Zimmermanns. Next morning we went with them to Ober-Gurgl, where we took a chair-lift up the Hohe Mut, 7800 feet high, had a phantastic view from there, strolled about there and came down at 5 P.M. The Zimmermanns are very nice people and their story, their experiences during the war, had very well been described in detail in the interview with Lisl. We stayed in Soelden for the night, left the next morning, passed through Arlberg, Bludenz, Feldkirch, and Liechtenstein, where we visited the famous Liechtenstein Art Gallery in Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, and then on into Switzerland and to Glarus, where we arrived at 7:30 P.M.

We had hoped to meet Henri and Gaby Mayran in Axenstein near Brunnen on the Vierwaldstaedter Lake, but when we called in the morning, they had left on account of rain. We continued our trip, went up the Klausen Pass and down to Altdorf, the town of William Tell, with the Statue of Tell and his young son in the center of the town, and along the Vierwaldstaedter Lake to Kuessnacht, the town, where Tell had killed Gessler with an arrow, shot with his cross-bow,and then to Luzern, where we went for a stroll in the city, then to a movie. The next day we went up the Mount Pilatus by cable car, climbed up there to the highest point, from where we had a beautiful view of the Lake area and surrounding mountains,on and off, according to the clouds, had long walks there and then went down again to our car and on to Zuerich, which we reached after a 2-hours ride at 6 P.M. Went then after a long stroll to a movie, saw “Hiroshima Mon Amour”. Went the next day shopping, mainly for watches. Left at 3 P.M., back again tlrough Liechtenstein into Austria, to Feldkirch, which we reached at 7 P.M. Hedy had decided to buy there a loden-coat for Johanna, since it was much less expensive than in Switzerland.  Got it the next day, went back through Liechtenstein into Switzerland, turned south there to Davos, passing through Klosters, where we had, way back in 1924, the funny experience with a gendarm, who was blocking our way back to the Schlappiner Joch and Gargellen. That was 36 years ago. Went over the Fluela Pass to St. Moritz, where we arrived in heavy rain at 6:30, to stay for the night. It was funny. Wherever we went in Switzerland, we were told that there was rain all the time, but when we arrived there was beautiful weather, except for St. Moritz. The next day, there was again excellent weather.

We wanted to buy a coral necklace for Johanna and had decided to go to Italy, went over the Maloja Pass to Chiavenna in Italy, where we bought a beautiful coral necklace. I had not realized that we were there very close to the Lake Como, and went north, back into Switzerland over the Splugen Pass through the Hinter-Rhein valley, then on and on west through the Vorder-Rhein valley to Disentis, where we arrived at 8 P.M. This was the place, from where I had bought minerals, beautiful crystals, when I was a youngster of 15 or 16, about 48 years ago.

We left early in the morning over the Overalp Pass for Andermatt, where we stayed for two days in a beautiful hotel. We made trips from there up to the Gotthard Pass, down to Airolo, and back up to the pass and down again to Andermatt, went in the evening to a movie. I bought there the next day some beautiful Smoky Topas crystals, watched then rehearsals for the movie picture “Wilhelm Tell”, which was very interesting.  Left at noon, went over the Furka Pass to the Rhone Glacier, had lunch in the Hotel Belvedere, then over the Grimsel Pass for Interlaken, where we arrived at 6 P.M. Stayed there in the Hotel Regina, where we had from our window a beautiful view of the Jungfrau at sundown. Left in the morning by train for Lauterbrunnen, then by cable car for the Jungfrau Joch and the Mountain House, 10.371 feet high, had there a fantastic view of the three giants Eiger, Moench, and Jungfrau, this latter one 12.474 feet high, and of the glacier. Wherever one looked, there was nothing but snow and ice. A great experience. We got slightly snow-blind there, saw everything pink when we entered the big hall in the restaurant for lunch, which was filled to capacity with people. We left at 5 P.M., left the train at Lauterbrunnen to visit Mr. and Mrs.Brandeis in Wengen, had dinner with them, and left at 8 P.M. for Interlaken. At 10:45 p.M. sitting there on a terrace of a coffeehouse, I saw the Echo I-satellite, looking like a star, wandering slowly across the sky.

