Irene Etlinger
A World War II Survivor
by Andrea Schindler

A Loving Family Irene’s childhood memories revolve around family and holiday gatherings, school days, delicious food, and Viennese culture. Irene’s extended family was quite large, and she often went to get-togethers with her relatives, including several aunts, uncles, and cousins. “Late every Wednesday afternoon as many of [my aunt’s] siblings, nephews, nieces, and assorted other relatives as could arrange it, came to [my aunt’s] apartment for a ‘Jause.’ A Jause is a typically Viennese term for a get-together over coffee, tea, and as many cookies and pastries as possible, all with lots of whipped cream, of course.” She was very close with my grandmother, Lise. Despite the fact that they were first cousins once removed, Lise was only a year older than Irene. During the summer, Irene would often visit her at Lise’s grandmother’s beautiful house in Reichenau in the Alps south of Vienna. The two young girls would go on hikes in the Alpine forests with Lise’s father, Hans Grossman, and eat her grandmother Emma’s famed ice cream cake. They both loved to read, and because there were no public libraries at the time, often exchanged books with one another.

Irene with her father and mother in the Vienna Woods in the 1920s.

A section of Irene's report card from before the Nazi regime. Even before the Nazi's annexed Austria, attention to religion was pervasive in Vienna– on this report card, Irene's Jewish religion is noted ("mos" means the religion of Moses, another  word for Jew).

IN VIENNA The Anschluss - March 12, 1938 On the evening of March 11, 1938, Irene and her mother were at the Opera House on the Ringstrasse2, for a friend had given them tickets to Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin. Her mother, or as Irene called her, “Mutti,” had been reluctant to go, for there were rumors of a German invasion, but ultimately, Irene convinced her mother to attend the show. (Interestingly enough, my grandmother was at the Theatre during the Anschluss.) “We listened to the radio all day. There were reports of German troop movements at the border, and appeals by the Austrian government for its citizens to remain steadfastly patriotic. We had heard similar broadcasts for many days and were not unduly alarmed.” All went well for the first two acts of the Opera. During the second intermission, Mutti and Irene were waiting in the lobby when they saw “one of the Viennese policemen pull a red, white and black swastika armband out of his pocket and slip it onto his left arm. He looked at the other two, and they followed suit.” The Viennese police had already known that the Nazis were coming and as Mutti observed, ‘They only waited for the right time to put those armbands on.’ “We knew what was on the radio, but I am sure that there were people who knew a lot more of what was going on, because otherwise how would the policemen already have had the swastika armbands in their pockets, you know? So I know that there were many people. The Nazis had an underground system already in Austria, I’m sure, for years. And I’m sure there were many people who knew a lot of what was going on. But the general population didn’t.” Irene and her mother left through a side door in the Opera House. They saw the German Army marching into Vienna, followed by massive crowds of Viennese people cheering for the Nazis, “singing, hysterical with joy, carrying torches and German swastika flags.” When Irene and her mother finally got home, Irene’s father was gone. The maid told them that he’d been very worried and had gone out in search of them. Her father finally returned home at around three in the morning. He’d gotten ‘caught up in the mass of people welcoming the Germans.’ But he was safe, if completely infuriated by the Anschluss. Irene believes, contrary to the fact that Austria “was successful in presenting itself as Hitler’s first victim,” the majority of Austrians were vehemently for Germany’s annexing of their country. Irene believes about a third of Austrians were gung-ho for the Nazis, about a third were supportive, and about a third were true Austrian patriots who despised Germany’s swift takeover of their country.

 

Kristallnacht - November 9-10, 1938 On Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” Nazis used the fact that a single Jew in Paris had killed a German diplomat as justification to attack Jews throughout Germany and Austria. Windows were smashed (hence the name, “Night of Broken Glass”), temples and houses were burned, shops were robbed, and Jews were beaten in the streets. Irene and her family were safe on this dreadful night of violence, for her former maid, Poldi, entered their house and warned them not to go out, for people were being beaten: “I was still in Vienna, and I was at home, and our maid was still—no she wasn’t with us anymore—you know the woman had been our maid for many years and was really like part of the family, so when the Nazis came, of course she had to leave and work for a German officer. But she came, if I remember, and told us not to go out—that horrible things were happening. They were smashing windows, and taking people out. And so we all stayed home and for that evening we were safe. But the next day, when I went out, I saw shards of glass, I mean whole streets covered with them, and also, the worst thing was that they took Jewish people—men and women—out of their apartments and onto the streets and had them clean up this terrible mess. And also to show disrespect; I saw a couple of people who had to scrub the sidewalk with toothbrushes… It was awful. That’s what I saw.”

This is a section of the "short" proof of Aryanism that Irene's mother had to fill out to prove the purity of her blood. She also had to fill out extensive forms proving her Aryan heritage all the way back to the 1700s.

