NAZI HORRORS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 209, 5 September 1939, Page 5

NAZI HORRORS.

REFUGEE HEROISM.

TERRORS OF THE JEW HUNT.

AN ARTIST'S STORY. j (By CHARLES ESTCOURT.) NEW YORK. If you want to set your heart going! like the strings in a gipsy orchestra, listen to the refugees tell their tales. What a man did when he saw Hitler's bully boys come up the front walk.! What a mother did when her son came! home from a concentration camp, per-' manently crippled in legs and brain.j What a bride did when her young hus-l band's body was sent home in a ciaar! box—cremated. She had the ashes analysed. The ashes were coal and wood ashes. They sit in coffee places around town and sip coffee and talk out one of the greatest horror stories in the history of mankind. These are not heroes talking, just little people, some of them timid, some of them bookish. But, as they say, in ordinary times a man can get born, live, grow old and die and never realise he is a hero. Who knows who is a hero? A Hero at the End. The man who had been trembling all I his life over risking a dollar 011 a business Ideal did not tremble when Hitler's bully I boys came up the front walk. He talked slowlv.

"Yes, yes, who is it? Wait a minute] until I find my glasses, please. Where did I put my glasses ? Now, let me see.' Mama, mama," he called, "where are my glasses?"

He mumbled and fretted and puttered about, while death stood hammering on the front door and life itself—or what was left of it for him—slid out a back way and through the hedges to a neighbour's c#l!ar.

The life that slipped out the back: way was his wife and daughter and! young son. They are over here now.! That dreadful night, they doubled around the front of the house and stood'

in the darkness watching. The last they saw, he was standing by the door inviting the bully boys in with a small, apologetic bow. A short, stout, tight little man. bald head glistening, called suddenly from a life of dollars and deals and "yours of the 28tli to hand, and in reply." to play the part of a hero I and finding the iron in liim to play it as [an actor might play it in the movies— ! with a small bow.

The mother stood still in he" ag«.nv. She could not help her husband bv sharing his imprisonment. She coui.l help her children. In the brief moment during which the Nazis walked from the car to the front door, he had made the decision He had thrust them out the back way. The boy was nine years old. He began to cry, but lie knew enough to | cry soundlessly. They don't kno*-"what !happened after the Nazis got into the house. They've never heard from their husband and father again. They think the Nazis got angry at finding him alone. They think he now fills an unknown soldier's grave. Hitler's Massacre. This is not a war that Hitler wages. is a massacre. But. as in the World War there were soldiers who fought through it all on the front line without seeing the enemy once, without seeing more than holes in the earth and bullets land corpses, so there are a few refugees I who have never seen a Nazi in action. | These are the "lucky"' ones, who were ,|Out of the country 011 business or I pleasure when Hitler came calling.

Take the case of a "lucky one." It! brings the horror down to a" size where an ordinary man on this side of the water can grasp it and understand it and know something of the life four [hundred thousand people in this world jare now living and an inestimable number of millions more would give all thev own to live. ~

He is an artist. He always liked the thought that, being an artist, he made his living by givinjr pleasure to all and giving pain to no one. He had been a child prodigy in Vienna and had made his living by painting since he was ten years old. For a number of years he had been all the rape in Europe, one of the great of the century, and had made |3 great deal of money. He did not let | his popularity interfere with his | development as an artist. Eventually he grew away from his success. To him the art was what was important, not

the people who wanted their portraits painted. New Kind of Heroism. Well, that was heroic. Then Hitler, and he found another kind of heroism in him. He arrived in Xew York from j his home in Vienna on the morning of j March 12, 1938, to arrange for an l exhibition of his pictures. Hitler Vienna on Marcli 13. And, in Vienna, ! was this artist's wife and young son and all the money he had left in the. world. The life that this artist has lived in: the 15 succeeding months is a book of; Dostoievsky. A passport with a visa on! it—a piece of paper with ink on it—•• suddenly became the sun around which | he revDlved. To get this for himself and family, he needed first affidavits from wealthy people who were willing to guarantee their support in case of need so that they would not become, public charges. When lie got the: j affidavits, and he got three of them.! they were found insufficient. He would have to have a £200 bond in an; American bank. j When he got the £200, the amount! was raised to £300. When he got that, the amount was raised to £400. It's I £80(1 now, and he isn't even crawling upj on that sum. Also he is afraid thatj when he gets it, the amount needed will! be raised again. The more territory Hitler gets, the more refugees he creates. The more refugees there are, the harder it is for tliem to find an adopted country. How he got the money is the kind of story that people like to laugh over ten years after it has happened, when they have been comfortable a long time. But the chances are this artist will not have the opportunity to laugh. This is his second marriage. He is an old father to a young son. He is 63 years old. His wife answered his frantic cables with: "Aless ruhig," meaning all quiet. The newspapers told a different story, but she was afraid. Then he heard from her suddenly in Belgium. He shuddered at that, as you might, too, if you had heard that your wife and your younp son, both made desperate, had travelled ■ alone to the frontier and had slipped across at night throuph a graveyard i taking a chance on beinj shot by either ; German soldiers or Belgian soldiers, s The artist went to Cuba to arrangi about visas and was to remain then i for another year or so. His wife anc : child axe in Belgium.