Berlin, 1938: Rudolph Sabor, a teacher at a Jewish girls' school, witnesses the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht):

It strengthened my belief: this cannot be forever. The people who produced Dürer, Goethe, Kleist, a cultured people like the Germans, would wake up any day. Total delusion. The only thing I can say to make it explicable is that my love for everything German was greater than my common sense.

Afterwards, my uncle was taken to a concentration camp & murdered. He had urged me to leave. Everybody did.

From mid ’38, most of the girls had exit plans. When I left, of my class there were about 10 left. One was Laura Lewinski. She & her father were hiding—I got this from eyewitnesses later—in two separate houses. They communicated through neighbours who passed messages. One day they decided it would be safe to meet outside. They met, & after 5 minutes they were followed by an informer. They were denounced to the Gestapo & both were killed.

I was lodging with a working-class couple, Communists until ’34, when they became Nazis. It was impossible to sleep there because of the bed bugs. I complained to the Frau, she denied she had any. I then told this story to a friend of mine, who sent me an open postcard, in which he said: ‘I’m sorry to hear about your bed bugs. This postcard came to the Frau, who put this on my bedside table. But I picked up the bed bugs one by one, & nailed them to the wallpaper. I had about 40 bed bugs as evidence. That was the end.

Rudolf's future wife came to the UK early in 1939 & arranged a visa for him.

I got a telegram from my wife that the visa is on its way. That night at 3am I had a phone call from a former classmate who was now in the SS. He said: 'Rudi, hau ab [get lost]! We come & fetch you in half an hour.” And Rudi hau’d ab. I was gone in 10 minutes. I packed willy nilly: photos, books, my guitar.

The only thing that ran then was the U-Bahn which in those days was underground & above ground. It went round the city, & then it went round again, & then it went round again, always stopped at the stops, but never stopped for longer than to admit people to get off and on. I sat on this all night.

In the morning I went out to the lavatory & to buy some subsistence & phoned my landlord, & told him what had happened, & asked him: ‘Has the visa come?’ Nothing had come, so I continued the travel for another day & night. On the third morning I phoned my landlord again. He said: ‘Yes, it has come.’

I asked him to come to the station—I think it was the Zoological Garden, but I’m not quite sure. I paid him for my outstanding rent & received the visa from him. I found I had an hour and a half before my train to Hook van Holland left.

With the visa in my pocket I went to the restaurant, which was above the station. It said: ‘Juden unerwünscht’ [Jews not welcome] but I went in, idiot that I was. It only took one person to recognise me & that would have been it.

There I had my favourite dish: Leberknödel. I ordered another because I had another half hour to go, & I had a Weisse mit ‘nem Schuss. That is white beer, a very big beer Seidl & a Schuss of alcohol in it.

And suddenly, I noticed from a tree which was above me rain drops fell into my beer. But I looked round and it wasn’t raining, and I looked again in the tree and there was a cat sitting in the tree and tending to its business. And that somehow sealed my leaving Berlin when the cat piddled in my beer. That was of significance.

Rudolph Sabor

Memories

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