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Gertrud Karsten’s Report

Six days after Hitler’s invasion of Prague, the merchant Robert K. killed himself by throwing himself down the staircase of his home. R. K. had been arranging his emigration to England since the Munich Agreement, but had not been able to carry it out quickly enough.

The work permit from the Home Office had not gone through in February, as was expected. As K. was associated with the Czech government, as well as with the Petschekbank,1Note 1: This likely refers to the Petschek Palace, though uncertain of the context (e.g. why an association would make R.K a target of the Nazis). his suicide was pre-emptive; he would have met the same fate shortly after. Three days later, his 82-year-old mother died too.

The two older children were in England. The youngest, Gertrud, went to the German school that was taken over by the Nazis in March, and had to do her Abitur there.

In the meantime, their mother had tried everything to arrange emigration for her and Gertrud. The entry papers from England arrived shortly after K's. death. But the emigration visa from the German authorities could not be obtained. The difficulties mounted up.

Finally, her friends gave her the address of a young secretary who had helped her boss to emigrate, as she had connections with a Gestapo middle-man. This secretary, Fritzi, introduced her to Fritz Smetana. At the beginning of July, he assured her that she should not worry, and that he had spoken to the Chief at the Bank (code word for Gestapo), with whom he had an understanding, and he had promised him everything for the next morning. Fritzi added that she had spoken with Mr. Schubert, the Gestapo boss; he wanted a new car, but had not got the money together for it yet. I said to him that he could have it, but first he had get the two ladies out.

The attempts to leave had begun on the 9th June 1939, when the English visa had arrived.

First, one needed a doctor’s note for a stay in Karlsbad, which the police doctor issued, with an objective reason. But, on the next day, Neurath’s orders were announced without warning. (Travel restrictions etc., in accordance with the Nuremberg Laws). The former head of the Gestapo, Freiherr von Dürren, had to travel to Berlin, then came the Bank Holidays, when all the offices were closed. In the meantime, it became July.

The promised emigration was delayed again, because original copies of the baptism certificates had to be submitted. (The baptism had only recently been performed. It made it possible for us to get a French visa). This French visa expired on 15th July. The date of the baptism was written illegibly, so the Priest had to re-write it. Then the Gestapo caused some further difficulties. Nobody, except for the mother’s parents, was allowed to know about the intended journey. On the 6th July, Fritz informed them that he had to produce another tax exemption form, but this would take a long time. Did they have any friends in Holland? Because the route through Slovakia would be quite a challenge.

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On 6th July, Fritz and Fritzi met them with long faces: the journey through Germany, to Holland, would unfortunately not be possible, a tax exemption form was required and, although it was possible to buy these, that would certainly take too long as, in the meantime, the French visa would expire. Do not worry, we will travel through Slovakia. A friend, a Lithuanian Journalist, is coming to collect me. Bring a small suitcase. On the following Sunday evening, Fritz came back – everything was in order, they would travel to Brünn tomorrow to collect the Hungarian visa, they should meet in the evening in Brünn. We will give you addresses for where you can stay privately overnight, then you need to travel straight to Hungary, in Budapest your friends will lend you the money for the flights to London. (Which could obviously not be purchased in Prague). On Monday, Smetana did not receive the passports that he had been promised. Herr Schubert is of course furious that I wasn’t sent the passports, and is trying everything he can to get them.

Mother and daughter waited all day for the call to say when Fritz could set off. On Tuesday, they were told that they should leave the following morning, and go to Hodonin, a village on the Slovakian border. There, they should meet Smetana in a guesthouse opposite the station. Fritzi, who delivered this message, went on to explain that Smetana had called her from her bed at 10pm, because he needed money in order to purchase the necessary Pengö and Marks from the waiter at Hotel Sroubek. After 11pm, he called again to say that he was already over the town border. The day was spent saying farewells, packing a few things and trying to put the house in order as much as possible, without making it known that they were planning to escape. In the evening, a long distance call from Luhacovice surprised them, which she didn’t want to take at first, Fritz called, he had the emigration papers, he just had to go to Bratislava to get the Hungarian visa. Everything else was going as planned.

Shortly after 5am, they left the house. The (Czech) housekeeper, who they had wanted to avoid, came out to wish them luck, her only son had also left, to Batavia. The journey to Brünn passed without further incident. Then they went on to Hodonin on a slow train. The Guesthouse opposite the station bore a large sign saying: Attention! Jewish Business. In the dining room, old men sat around playing cards. The mother and daughter ordered coffee and waited. Fritz was supposed to come at four o’clock, five thirty came and went, then it was seven. Suddenly, Fritz came and sat himself down at their table.

