 |
Survivors & Witnesses |
 |
|
| Choosing to Remember from the Shoah to the Mountains | |||
|
Name: Trude Schonthal Heller Birthdate: June 19, 1922 Birthplace: Vienna, Austria Parents: Simon and Rosl Haas Schonthal Siblings: None Children: Three Grandchildren: Ten Great-grandchildren: Four |
|
||
|
Trude's father, nicknamed "Schimek" was born in Miechow, Poland on March 15, 1896 to Amelia* and Paul Schonthal. Schimek's siblings were Bedeck, Aaron, Bernard, Teal, and Adele. Paul and Amelia were successful at selling horses. Paul died as a relatively young man, and Amelia moved to Krakow where she owned several buildings and a dried fruit business. Schimek was in his early twenties when he was selecting dried fruit from a train car and heard that the Russian army was looking to enlist him. Right away Schimek boarded a train for Vienna. Once in Vienna, he met Rosl Haas at a party. Rose (Rosl) was born in Vienna on May 28, 1902 to Franziska Kohn Haas and Karl Haas. Franziska was "very orthodox." She loved traveling and the theater. Karl and Franziska also had two sons named Adolf and Erich. When Karl was a little boy, Karl's father became trapped with others in a Viennese concert hall fire. After Karl's mother was informed of her husband's death, she died "from the shock.'' Karl and his sister grew up in an orphanage. Unlike his wife, Karl was not a strictly observant Jew. He loved to eat lobster, and if he had one, he would put it in a pot in the bathtub. Rose and Schimek were married on August 21, 1921 at the Seiten Staten Temple in Vienna. Rose's parents were in the tailor supply business and helped Schimek get started in this same work. Trude says that her mother Rose was a "real business woman and loved being in the store." Many tailors shopped there. In the back of the store, Rose had a kitchen. Every week she made strudel, and she also made a fine kugelhof. Schimek did not like being "pinned down" in the store; he had "wanderlust." Schimek spoke Polish, Czech, Russian, German, Yiddish, and English. The family traveled to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Italy. Over the years, Schimek took his daughter out to buy various pets. Among these were two porcupines (one named "Meckie"), a turtle: a Brussels Griffon dog named "Zenzi" and a parakeet named "Lumpie." Trude and her parents lived in a third-floor walk-up in the Second District at Schrotzbergstrasse 8, apartment 20, which looked out onto Ausstellungsstrasse - near the park area called Hauptallee. After buying this apartment, they added a bathroom. Jews and non-Jews lived in this neighborhood. Trude and her parents loved sports and were especially big soccer fans. They traveled to different cities and countries just to attend the games of Hakoah, Vienna's Jewish soccer team. Trude's mother Rose was "interested in everyone; she listened and helped people." Rose regularly invited some of the Hakoah players to eat with them. Trude's mother and Grandmother Franziska took Trude to dances and to the theater, and entered her in beauty contests. Trude enjoyed acting and dancing. An orchestra leader wrote some songs just for Trude. When she was only three, and she danced to them at an "evening for charity." When Trude was ten her other grandmother Amelia Schonthal said that Trude's performing must end, and it did. From a young age, Trude took walks with young women who were hired to teach her English and French. Her best childhood friend was Herta Kuhne. Herta's parents were older than Trude's, and Herta did "everything" with Trude's family. Schimek was more particular about keeping kosher than Rose. He and his brothers had not been able to attend school where they grew up, but they had had a Hebrew teacher and Schimek was excellent, in Hebrew. In Vienna Trude and her parents belonged to a Temple with an organ and a choir. Men and women were separated in the Temple, but Trude remembers being able to sit with her father when she was young. Her parents adored her and she was happy. Trude went for four years to a nearby elementary school, and then to a private gymnasium for another four years. At the gymnasium students were separated for religion classes. Trude thinks that maybe half of the students at her school were Jewish. She does not remember experiencing anti-Semitism at school but knew that it existed in Vienna. From the gymnasium she moved on to a business school, mostly since Herta's father had chosen this for Herta and the girls wanted to stay together. On Friday, March 11, 1938, just several hours before the Anschluss began, a maid walked Trude to her class, and out on the streets she noticed the various signs and emblems of different political parties. A plebiscite was to be held on that Sunday to decide whether or not Austria should join with Germany. Hitler forced the resignation of the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg and German agents in Vienna. It happened illegally and without a vote. By the time that Trude came out of her class, every building had a swastika flag and crowds were cheering wildly for the Nazi party. Trude remembers that all the policemen were wearing swastika armbands: and that Jewish stores and synagogues were being plundered and burned. Back at home, Schimek said, "Our passports are ready; let's leave!" Rose convinced him that they should stay. In the first week, the rifle-toting Nazis came for their car keys (and the car). A few months later someone wanted their apartment and gave them just six hours to vacate. Hitler Youth, including those Trude had known, forced Trude and Rose to wash the streets and the walls of a Zionist center. Some of the young Nazis surrounded Trude, molesting and taunting her, while other boys restrained her terrified mother, but a German officer walked in and stopped it. Trude