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Survivors & Witnesses |
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| Choosing to Remember from the Shoah to the Mountains | |||
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Name: Robert Janowitz Birthrate: March 29, 1920 Birthplace: Vienna, Austria Parents: Robert and Stephanie Kuhrieiber Janowitz Children: One
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The first Robert Janowitz, Bob's father, had moved from the Sudetenland
to Vienna to attend the University and to practice law. The Janowitz
family led a very secular life but as the younger Bob says, "…
that made no difference to the Nazis." His mother Stephanie was
born in Vienna. Two of his father's cousins also lived in Vienna. One
played in the orchestra of the Vienna Opera and he always made sure that
Bob and his family received free tickets. Another cousin was a piano
teacher who tried for many years to teach Bob piano "without too
much success."
Bob attended school Monday through Saturday. As typical of an European education, students at age ten chose a school by their ability and career interest (see footnote showing the various types of high schools). Bob decided to pursue something more technical than literary and enrolled in an all-boys "Realgymnasium." He recalls a peaceful childhood before the Nazi invasion of Austria, which included month-long vacations on the Italian coast and in the Austrian mountains with his mother, and periodically, with his father as well. Al1 of that began to change with the Nazi invasion in March 1938. When the Nazis took over Austria, they immediately put out hate propaganda about the Jews in newspapers and magazines, destroyed Jewish businesses and arrested people. Jewish attorneys and doctors were no longer allowed to practice. Hitler also banned international organizations such as the Boy Scouts - in which Bob had been active. He remembers seeing busloads of Jews being deported. No one knew to where. The Nazis confiscated gold and other valuables. Jews were desperately trying to get out of Austria, but the Austrian quota to the USA was very small and few countries would accept Jewish refugees. Bob had relations in the USA, but could not get a visa. Fortunately the Society of Friends, the Quakers, launched an international effort. With offices in Berlin and Vienna, the Quakers were working to relieve those suffering from political persecution as well as for helping Jews to emigrate. The Vienna Center Quakers were able to help some 2,408 Jews leave Austria between March 1938 and August 1939. Bob registered with the Quakers and in the summer of 1939 they helped him go to England. The Quakers were able to obtain British visas by sending boys as farm workers and girls as domestics. Some of the prominent Quakers were the Cadbury's the internationally known makers of chocolate. They established a hostel for boys in Bromsgrove, England, a small town southwest of Birmingham. Fellow classmates from Bob's high school were also in this group of twenty-five boys all approximately nineteen years old. Bob reports that in the morning there were lectures and in the afternoon the boys worked on local farms. Bob says, "We were all city boys - who had played sports - but we were not used to farm work such as stacking hay, shoveling manure and milking cows." Bob worked in Bromsgrove during the summer of 1939 and remembers that one of the "Quaker chocolate people" invited the refugee farm boys to his home to swim in his pool. After the war started, Bob's New York relatives sent him a little money so that he could go to school in London, enabling him to leave the hostel in Bromsgrove. He studied mechanical engineering and lived frugally. He ate one big meal a day at a Chinese restaurant - ''until the Chinese restaurant was no longer able to get rice." When conditions worsened the British began interning many refugees suspecting them of possibly being spies. Bob received a letter from the police ordering him to report on a certain date. Bob bought a warm jacket in case the police put him in an internment camp. The police stamped his paper: "exempt from internment as a student.'' Bob feels that he was very lucky. Many refugees later joined the army in order to get out of the internment camps. One night in 1940, Bob met Ruth Schakowski at a club for refugees. She had come to London from East Prussia to escape the Nazis. Ruth was able to leave Germany because a girlfriend decided to give up her visa for England and domestic work to try instead for entrance to Palestine. The British consulate allowed Ruth to take her place. Meanwhile, Ruth's parents were still looking for a way out. They had fled to Italy and were able to arrange passage on a steamer to America just two days before Italy entered the war. They joined relatives in Kansas City who had provided affidavits. Bob and Ruth were married in 1941. Food and clothing were tightly rationed. The Germans started to bomb London nightly, later followed by V-l's (pilotless airplanes) and V-2's (rockets). Bob became a "fire-watcher." When incendiary bombs were dropped, fire-watchers had to go out with sandbags to try to stop the fire. After graduation Bob worked in London for a consultant designing machine tools, and later for Turner Manufacturing, which had a plant in Wolverhampton, employing over 1,000 people making aircraft under-carriages and parts. Bob said that the British government was "far-sighted enough to let some companies, such as this one, work on post-war products." Bob and another refugee engineer worked on machinery for molding plastics; this was kept confidential during the war. When the war was over Bob and Ruth applied again for visas to the USA. Due to the small Austrian quota they had to wait until 1948 when a special small quota was created for refugees. Finally, Bob and Ruth were able to leave England. With only fifty dollars in their pockets to joined Ruth's parents in Kansas City. Later, they were able to gradually transfer more of their savings. Bob was not able to contact his parents during the war: but afterwards, the Red Cross located them while Bob was still in England. Somehow they had, miraculously, survived. Following the war, his father received a document stating that he had been forced to wear a Jewish star. He was in very bad health and Bob was able to have essential medicines sent to him from Switzerland. Bob worked for many years for the Norton Company in Kansas City and Detroit, and transferred to Asheville in 1980. Since his retirement he has been active in Jewish communal life. At one time Bob was President of Congregation Beth Ha Tephila and is now Treasurer. He and Ruth raised one daughter who lives in California.
Buergerschule 5th - 10th grades - Preparation for a vocation; required minimal math and language skills, followed by an apprenticeship. Realschule 5th-12th and 13th grades - For future engineers and architects; required math and science and one foreign language. Gymnasium 5th - 12th and 13th grades - For future doctors, lawyers and teachers; required both Greek and Latin) ("Gymnasium" is derived from a Greek word for school that emphasized the development of both body and mind.) Realgymnasium 5th - 12th and 13th grades - like gymnasium but with seven years of Latin plus another a foreign language.
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