Milady, I’ve got the tickets for the outward journey, but the Hungarian visa was not put on the passports that I have here (i.e. have received the identity documents). I will probably have to travel to Prague again – then you will travel to Luhacovice, to meet my uncle, and wait there for me. But now I have to meet the gentlemen here, so I will come back in half an hour. In the meantime, a blonde woman will come over to you, she’s the wife of a Gestapo man, give her the money that you have with you. She is completely trustworthy.

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Before we could ask any questions, he left. A few minutes later, along came a very blonde, plump woman, who sat down at the table and began to talk. Meanwhile, I slid the money over to her under the newspaper that was lying on the table, she took it and disappeared for a moment to hide it, then she explained to us that her husband was a musical director who was now with the Gestapo, and explained other things; she seemed fairly well-informed. Then Fritz returned. Everything is organised. A friend of mine owns a cinema, he has a cinema here, another in Holíč, that is the next village, over the Slovakian border. Due to this, he can travel back and forth over the border as he pleases. We’ll get a taxi to the marketplace now and wait for him there, and he will take you over the border. My friend is bringing me your passports, I will take them to Prague for the visa, and then bring them back for you.

Then we sat in the taxi and waited. A man came along and greeted Fritz; that was the Lithuanian journalist, he got into the car too and the two men chatted, but they seemed to gradually get nervous. Every second, German soldiers drove past on motorbikes. Lots of other vehicles came past too. Finally, a small, grey Tatra (Czech car brand) came along and stopped a few metres away. A man got out, and Fritz and the Lithuanian went over to him. Then, the three men appeared to negotiate for quite some time. Fritz came back, got into the car and told the driver he should drive right up to the other car. Then he gave us two exit passes (the pink tickets for so-called ‘small border traffic’, which permitted the holders to travel back and forth between border areas, for work purposes, for the day.) Everything is organised. Now we will drive to a hotel, where we must swap the car as inconspicuously as possible. In front of the hotel entrance stood the other car, with its bonnet facing us. The men – there were two of them – went into the hotel, the Lithuanian went too, then came a porter who took our luggage out of the taxi and into the hotel. After a while, the Porter carried our suitcase out of the building and to the other car. Then, Mother and I got out2Note 2: This sentence ends with …schaute und Geschafte an, which doesn’t seem to have a clear meaning – perhaps it is a mistake.Once we had waited for long enough, we got into the Tatra car, into which they had put our suitcases. It got dark. Fritz Smetana said goodbye, giving us lots of assurance.

Then the Lithuanian came along and started looking for something on the ground, turning every bit of paper lying on the street over with his foot, said Everything is fine, and went back into the hotel. Then we waited. Finally, three men came out of the hotel: the cinema-owner, the Lithuanian, who, however, left straight away, and the third man, who must have been the Gestapo man. He didn’t look that bad, quite a young guy. The German produced our papers, he already had the border ticket and the passports, and said that we shouldn’t worry and we should only speak if we were asked questions.

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So finally we set off.

After ten minutes, a barrier was laid down on the road, we were trapped at the border. The barrier was taken up, we drove through, and it was laid down again directly after we had passed. Now there was no going back anymore. In front of us was a big, elegant car and the passengers came out of the border office, and put individual pieces of their expensive clothing back into the car. That implied a very thorough border examination.

Your passports please, a German voice said, and suddenly a German soldier was standing before us. Although we were on the Czechoslovakian border, there were no Czech officials anywhere to be seen. Our Gestapo men took the passports out of the car. Today I have two ladies with me too, he said, casually. How much money do they have? Thirty koruna, the two of us said. Check the handbags, suggests a small, unsympathetic man to our soldiers. I took mine our first, he looked through all the pockets, finally he got to the small purse, in which I kept both suitcase keys, and I told him that in a polite manner. He only asked whether I had these suitcases in the car, and gave the bag back to me, then afterwards he searched Mutzi’s bag, checked our permits to travel across the border, and we drove over the bridge to the Slovakian border office. With the border officials there, our two companions just made silly jokes, showed our passes, then the Slovakian shone a bright torch at us, and we drove on into Slovakian land.

So, we are over the border said our Gestapo man. Mutzi let out a breath and I felt much lighter. I wondered whether we were away from the Nazis forever now. We drove on for about another quarter of an hour, on a very pretty road to Holíč, the next village. There, we stopped outside the only guesthouse in this tiny village, and got out of the car.

So, you must stay here and wait for the passports, which I can hopefully bring back for you as early as tomorrow, the cinema-owner said. The Gestapo man took my bracelet out of the bag and some money, which he gave to us, then he booked a room for us and went into the guesthouse with us. I felt like I was dreaming. Did that really all happen?

While we were waiting for our evening meal, we chatted to our travelling companions. I wanted to say one more thing to you, the Gestapo man said. Most importantly, you are very near the border and border surveillance is patrolling constantly, so show yourselves in public as little as possible, otherwise you might attract attention. The best thing would be to stay in your room. As identification, you have the permit to cross the border with you, and if anyone happens to ask, though I am quite sure that no one will, then say that you are going to my sister’s wedding, but you have to wait here because there is a problem with the car.

