1937

Before continuing with my own story, I have to go back and describe what had happened in the meantime to my family in Rumania. The last time I saw my mother was, when she was in Vienna shortly after Johanna was born and she stayed on for a few more months, and was very helpful especially at night, when she took over the care of Johanna. During that last visit it never was discussed, what her economic situation was, and I did not suspect that she had any difficulties at home. I do remember that I always paid her travel expenses. Looking back now, I feel very bad that I did not think of it to discuss her financial situation. Things started to get bad afterwards, when she had returned to Czernowitz, and the tax office started to make difficulties for her. The Rumanian tax bureau was ruthless and they went after her on account of taxes. She had in the house several tenants who occupied apartments, but they had become wise, knowing my mother, that she was such a good person, and started to take more and more advantage of her by gradually stopping their payments of the rent. They knew that my mother would not take them to court. They had all kinds of excuses, “we don’t earn anything, we will pay next month” and next month became next year and they stopped paying completely. My mother could not pay the taxes for a while, and the tax bureau administration started to collect taxes by taking out her furniture. They took away the piano, the bookcases with all the valuable books, they took away paintings, so that at the end they were living in an empty apartment. They also took fine oriental carpets. There came up the possibility of giving up the house to a construction consortium. They wanted to erect a 5-story building with many, many apartments. That was, as it turned out later, an excellent solution to the problem. My mother was offered, besides some cash, a part of the new house, five apartments to be exact, one for herself, and one for each of the 4 children. Before the old house, was torn down, they moved into an apartment in the house next door, and when the first part of the new house was finished, they could move in and that was at the end of 1937, shortly before the Germans invaded Austria. I don’t remember that they had let me know what was going on in Czernowitz, that the old house had been torn down and a new house erected. Perhaps they did write about it, but I had other worries at that time, after the invasion of Austria.

Walter arrived one day in Vienna, on his way to Argentina. His apartment was sold and with that money he could make the journey. Else had her own apartment, a kind of studio, and they must have had some income from renting the other two apartments, Carl’s and mine. I remember that my mother once said in a letter that she was happy that she could give something to her children while she was alive. The two apartments, Carl’s and mine, were later also sold, when I was already in Havana and that Carl had written to me that, since transactions through banks were net possible at that time, he will send the money in small bills in letters to Lisa in France, and he did that for a while, as long as it was possible. I found out from Lisa, when she arrived in Havana that she had received about $200.- in this way from Carl, and she gave me the money, but I reproached her for not having used the money for herself and Francis, when they were in difficulties.

Else had a very difficult job of nursing my mother, who was already very sick then, had cancer of the uterus. They lived there till 1940 under Rumanians, when the Russians, on June 26th, 1940 demanded from Rumania the return of Bessarabia and the cession of the Northern Bukowina, and the disputed territory was occupied by Russian troops on June 2bth. Now my people had to live under a communistic regime and to find out what it tastes like. The Rumanians had also to give up the whole territory of Transylvania, which went to Hungary, also a part of the Dobruja, which went to Bulgaria. These reverses caused a political overturn in Rumania, and general Antonescu became premier. King Carol fled from Rumania and was replaced by his son as Michael V. Hungary and shortly afterwards also Rumania joined the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Pact, and shortly afterwards Bulgaria also joined the Berlin-Rome Pact. After massing troops during the spring months on the Yugoslav border, the Germans invaded Yugoslavia and Greece and they entered Athens on April 27th, 1941, later also invaded the Island of Crete.

All that was in preparation for the big move, the attack on Russia on June 22nd, 1941, on a 2000 miles long front, with Hungary, Italy, and Finland as allies, and within a day or two the Nazis were in Czernowitz and with them the Rumanian Iron Guard, just as brutal and antisemitic as the S.S. in Germany. In the midst of the winter of 194l, 40,000 Jews were driven out of Czernowitz and perished in the open fields of Bessarabia from frost and hunger within a few days. Many Jewish people in Czernowitz had saved their lives by converting to Christianity. It was very difficult to find priests in a few days to help them. My sister was a Lutheran for about 35 years, but now my mother also became a Lutheran, Carl a Greek-Oriental, and his wife Lotte, her mother and her daughter Mausi became Catholics. In this way only could they save their lives and escape the mass murder. The situation, in which they lived, was precarious.