remembers that she cried for two whole days. The Nazis required all Jews to carry identification. Once Trude was stopped for this but she was released. Across the street from their apartment was a police station, and from her window, Trude saw people being taken away. Her non-Jewish friends stayed away and Trude thinks that they were scared. Trude and her Jewish friends would wait to go out until all the policemen were inside or away from their station. Jews were no longer able to sit on park benches, go to restaurants or to dance places. By Kristallnacht the Schonthals were living in an old apartment building where other displaced Jews were living. They had closed up one store in the 20th District but they were still operating another in the 2nd District. The morning before Kristallnacht, Trude's friend Herta called to say, ''Don't let your father leave!" But Schimek had just left. He was arrested but was able to "give the policeman what he had on him" so that he could return home before reporting back. When Schimek returned home, he said, "I'm lost, but I knew the man." He dressed in long underwear and said to his family, "I'll never see you again, I know." Rose rang the doorbell of a neighbor, an old woman who had a handicapped son, and asked her if she would hide Schimek. This neighbor let Schimek safely hide in her closet. Everyone felt badly when the neighbor's son was taken away, but relieved when he was released that same night. When the police came - with their rifles- for Schimek, Rose told them that she had not seen him since he had left that morning. Trude called their store to tell Egon Friedlander, her father's employee and Trude's friend, to close the store because bad things were happening. Trude then went downstairs to get a taxi. Schimek lay down on the floor in the back and the taxi driver did not "give them away." When they arrived at the store they went inside and cloned the iron shutters from the inside and hid there from that morning until the following night. It was Kristallnacht. They did have a telephone and a girlfriend sent sandwiches under the door. They slept on the floor and counter and Trude and Egon told ghost stories. During this time they heard screaming outside and knocking on their door. One of the neighboring storekeepers had reported that they were hiding there, but they were not discovered. When they finally decided to leave, Trude managed to open the door without tearing the swastika seal that had been placed over the keyhole. This was the last time that the Schonthals ever went to their store. They found that many Jewish men were missing, so Schimek then hid for two nights with a relative who had no husband. Egon discovered that he had also been sought for arrest. Soon the Nazis closed the Schonthal's bank accounts, and it was no longer possible to obtain exit visas. In January of 1939, Egon was visiting the Schonthal home when Schimek received a summons from the Gestapo. Schimek said, "I'm leaving.'' He and Egon decided to leave together. Schimek said that he would figure out how they would try to escape while Egon went home to see his family and to gather the barest essentials. Schimek and Egon packed their few belongings inside two of Trude's doll cases. Trude and her friend Herta had, for fun, worked-out their own ''turn-around language," similar to "pig-Latin," by inserting the sound ''awal'' into each syllable of a word. Schimek and Trude ended up sometimes using this language to communicate with each other during their escapes. The two men bought tickets and boarded the train in Vienna. Schimek was able to pay a dining car waiter to let them hide under a dining table's long tablecloth. The police discovered the doll cases, which had been placed elsewhere, but they did not find the hiding men. In Rotterdam they stepped off the train, smoked cigarettes - to look casual - and looked for an establishment with a kosher sign. They spotted such a place nearby and the people there obtained false papers for the pair to go to Antwerp, where refugees were permitted to stay for thirty days. Meanwhile Trude and Rose packed eight boxes and sent them to Schimek in Belgium. Only half of their belongings arrived. Schimek's family in Poland helped by sending money to them. Schimek called to tell his wife and daughter how he and Egon had escaped and that he had arranged with the waiter the same escape strategy for them. Trude's grandfather Karl Haas also gave them some money before they left. Toward the end of 1939, Rose and sixteen-year-old Trude boarded the train. They had no permits to leave Nazi Austria or to enter any other countries. They shared a compartment with six other people. Trude remembers that among them was a boy with a shaved head who had just been released from a concentration camp. Someone else on the train told them of receiving a telegram to inform them of an hourly hotel in Cologne, the Marienhof, which allowed refugees to stay under the eaves (in the attic). Trude and Rose went to the dining car to find the waiter who Schimek had described to them. They held menus while Trude - the braver one - told the waiter who they were and that he had promised her father that he would help them hide for twice the amount of money that her father had had to pay for his own ride to safety. The waiter replied, "Don't talk to me! I'm being watched!" They got off the train in Cologne, Germany, the last stop before the border, and went to the Marienhof Hotel. A waiter at the hotel was "pushy" with Trude and this made Rose all the more uncomfortable. For the five weeks that they stayed in Cologne, the kind proprietor of a nearby cheese shop helped sustain them with bread and cheese. At one point, the pre-Lenten carnival called Fasching brought higher-paying guests to the Marienhof