We left Interlaken after a shopping stroll at noon for Zermatt. Went first to the Aare-Schlucht (gorge) near Meiringen, then over the Grimsel Pass, where we saw again the Rhone Glacier, into the Rhone valley and over Visp to St, Niklaus, where we had to leave the car and had to take a train for Zermatt. Took the next morning a cog-rail train for the Gornergrat, where we had the most beautiful view of the Matterhorn, the twins Castor and Pollux, the Monte Rosa and the Gorner Glacier. It was a great pleasure to lie there in the sun, one of the most beautiful days in our lives. Great many people did the same there, just lying in the sun.  We had sunglasses now and did not get snow-blind anymore. But tanned, more and more. Down again to our car and to Zermatt, for a stroll in the beautiful village. There were a lot of goats there, walking with us on the main road. There were no cars. The next day back to St.Niklaus to our car, then to Visp and along the Rhone valley to Martigny, from there to the French frontier and to Chamonix in the Mont Blanc area. The next day by cable car up to the Aiguille De Midi, 11.529 feet high, from where we had the most fantastic view of the Mont Blanc, 14.421 feet high, the highest mountain in Europe, and in front of us the many glaciers, called Mer de Glace, which we traversed in a cable car for many miles, which then took us across the Italian border to Point Heilbronner, where we had to show again our passports. On the way forth and than back nothing but glaciers with deep crevasses in many places, and we saw some skiers way below. A fantastic ride. Now down to Chamonix and a stroll in the town. 

Next day on for Geneva. We went at first for a stroll, than shopping, and finally to the palais of the United Nations. Went there on a tour through all the different buildings with big conference halls, beautifully decorated with fantastic wall paintings of enormous dimensions, executed by great artists, in a modern style, all describing efforts of men and progress of humanity.

We continued then our trip, went on along the north-shore of the Lake of Geneve, called Lac Leman, all the time having a beautiful view of the Mont Blanc mountains, to Lausanne, where we arrived at 6 P.M., early enough for a stroll in that beautiful city and then to look for a place for the night, which we found on the outskirts of the city. Went for dinner into town, had to go through a big park to a coffee house, where we sat for quite a long time. To go back to our nightquarters, we had again to go through the park, where there were roadways going in all directions, but, marvelously, I made the right turns and reached the spot, from where we had come into the park, so that we could find the nightquarters.

We left at 10 A.M. for Basel, arrived at noon in Bern, walked through the city, the long main road with the many clock towers and its medieval architecture, to the Baerengraben, where they have a few bears all the time, deep down in an open pit, where bears were kept for 7 or 8 centuries, and from where the city derived its name. It is the capital of the Swiss confederation. We passed then through Solothurn and arrived in Basel
at 4 P.M., stayed in a hotel on the shore of the Rhein river. We went for a stroll through the town,also the next day till noon. We left for Muehlhausen in Alsace, where we had lunch, passed through Colmar, and arrived in Strasbourgh at 4:30.

I called there an old friend, Mrs. Weill, whom we had known from Cuba and had not seen for 16 years. I let her guess who was calling her, and she was quite surprised that we were in Strasbourg. We had to go right away to her beautiful home, and had dinner with her. The next day we went sightseeing with her daughter Francoise, almost the whole day. There was a lot to see in Strasbourg that was highly interesting, especially, of course, the Dome of Strasbourg, one of the most beautiful churches, I took pictures of it, but could not come close enough to get the whole church, as it was standing in narrow streets, so that I had to take them in a few parts, the entrance alone, a great work of Gothic art by itself, and the towers from other places. There were many other old buildings, among them the Gutenberg house, where Gutenberg lived and printed the famous bible, all of them typical on account of the many, many attic windows in the roofs, going up in many rows to the crests of the steep roofs. Then the famous covered bridges. Francoise was great as a guide, although she had just then serious marital troubles, was about to break up her marriage, leaving the two lovely children to her husband, breaking also the heart of her mother, Mrs. Weill.