Nazi-occupied Austria: Irene was allowed to finish her sophomore year of high school, but afterwards was not allowed to attend school. “The Jewish kids, even the one hundred percent Jewish kids, were allowed to finish the school year until July. But after that, we were not allowed to go back to school. Half Jewish, all Jewish—it didn’t make any difference.” Nazi Austria was brimming with anti-Semitism. When Irene and her cousin went to the park in Vienna, there were some benches marked “No Jews” and some benches marked “Half Jews.” Hitler’s censorship of media began, and huge book burning riots broke out: “One day, soon after the Anschluss, I went to my dentist in downtown Vienna.  On my way home (I was walking), I passed the University building, or rather I tried to pass.  I suddenly was engulfed by a huge crowd of people, yelling, screaming and feeding a great bonfire of books.  Hordes of young people (I assume they were students) came out with their arms full of  books and threw them on the fire.  All the while they were chanting slogans about getting rid of Jewish and Communist garbage.  To me that was really horrifying - and I could not extricate myself.  It took what seemed a long time before I could get out of the crowd and walk home.  I had always loved books and it was painful to see them abused and exterminated by these ignorant louts.  They were trying to obliterate all ideas and philosophies that did not agree with their twisted world view.  Anyway, this experience left me with a great fear of crowds to this day.  I never go to rallies or vigils even for causes in which I believe because I feel such anxiety in crowds.  On the other hand, it also made me reject censorship.  I know that there is lots of shoddy, bad and false literature out there, but it should be our job to educate people to recognize it as such, not to try to suppress it.” Though war had not officially been declared, it was clear that remaining in Nazi-ruled areas was dangerous. Irene wanted to leave Austria and find a way to move to America, and her father agreed with this notion. But her mother was afraid, as is understandable. At one point, her mother even suggested that the family kill themselves by turning on the gas oven. Irene’s best friend, Marietta Bunzel, “had an affidavit from… her mother’s cousin, who lived in Portland, Oregon,” and was waiting for her visa. Marietta wrote to this cousin and implored him to find another family in America that would be willing to send Irene an affidavit, for Irene had no relatives in the U.S. The family of Leo Pallay agreed to help Irene, and soon sent her the affidavit. But Irene’s chances of getting the American visa before war broke out looked slim, so the Pallays arranged for Irene to stay with distant relatives, Simon Levy and his wife, in London. By the time she was sixteen years old, Irene had completed all of the proper paperwork to get a transit visa for England, and prepared to leave.

TO ENGLAND    On December 9, 1938 (on the day of her parents’ seventeenth wedding anniversary), Irene boarded a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight to London with one suitcase and a hatbox, in which she stowed the stuffed animal dog that she slept with as a child. She was the first of her family to travel via airplane, for her parents thought that taking a train and boat would be too dangerous, considering she’d have to go through Germany. Her parents planned to send her trunk by train to London. An Elongated Stay    Irene’s stay in England, which was supposed to last for a few months, ended up being a year and two weeks long. The transit visa was only allotted for three months, so she had to keep applying for new ones. Irene originally stayed with Mr. Levy as arranged, but her parents heard that Mr. Levy’s wife had recently left him, and Irene was alone in a house with this forty-one year old man. At the time, the innocent Irene did not recognize the inappropriate nature of her living arrangements. Even though Mr. Levy was a decent man, her parents were uneasy about the situation. She was whisked away to live with the Nathan family, who were friends of her best friend Marietta’s brother, Herbert Bunzell. It was during her stay with the Nathans that Irene truly learned English. Because the transit visa did not allow for her to work or go to school, Irene helped care for the Nathan children and read an enormous number of books. “Mr. Nathan took it upon himself to oversee my reading, and so I bet I’m one of the few people who’s read all of Charles Dickens. And so I got a one-sided, but pretty good education in English literature.” During this long waiting period, Irene also went to tea with my grandmother Lise once in a while. Lise was working hard as a student nurse and barely had any money, but would treat Irene, who had nothing, to tea. Their favorite meal was “poached eggs on toast,” for it was least expensive. “One time I sold a little gold pendant in a pawnshop for a tiny amount of money, so I could take us to tea and a movie.  I think it was before I left for America.  I could never forget her generosity when we were just kids - that is one of the many reasons why I felt such a special closeness to her even into old age.  It never mattered how long we had not seen each other.  In some way, when we were together, we reverted to being about sixteen.” Finally in late 1939, when she was seventeen years old, Irene’s immigration visa for the U.S. was approved. Now she just had to find a means of traveling to America.

The front page of Irene's passport, featuring the red "J" for Jew and the Nazi swastika seal.

The second page of Irene's passport, featuring her photogaph and Nazi stamps.