so that the refugees had to move out to another place. Guides came to the hotel offering to smuggle out of Germany, for money, any hiding guests. For each escape attempt, they took the train from Cologne to Aachen Germany - the last stop before the border. Sometimes Truce and her mother walked for two days and nights to the border. When they heard threatening sounds, they jumped into a ditch or tried to hide, but they were captured, surrounded, searched, and sent back to Cologne. Sometimes the men were taken away. From Antwerp Schimek found a Nazi who wanted money from outside of Germany and who would guide the women across the border. This man led Trude and Rose from the hotel - for their fifth escape attempt - to some woods where they walked for three or four hours in the icy wet cold. This area was referred to as "no-man's land." Trude remembers a Mr. Hornick being among the four or five refugees on this attempt. A driver met them at the pre-arranged location on the other side of the woods, and drove his car, without using headlights for the first two hours, to Antwerp where they met Schimek who completed the pay-off. Reunited the Schonthal's lived in Antwerp for one year. Some of their cousins were also staying in Belgium but Trude remembers only the one named Herman Spire. These cousins did not survive. At one point, when the Chilean Consul was out of town and the vice-consul was illegally selling visas, Trude went in and bought three. Then they purchased three tickets for passage to Chile aboard the Simon Bolivar. The family checked their luggage with the appropriate personnel, but at midnight on the night before their departures a limousine flying the Chilean flag, arrived at their apartment to return their luggage. Their Chilean visas were voided, since they were illegally ''sold'' to them in the first place. The Schonthals were fortunate, however, since the Simon Bolivar left Antwerp the next day and sank in the Channel.
Their relatives in Poland sent them money and also found for them a long-lost cousin in the USA who was ''very poor and had five unmarried daughters'' but was able to send Schimek the necessary affidavits. It was a Mr. Lereur, the American Consul in Antwerp who (legally) gave Trude and Rose visas for the USA, but did not provide one for Schimek since he was born in Poland and the quota for Polish refugees was full. On March 1, 1940 Trude and Rose left for the USA aboard the "Westernland." Trude remembers that it was a ''terrible time" because they were separating again from Schimek. She also remembers that there were many sunken ships and mines in the Channel so that they could only travel during daylight. It began as a stormy nine or ten day's passage with everyone at first required to wear life preservers night and day, and most everyone was sea sick - but not Trude! She remembers that Rose played the piano on the ship, that a young Dutchman had over three hundred sick canaries, and that the crew was friendly. In New York Trude and Rose lived in Washington Heights where Rose's brother Adolf (Adi) Haas had found a room for them. Herta's boyfriend Isi Mehl took Trude to apply for her first job. She was hired to pin things onto hats. Then she got a job cleaning offices and wrapping silver for the National Silver Company. Rose worked separating wool and cotton. Trude's boss, a man named Bernstein, later helped Schimek get out of France. On May 9, 1940 Schimek telegraphed Rose and Trude that he had a visa and had booked passage for the USA for May 11th. On May 10th they read that Hitler had invaded Belgium. Not until July did they hear from Schimek again. Max, Trude's childhood boyfriend, had traveled from Greenville to New York to see Trude for the first time since they had separated in Vienna in 1938. Max was ringing Trude's doorbell when the Western Union delivery boy arrived with a telegram from Schimek saying that he was alive. The Nazis had taken him and hundreds of refugees in cattle cars to the French desert. In an internment camp there, Schimek said that he was a cook, thinking that at least that way he would be able to eat. He escaped and went to Marseilles in Vichy France but did not arrive in the USA until the summer of 1941. Trude had met Max Heller in the summer of 1937 at a resort in Austria called Bas Voslau. Max was eighteen and Trude was barely fifteen when their life-long romance began. From Belgium in 1939, Trude sent to Max her photograph with this inscription on the back: ''Perhaps we will see (each other) again in the world, and I hope you will not forget me til then... Trude." They were married in Greenville, SC on August 2, 1942. Trude and Max have three children: Francie, Susan, and Steven; ten grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, with more on the way... (as of April 2000) Steven and Maggie live in Asheville. Trude and Max have been actively involved in community service and in their synagogue throughout their adult lives. Trude speaks in the schools about the Shoah. In 1999 Furman University awarded her an honorary doctorate. She has prepared hundreds of Jewish holiday meals for her entire family! While some close family members did escape or survive the Shoah, about ninety Schonthal and Heller relatives perished. * Amelia Schonthal was the oldest (by some 20 years) person on Oscar Schindler's list. She was later murdered in Auschwitz. Other family members on the list survived. |
|||
|
Return to SHOAH main Home | Search | Index | Contact | Interns A documentation project of the Center for Diversity Education, underwritten by WNC Jewish Federation and NC Council on the Holocaust. 828 254-9044 At
UNCA this digitization project is 100% supported with federal LSTA funds
made possible through a grant |
|||
Trude
and her parents in the late 1930's (ShP26)