During the one year of the Russian occupation, Carl had a position as a music professor at the conservatorium. Later, after the German invasion, he worked as some kind of government employee. It took 3 long years, till the Russians came back, in 1944, and the Germans fled. The Rumanian government surrendered on August 24th, 1944. After the re-occupation of the Northern Bukovina, my family was allowed to emigrate to Bucharest, in accordance with an agreement between Russia and Rumania. My mother and Else were supposed to go with Carl and his family, but just on that day, when they left, she got very weak, had a severe bleeding and had to postpone the trip and Else stayed with her.

I should mention here that Else painted a number of beautiful paintings during her long stay in Czernowitz, that means from the time when she had left Paris in 1931 till 1945, when she left for Bucharest. Some of them are great masterworks and are in Carl’s possession in Bucharest, except one, which Else had given to a cousin, shortly before she died.

My mother’s condition had improved somewhat, so that in 1945 they considered to follow Carl and his family and to emigrate to Bucharest. Carl’s apartment was sold, before he had left for Bucharest, and now the last two apartments and the furniture were sold and Else could take her paintings along. A certain date for their departure was agreed on with Carl, who came to the border city of Sereth, south of Czernowitz, with a truck, so that my mother could lie down during the voyage to Bucharest, which took about 12 to 14 hours. At that time, Carl had sung often the mass in a church, where the priest was from Czernowitz, and this priest gave him a room, which belonged to the church, for my mother and Else. Later Carl got them a nice room, well furnished, near the area where he lived. My mother’s condition deteriorated more and more and she had to be hospitalized for short periods of time frequently. She had suffered terribly, according to the frequent letters I had received. She was bedridden for years, and Else had done an enormous job, nursing her. I helped them, as much as I could, by sending them packages with food, clothes, and also medicines like Penicillin and Streptomycin, which they could sell there. My mother died on February 9th, 1950 at the age of 78 years.

Else lived then in the same room, but she did not paint anymore, except a portrait of our cousin Harwell Drancz, who lived also in Bucharest, which was, as I was told, very good. Else herself had cancer of the uterus, but she was treated by a quack for many years with herbs. She believed in him and did not want to go to another doctor nor for an examination to a hospital. I supported her all these years as well as I could. She had received, years back, when my mother still lived, a letter from her former landlord from Paris, in which he told her that the 12 paintings of hers were still hanging in his apartment in Rue Daguerre, where she had lived and that she can have them any time she wanted. She was very happy about that letter. She was thinking all the time of going to Paris, but leaving a communistic country was impossible, as it still is today. But she dreamed about it, also about finding the 32 or 33 paintings, which she had in a depot in the Gallery Zivy. She did not know that this gallery did not exist anymore since the war. Most of her paintings there did not have her signature, but she planned to go there and, if necessary, go to Germany to try to find them.

In October 1959, a serious complication struck, severe rectal bleeding. The cancer of the uterus had penetrated the rectum and had eroded a big blood vessel. She was immediately hospitalized, and when two doctors examined her, she heard them say C.C., which generally was used for cancer, and she understood it. From that moment on she refused any treatment, infusion, or nourishment. She did not even take a sip of water, wanted to die as soon as possible. She died on November 7th, 1959, at the age of 66.

I mentioned before already that Else was very religious, and inclined to mysticism, which is evidenced in most of her paintings, also in her letters. She was writing profusely papers about religion, about astrology, and philosophy, and great many poems and aphorisms. Unfortunately, all her writings had been taken out of her apartment by cousins, the daughters of Alice, while she was in the hospital. They said that Else had asked them to take them and had given them the key to her apartment. When I was in Bucharest, a few years ago, I asked them to give me these writings, but they refused and I did not want to insist on it. Before It had already caused discord between them and Carl. I loved my sister and I know that she loved me. I got later, on a trip to Paris, in possession of the 12 paintings, which her former landlord had kept for her.

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