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My sister’s name is Soundse, and she lives two villages on. You know, today I was really sweating, I felt like I was sitting on hot coals, and when I feel like that, then it really means something. And then he asked Mutzi: What did you take out of your bag while the official was searching your daughter? I did see you do it, lucky that the official didn’t see, because you know, if they get suspicious then things really do get difficult. Mutzi explained to him that it was only a Franc, which she had happened to find in her bag, and that she had left it in the car. But, anyway, we had got through alright.

The German went on to explain to us that he had driven through the whole previous night to get us the Hungarian visa in Bratislava. Then, he told us again not to repeat anything that he had told us. You see, we want to go on to help others too. He came from Bavaria, and really was a nice man. The other man promised us he would give the passports to Fritz straight away, so he could set off for Prague that evening and aim to be back by the following evening. And then they said their goodbyes.

Then we were left sitting there, in the little Slovakian village, we ate a little something again and told the landlord that we would like to have tomorrow’s meals delivered to our room, and then we went upstairs. The room looked nice and clean, and, most importantly, we hoped to only have to stay there for one night. It had become quite late and we went straight to bed. We had certainly been through enough that day. Although we were tired, neither of us could sleep, but we did not tell each other this, as neither of us wanted to disturb the other, but, as we lay there in the dark, the situation first began to sink in for me properly. Now, we were over the Slovakian border, without passports, with only a small amount of money, relying completely on the honesty of two strange men; what would happen if Fritz didn’t get the visa, if they didn’t bring us the passports, if someone here suspected, etc. etc… Mutzi was probably wondering about exactly the same things. Nevertheless, we both got up cheerfully the next morning, and neither of us mentioned any of our worries, but instead reminded each other how good it was that we were over the border, and that Fritz would hopefully take us over the Hungarian border that evening, as he had promised. In my head, I kept trying to calculate the distance between Hodonin and Prague, and had a shock when it occurred to me what a huge distance it was. Maybe Fritz had not been seen straight away at the embassy – but there was no point in thinking about that so much. After breakfast we sorted some things out, and then we had nothing left to do.

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Mutzi, we won’t decide anything now – we can see what to do with the money tomorrow, when we’re on the train, I said. So, we went downstairs to see the hotel manager, to tell him that we were leaving early and to ask whether we could be driven to the station. We paid our bill, and went to bed. Or, more accurately, we laid down and began to try and decide what the best thing to do tomorrow would be. Of course, we did not tell each other of our concerns, instead we both tried to convince ourselves that everything would be fine.

It was all quite ridiculous – Mutzi and I were really lying in a tiny hotel in Holíč, (naturally, I had never heard the name of this place before in my life) on the run from Prague, our home – but on our way to Fietz and Lisinka (brother and sister, as mentioned earlier in the report)3Note 3: Slightly unclear here, though it seems Fietz and Lisinka are likely the friends in Hungary mentioned on page 2, I had to keep reminding myself of that, as it helped me to regain my courage. On top of that, there was no going back for us anymore, as we had finally got over the border. Why shouldn’t we take the money with us, anyway? It was our property, and we had had to leave everything else behind, and why – just because one man had gone crazy and wanted to take over the world. and had cause more harm than you could even comprehend. When I thought about that; that we had to smuggle money illegally across the border, I got quite worked up – but it really was not that bad. Let’s worry about that later – it’s still a whole day away, and we can wait until then to see what we’ll have to do.

In the morning, the hotel manager drove us to the station. We were very early for the train, and so I watched the people who were there waiting for the train with us. It was simple farm folk, who all looked so good-natured and chatted pleasantly to each other. Maybe, at that moment, I would gladly have swapped places with them, I was a bit nervous that we would stand out there, and if a man happened to walk by us twice, I thought he might be spying on us. Of course, the train was delayed, it had certainly been stopped at the border.

Finally, it came, and we set off with three stops and no notable events or issues to Bratislava. There, we gave in our bag and went into the city. The city itself is quite beautiful, especially the Danube, which is very wide there.

We arrived at about midday. First, we bought our tickets, actually, we booked them, as we couldn’t pick them up until the afternoon, and then we went to go and have lunch. We decided to go somewhere nice to eat, using the last of our money, as who knew whether we would be able to do that again. So, we made our way to the Carlton, the best hotel in Bratislava. After wondering around for a bit, and asking some people, we finally got there. It was really nice, the company was very mixed, partly good foreign people, and partly Nazis. After the meal, we went to pick up our tickets, and then we wanted to go and have a coffee, we had to use up all our time somewhere, so after we had walked around the square twice, backwards and forwards, we went into the first, best café. Of course, it was a Nazi café, which we noticed, to our shock. But we stayed there anyway. We were happy to be rid of the Nazis but, there, we had to go into a café that seemed to be a favourite meeting-place for Nazis.

