Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts http://www.existenz.us Volume 5, No 2, Fall 20108taught, and by my performance in class, without much home preparation. One time, when I was the only one to come up with the right answer to a tricky question of German grammar, Herr Popp, our teacher those four years, had me come to him and held me close, and, counteracting the anti-Semitic remarks he had heard among the pupils, which they no doubt heard at home and in Church, gently told them that Jews are smart and to respect them. In the third or fourth year a boy, who was an orphan and two years older than the rest of us, joined our class, having had to repeat the year twice so far. He lived with his older and newly-wed sister. To his brother-in-law he was an unwelcome burden; he came to school in tatters, sometimes had been beaten, always hungry. To those around him, who were munching their mid-morning snack of the proverbial Viennese bread-and-butter, he would say in Viennese idiom, håst an Håberer? (do you have some oats?), referring to the burlap feed sacks fastened over the snout to the harness of draft horses that still shared the streets with cars in those days. Desperately troubled over such abject misery, and choking with tears, I implored my mother to give me an extra bread-and-butter for him. It is my earliest memory of standing up for others. Soon I would do so in a foolish way. But in time it would develop into a circumspect social conscience.Times were indeed dismal, anything but tranquil times. In crass contrast to the prevailing mood, Popp taught us a German folksong: Schön ist die Jugend bei frohen Zeiten, schön ist die Jugendzeit, sie kommt nicht mehr. So hört' ichs öfter von alten Leuten...sie kommt nicht mehr, kehrt niemals wieder. Youth is beautiful in tranquil times, fair the time of youth, it won't return. I often heard that from old folks... it won't come back, never return. To me this signaled a first consciousness of the passage of time. It was not simply a matter of carpe diem; yet, only much later would it impel me consider how seriously a philosopher I studied recognized human temporality as a fundamental condition for man's being and for realizing truth. There was another small but significant musical phrase I heard. It was in a song my older sister had learned in Gymnasium and sang one time, and it stuck in my mind over the decades: warte nur, warte nur, balde ruhest du auch, (wait, wait a while, soon you too will rest). Only in later years did I realize its meaning. Those are the final words of a short poem by Goethe, set to music by Schubert. Goethe had a little house in the woods near Weimar, to which he wandered, sometimes at night, for respite and rest. He had a craftsman carve the poem on its door. Goethe did not use the place in his later years. Yet, in his mid-seventies he wanted to be taken there once more, and when he read those last words on the door tears welled up: the hike to the little house for the night's rest revealed itself now to be a metaphor for the final passing of time. The neighborhood where I lived in those early years contributed to my isolation from peers and playmates, an isolation in which an inner life was beginning to grow. I read a lot, trying literature beyond my understanding, perused newspapers. I remember my fascination with a page-long newspaper feature on the centenary of Goethe's death; it taught me an appreciation of the greatness of a mind gifted with a wise and sober sprit. There were other influences. In those days religious education was mandatory in Austria. For Jewish children this meant a weekly hour of Bible study and a weekly Sabbath synagogue service arranged especially for youngsters. (In addition, my parents sent me to Hebrew school.) The story of Joseph was my favorite and an inspiration, and would remain so throughout my life. Falling because of his brothers' betrayal, humiliated by Potiphars's wife, Joseph endured all and at the right moment prevailed through his wit and wisdom. I soon associated this story with the first of the following phrases from the "Eighteen Benedictions," the main prayer recited by Jews standing up like free men before God: somekh nophlim ve-rophe holim u-matir assurim Addressing God, it means, "You raise the fallen, and heal the sick, and free those in chains." It seemed odd to me that Joseph's rise from his fallen state should be attributed to God, and I tried to make sense of this. The German proverb Hilf dir selbst, so hilft dir Gott (help yourself, thus God helps you) was too subtle. Again, much later I realized the transcending nature of thought and the idea of partaking—in freedom and within the confines of our temporality—of Transcedence. On a less sublime plane, I read my sister's copy of Robinson Crusoe and was impressed by Crusoe's enduring being cast onto an island and surviving the long ordeal by improvising a way of life: One has to live beyond the desperate present and toward one's salvation. Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts http://www.existenz.us Volume 5, No 2, Fall 20109I attended the Sabbath youth services at the Community synagogue in our District. Its young Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein officiated at those services, though the sermons were sometimes given by rabbinical students. While the latter were better orators and held the attention of the unruly crowd of youngsters by amusing them, the Rabbi never talked down to them. He was earnest—to some of the children forbiddingly so—and while I did not always grasp what he presented, I understood that there was something important to understand. I realized I was in the presence of a scholar, and, while I never wished to become a rabbi, he inspired me to a life of learning and scholarship. I certainly could not have imagined how preoccupied I would be for decades of my later life with the philosophical problems arising from Murmelstein's controversial role during the Holocaust, in connection with which I would meet him again some forty years later.2My father represented his firm in the Austrian provinces. When he was at home, he told me things that made deep impressions on me. First, he told me some of the more awesome stories of the Bible. I was especially taken with the story that it was as if all generations of Jews stood