We went then with Mrs. Weill to Aubernai to visit her old mother, whom we also knew from New York, had dinner there, were joined by her son and his wife, whom we also knew from New York. It was quite a reunion. We arrived in Strasbourg at midnight. The next day we went shopping, had then lunch with Mrs.Weill, visited her enamel factory, then left at 4 P.M. for Luxemburgh, passing through Nancy and Metz. We could have used a shorter route to Luxemburgh over Saarbruecken, but that was Germany and I did not want to touch German soil. In the center of Nancy was a large flowerbed, with the name “Nancy” made of very bright flowers, and I sent a postcard, which showed it, to our little Nancy.

Luxemburgh was interesting mainly on account of the old castle and the old wall, which once surrounded the city, It was once an important fortress and in the heavy walls there were casemates, which were once used as jails. We went inside the cells, hardly more than three square yards in size, where inmates once languished. There were names painted on the walls in some of the cells, painted, as was explained to us, with blood, now black.

We left soon, went first to Bastogne, the place which became famous in 1944, when the Germans, in their last offensive, the battle of the bulge, broke through and completely surrounded this little town, defended by an American general, Anthony McAuliffe, who refused to surrender, and replied with the word “Nuts”. The town was almost completely destroyed, but what is now standing there is an American War Memorial, high up on a hill, surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of crosses, the graves of Americans. The memorial was beautifully done, in the shape of a star, with many columns, in which the story of that battle is engraved in beautiful language, and on the upper rim the names of all the states, which were 48 then, is engraved with big letters. I went up to the top on a narrow staircase and Hedy took my picture, while I was up there, stretching out both arms in the way president Eisenhower used to do it. When I showed the picture, I always said that it was Eisenhower there, in my kind of joke. Every year, great many Americans come to that memorial, which contains on the ground prayer rooms for different religious denominations.

We passed then through Namur and arrived in Brussels at 7 P.M., where we had a reunion with Hella Feingold, the widow of Hedy’s uncle Heini. They both had stayed in Brussels during the war and survived. Heini had died a few years before, we went sightseeing in Brussels, also to the World Exhibition grounds of 1958, with some buildings still standing there and attracting tourists. We went the next day to Heini’s grave, then to Ostende, to the beautiful city of Brugge (Brouges) and Gent, and finally to Antwerp, where Hella left and we stayed over night.

The next day, we continued via Breda and Utrecht to Amsterdam, arrived there at 6 P.M. and had a reunion with Anny Lux, after more than 20 years. She had much to tell about the war years and especially her life in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, where her husband Max Lux and her mother, Hedy’s aunt Susi Pariser died, while she and her daughter Ellen miraculously survived. We met Ellen also, had seen her before as a child, of 7 or 8 in Vienna. We went the next day to the Rijksmuseum and other highly interesting places, on a boat tour through the channels of Amsterdam and out to the port, the next day also to Haarlem to the Frans Hals Museum.

There came the day, when I had to leave my Lancia car, hand it over to a man in Amsterdam, to be taken to Rotterdam, and we had to say good-bye to Anny and Ellen, and go to the airport to fly first to Brussels and from there home to New York. A memorable 11-weeks-trip, full of great impressions.

I got my Lancia back in Manhattan, not in a very good condition, since it was driven by people who did not know how to drive that kind of car, first from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, and then here from Hoboken to Manhattan. The car was covered with some kind of grease as protection for the voyage by boat, which had to be removed, and needed also a new clutch. But otherwise, I was happy with my little car, which I drove afterwards for 10 years.

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