TO AMERICA Irene’s parents had sent her to England with an expensive boat ticket for America. Unfortunately, the German boat was meant to leave from an English harbor in Southampton, and now that the countries were at war with one another, the ticket was completely useless. With no money to her name, Irene’s only hope was to send a telegraph message to the Pallay family in Portland and appeal for help. The Pallays, who had already acted with heart-warming kindness in sending Irene the affidavit, responded with astonishing benevolence. They paid three hundred dollars—which nowadays is roughly equivalent to three thousand—to secure a ship ticket on the British ocean liner, the “Georgic,” for young Irene, a complete stranger. It was at the end of the Depression, and they had been saving up to buy a new car, but instead used the funds to pay for Irene’s voyage. “At the time I was too young and inexperienced in the ways of the world to truly appreciate their sacrifice, but now it seems extraordinary to me.” Hence, Irene said goodbye to her generous friends once more and was escorted to Liverpool by Marietta’s brother, Herbert. Because of the German U-Boats that plagued the Atlantic in December 1939, “the Georgic traveled in full blackout.” No passenger was allowed on the deck without his or her gas mask, and every day there was an emergency drill “with everyone scrambling to find his was to the assigned lifeboats.” On the second day of the voyage, the ship came by some Canadian sailors. Their ship had been sunk and these lucky few had survived on a lifeboat. Regardless of the solemnity of her situation, Irene romanticized the trip. “Maybe I just wanted to see it that way – as a young girl I was very movie-struck. There was dancing to live music every evening, and on December 31st there was a lavish New Year’s Eve party, which now seems rather incongruous to me. I even acquired a special beau, Werner Stern, who, with his parents, was headed for Chicago.” After dropping the sailors off at Halifax, Nova Scotia, the ship finally reached New York. Because of the necessity of avoiding the U-Boats, the trip lasted for eleven days rather than “the usual five.”

   

New York, At Last While hundreds of passengers were allowed to disembark and enter the United States, Irene was pulled aside by the immigration officer. Frazzled by the situation, she, the sole passenger of the Georgic out of over five hundred to be deprived of American soil, remained on the ship for the night and read the New York Times for the first time. She spent the next day at Ellis Island, which looked to her “like a great prison with barred windows.” Noticing that some other immigrants, like the Balkan woman whose husband was in the infirmary with tuberculosis, had remained there for many months, Irene “had visions of spending months in this awful place.” The next afternoon, however, she was allowed to enter the States. She was told that the two women who the Pallays had sent to retrieve her had not had the proper documentation the day before, and had to attain it to satisfy the White Slavery Law (which was “to protect girls from prostitution rings”). While spending three weeks in Brooklyn with the family of Leo Pallay’s aunt, she began to “Americanize” herself. She attended two basketball games at Madison Square Garden and went to her first triple feature. Irene prepared to move to Oregon to stay with the Pallays. Already having received so much money from the Pallay family, Irene could not bring herself to ask for another favor. She applied for and received a voucher for a bus ticket to Portland from HIAS (Hebrew International Aid Society), an organization that helped refugees.

Irene's Certificate of Naturalization.

A New Life in Oregon After a series of long bus rides and stops at Illinois and Utah, Irene arrived in Portland, where she began a new life. She finished high school, helped care for little Frances, ushered at the Pallays’ movie theatres, perfected her English, learned American songs, and grew into a wonderful young woman.

FAMILY After December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor Day), when the U.S. joined the war, it became extremely difficult for Irene to correspond with her parents in Vienna. Her communication was limited to short messages three or four times a year through the Red Cross. Irene’s parents survived and years later joined their daughter in Portland. When her mother and father finally found their way to America, Irene was a married woman in her twenties. She was a mother nurturing a child rather than the naïve sixteen-year-old girl she had been when she left Vienna. It was difficult at first for her parents to adjust to this transformation. Her father was saved by the fact that his wife was Christian—he was told that if the war had lasted six months longer than it had, he would have become another of the six million Jews killed in concentration camps. Her Uncle Karl survived, but his wife and daughter were murdered at camps. Two of Irene’s aunts were killed at camps, and another two committed suicide.

Irene in 1992 with one of her daughters and two granddaughters.

Irene in 1992 with my older brother, Joe.

A PARTING NOTE    I cannot imagine what strength it must have taken for a girl my age to leave her home and family, in the middle of a war, and embark alone on a journey to the other side of the world. But Irene does not consider herself extraordinary: “As parting note, I want to say that I feel very fortunate that I was able to come here and have a life. For a long time, not now, but for a long time, I always thought that I had something special required of me. How come I survived when so many of my generation didn’t? And now I have come to the conclusion that I think all that is required is to live the best life you can, raise your family the best you can. I was nothing special just because I lived. I was fortunate. I’m grateful for it.”

Etlinger, Irene. Telephone interview. 18 Jan. 2009. Etlinger, Irene. Personal photographs and documents. Etlinger, Irene. A Newcomer in Portland. Ms. Etlinger, Irene. Christmas Memories. Ms. Etlinger, Irene. Enemy Alien. Ms. Etlinger, Irene. From England to America. Ms. Etlinger, Irene. From New York to Portland: January 1940. Ms. Etlinger, Irene. From Vienna to London. Ms.

Etlinger, Irene. Good-bye, Old Vienna. Ms. Etlinger, Irene. My American Schooling. Ms. Etlinger, Irene. Religion, sort of-. Ms. Etlinger, Irene. Tante Mina. Ms. "File: World map blank black lines." Wikimedia Commons. 13 Jan. 2007.          Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 3 Feb. 2009 <http://commons.wikimedia.org/          wiki/File:World_map_blank_black_lines_4500px.gif://>. Oxford American Dictionaries. Apple Computer, Inc., 2005. Electronic. Vers.          1.0.2.