at Mount Sinai to accept God's teaching as written in the Torah.3 It would lead to my interest in the phenomenon of faith. Second, my father was an opera buff; his favorites were by Wagner—not all, Parsifal and Götterdämmerungwere too ponderous, Tristan too boring. He fired my imagination, especially with the Ring's stories of the foibles, the joys and sufferings, and the good and foul deeds of man as represented by "gods" and their all-too-human human offspring. When we got a loudspeaker radio in the mid-1930s, I could not get enough of the opera broadcasts. I gained an appreciation of legends and myths, and of their artistic representation, as well as an early insight into the power—if not as yet the nature—of symbolism and the non-conceptual thought content of ideas. The year I turned ten, 1934, was a year of personal change, and it was the time when the wider world 2 CSE Comment: LHE's magnum opus on the subject, Choices under the Duress of the Holocaust, which he coauthored with EE, is currently (September 2011) being reviewed for publication.3 CSE Comment: This tradition is found in Rabbinic lore (i.e., in the midrashic literature or oral Torah), which is viewed as part of the biblical tradition in Judaism. obtruded with fury on my childish consciousness, which was filled with ideas, as yet without form or discipline. I applied to the Jewish Gymnasium4 in Vienna with the best grade on the entrance exam, and entered in the fall. The irruption of the unfolding social and political actuality into my life at that tender age was most influential. Earlier, in February, I had been sick at home, and from the window I could see the conservative (Christian-Social) Federal Government troops firing cannons at the row of the housing project for workers in Döbling, about a mile away, to put down the uprising by the Social-Democrats in Vienna, who were trying to install a new regime. A few days later I watched with amazement the passing of open Überfallswagen (razzia buses), filled with arrested workers and under guard of police with rifles at the ready. The Christian-Social regime abrogated the republican constitution of 1919 and promulgated a preliminary constitution based on the social program suggested by the Papal encyclical Quadragesimo anno. Soon after the brutal quashing of the uprising, the Social-Democratic Principal of the primary school, Herr Goriczal, a sweet and kindly man, was replaced by an unsmiling forbidding-looking man with a red beard. A huge placard depicting Chancellor Dr. Engelbert Dollfuss against the red-white-red flag of the Austrian Republic was affixed to the wall of the stairwell; and before instruction began, the pupils had to pray under the leadership of their teacher. I stood respectfully and silently while the rest of the class said the Lord's Prayer and crossed themselves at the phrase "In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen." I stood out like a sore thumb. The Social-Democrats (the "Reds") were outlawed by the Christian-Social regime (the "Blacks"). In our predominately red neighborhood new greetings made their rounds: "NER" i.e., nun erst recht, meaning "now more than ever"; and Landgsöchts, meaning "country cured ham," i.e., black on the outside, red on the inside. Ever for the underdog, I designed little triangular red flags out of construction paper, which, folded over, I glued on a pin, to be stuck as an emblem on clothing. They became so popular in my class that boys would come with orders from their parents. The regime 4 The Zwi Perez Chajes Gymnasium, which was reopened and reconstituted as a comprehensive Jewish day school as of 1980. See http://www.zpc.at/gymnasium/g_haupt.html. Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts http://www.existenz.us Volume 5, No 2, Fall 201010initiated ways to gain the approval and loyalty of the youngest generation by associating the new order with patriotism. They portrayed Dollfuss as a hero who saved Austria from turmoil, and staged a pageant depicting the course of Austrian history as rising from a defensive border region of the early Holy Roman Empire and leading to the new (Austro-Fascism, i.e., the semi-Fascist) Christian-Social republic. Though the school year was almost over, they were able to provide the school children with a new, quickly compiled soft-cover history book, culminating in an explanation of the new constitution, which would insure the peace and well-being of all levels of society organized by estates, rather than as workers/capitalists, etc. Between the establishment of the Republic of Austria (in 1918) and its demise with the Anschluss to Germany (1938), the Jewish Community of Vienna distributed to the Jewish children a book about the history of the Jews in Vienna. The front cover depicted a horrific scene, namely an early 16th century woodcut of Jews being burned in a pit, and non-Jews feeding the fire with bundles of wood. The book itself told both the great and the sad stories of almost 1000 years. The reproduction of the woodcut referred to the event of the Vienna Gezerah, i.e., [evil] decree. In 1420-21 the ruling Duke expelled Jews from the places under his rule; some of the remaining Jews of Vienna committed suicide rather than face forced baptism. In the final extinction of the medieval community, the rest lost their lives by being burned alive; students of the recently established University of Vienna were the main instigators. (It was not until a few decades after the Holocaust that an archeological dig laid bare some vestiges of that community, including the foundation of a good-sized synagogue). With horror we Jewish children went to what was and is still called Judenplatz(Jews' Square, the square that was leveled over what had been the center of the medieval community), and read the memorial plaque in archaic German that was affixed a few decades after the event and can still be seen over the portal of the medieval building. In effect it gives a pious Christian justification for the cruel and bloody event. It was puzzling to a thoughtful child's mind that such things could actually have happened. But now it was 500 years later, and, though vaguely aware of what our forebears had to face to uphold their Jewishness, I felt secure in where I was and the times I was in. One heard stories from across the border, however, where