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German newspapers everywhere, the Völkischer Beobachter etc. Suddenly, mother said You know, we should really still try and get some Pengö, I think the Carlton would be the most likely place to have them So, we went back once again and asked the porter, naturally he did not have any Pengö, but in the travel office there we could get 30 Pengö, we weren’t allowed to take more with us, apparently. When the man there saw our Czech passes, he could not understand how we had managed to get out, and went on to tell us how he had tried hard to get his family out, but that it had proved completely impossible.

Then it was five o’clock in the afternoon, which meant we still had a huge amount of time. We definitely had to go and buy some black cloth, as Smetana had advised. So we went to the Jewish quarter. It looked terrible there, many of the shops were completely locked up, the others were half empty and there was not a single shop that was not damaged. On every single one, there was some kind of anti-Jewish inscription, and some were wrecked.

We went inside one of them and the people there were so unhappy and depressed and tried to offer us all their wares. After we had got the piece of cloth, we went to a coffee house again, this time a very nationalist Czech one, which was decidedly more comfortable. We still had about a hundred Koruna left over, which we wanted to spent, as we could not take them with us. So we looked around the shops a bit more, but most of them were already closed and so we did not buy anything more at all. We went straight to the station and had a larger dinner there, to get rid of some more of the money. Mutzi wanted simply to throw the rest of it away, as we did not dare give it to the guard. We bought some cigarettes for Friedl, and a book, then boarded the train.

It was not as empty as we had predicted, there was only one empty compartment, which we headed straight into, but what should we do with the money now? Mutzi still had it in her jacket and was going to throw it out of the window, but a Slovakian border official suddenly appeared before us and asked how much money we had with us. We had not expected Bratislava to be so near the border, what should we do now?

Ja' ale ješte mi 30 korun sebou (I actually still have 30 on me) said Mutzi, namely, the Czech money that we still had with us. The officials were particularly nice, one was a very young solider, they wanted us to send the money back to a Prague address, but we did not want to do that and offered it to them, which, naturally, they refused. After a long discussion, we agreed that we would deposit it with them. Až se vrátí mužete si pro to přijít (When you return, you can collect it)…

And then they left, the train travelled onwards and nothing else happened, I had expected that the officials would come back again, but only the Hungarians came along, and then we were in Hungary.

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What should we do now? We stood by the window, behind the curtains, of course, so nobody could see us, and watched the residents. It was a long village road with very little traffic, every now and then a lorry or bicycle went by. Across from us was a small house where it seemed that countless people lived, as every other blink of the eye a different person appeared at the window. So, at least we had a little distraction. By the toilet in our guesthouse there was a small balcony that overlooked a little garden, we went out there for some fresh air, because we mostly kept the window in our room closed… today is the 13th, in two days the French visa would run out, what then? We couldn’t go back anymore. We ate, stood at the window again and waited. After tea, we saw the small car outside, it was really the cinema-owner, he got out and waved at us, came up, but he had not spoken to Fritz yet, he was on his way to see him. It was past 9 o’clock when he knocked on our door. Everything is in order, said the Cinema-owner by way of greeting. Then he handed us the passports and a letter from Fritz, then he wished us luck and said goodbye. Yes, he also said that Fritz could unfortunately not accompany us to the border, as he had to travel to Prague imminently. He also advised us to ask our host to drive to our train early, so we wouldn’t have to drag our case there ourselves, as it was quite a long way away. Then Mutz and I went back to our room and, first of all, read the letter.

Madams, I have enclosed the Hungarian visa and some money. Unfortunately, I am no longer able to accompany you any further, as I have important things to take care of, but do not worry, everything will go smoothly. I am sending you some 10 Mark notes, take them with you. Tomorrow morning you will travel to Bratislava, unfortunately you will have to spend the day there in some way or another, as your train to Budapest does not depart until after midnight. Get second-class tickets and, in Budapest, your friends will provide further help. The best way to get the money over the border will be to put it in a piece of dark-coloured cloth and hide it between the seats in an empty compartment, I do not think you will have any difficulty with this as the train will definitely be empty. So, do not worry, everything will go according to plan. You can retrieve the money at the border and exchange it in Budapest. I think that is all. Please destroy this letter as soon as you have read it.

I can’t do this, Mutz said, in despair, he said he would get us safely across the border! I’ll try and get across, but I won’t do that thing with the money! Obviously, we had both envisioned it all quite differently, he had indeed promised us many times that he would take us over the border himself, and now he had just written a letter saying we should smuggle money over the border – what were we paying him so much money for; why had we given him such a large sum the day before? But we had to get away from there, at any price, and we could not go back anymore. So, we really did not have a choice.