the Nazis had already held sway for over a year. On the one hand, they seemed to have matters more firmly in hand, promoting their economic upswing more vigorously. Some young men in Vienna surreptitiously joined the ranks of the Nazi party, thus reviving the postwar idea of joining what was left of Austria after fall of the Empire with mightier Germany. On the other hand, the Nazi regime gave free reign to anti-Jewish policy, and the rabble acted accordingly. Among the Jews of Vienna these reports were received with great alarm; only in retrospect could those early years of the persecution be seen as mild. Not only Jews were beginning to say, "This cannot happen here," i.e., in Austria. Nonetheless, the subliminal anti-Semitism among the Roman Catholic Viennese was beginning to surface, encouraged by these reports from Germany. I was accosted more than once by small gangs of street urchins with the utterly perplexing news that "You Jews killed our Savior!" and with other obscene mockeries I shall not repeat here. One time I was beaten, and when my father saw the black and blue marks on my face, he knew what it was about. Being a Jew was simply natural to me even at that early age, and I found the strength within me to uphold my dignity of being a Jew. Yet, having mastered what is entailed in being a Jew only to the extent of what was in keeping with my tender age, I was puzzled why being a Jew should be a challenge. I began to be frightened at the sight of a cross, and abhorred the, occasionally hideous, display of a crucifix with Jesus hanging on the cross. Already at that early age, the problematic nature of being a Jew in the world that I lived in gave me what would turn out to be a lifelong preoccupation with a problem that defied penetration by thought, no matter how deep. Nazi Germany had hinted at its interest in having Austria join it, but it was then still in the process of establishing its regime as a one-party state with exclusive ruling power. Even though Nazism in Austria was still in its infancy, however, with the German Nazi leadership's silent approval, an amateurish band of Nazis attempted a coup. They were able to enter Chancellor Dollfuss' office and shot him before they were overtaken. The Chancellor died and was declared a martyr. My confrontation with the event gave me a sense of paralyzing helplessness. The illusion was shattered that earthshaking events born out of violence were a matter of ancient history (i.e., ten years before I was born), resulting in the outbreak of the (First) World War, which my father recounted to me a number of times. I began to realize that life was not only what one's parents and milieu provided, but Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts http://www.existenz.us Volume 5, No 2, Fall 201011what burst unwanted and unexpected into it, beyond one's control, beyond one's will. The attempted coup made a deep impression on me, reinforced by the news, a few weeks later, of the assassination of King Peter I of Yugoslavia on his arrival in Marseilles on a peace mission; the French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou received him and was also killed. The murder by one individual of such high-ranking statesmen appalled me. But beyond that, the inevitable and necessary armed means of exercising political power would in time preoccupy me no less than the question of personal freedom in contraposition to political freedom.In September 1934 I began what would turn out to be only four years at the Jewish Gymnasium. A short time after the beginning of the school year, the younger classes were convened in an assembly to listen to Professor Rosler give a commemorative speech in honor of the recently murdered Chancellor Dr. Dollfuss. We children were well aware that the assembly was monitored by a delegate of the regime. I had entered the Jewish Gymnasium with high expectations. And I yearned for friendship and companionship. The expectations were not fulfilled, and the yearnings were frustrated. I remember the thrill of learning the new fields: Latin, Literature, Arithmetic, Geometry, World Geography, and History; in Hebrew we read texts from the Bible in the original. This being Vienna, singing was an important, though not a major, academic field. My voice was soon recognized as being good enough for me to sing in a small choir of fellow students, which performed in small school gatherings at observances or celebrations. A classmate, the scion of two generations of choirmasters at Vienna's Great Synagogue, was installed as choirmaster, and, before the first school year was over, his father had accepted me in the children's section of that choir. I was pleased by the achievement and recognition. The form, the rhythm, the harmony of the different voices, and the capacity of music to express different moods, including both joy and solemnity, made a deep and lasting impression on me, as did the singing in unison, sometimes as accompaniment to the cantor, as well as the responsibility borne by him. In this connection I remember another formative experience: My sister,5four years older than I, was at mid-teen age and had 5 CSE Comment: Leonore Ehrlich Freiman (Budzów, Poland 1920—Vancouver, B.C. 2004). begun to sing the Schlager (hits) then current in Vienna and among her friends. My father tolerated this with bemused disdain, and I followed suit. I was offended by the casual nature of the compositions and the trivial lyrics; my distance from what in time would be called "pop music" has lasted a lifetime, though I recognized the occasional beauty of songs and their performance. As an early teenager a yearning for serious music arose in me, but that had to wait until America, since my father was an opera buff only. These early impressions concerning music made me aware of standards of taste, performance, and accomplishment, and over the years made me receptive to disparate suggestions that would lead to my realization of the metronothetic of thought, i.e., that metron (measure) is a fundamental phenomenon of thought. For example, when Plato thinks that realities are not full realizations of but merely participate in ideas; or when Plato quotes Protagoras's dictum that man is the measure of all things; but most decisively Jaspers' phenomenology of the spirit as a distinct dimension of thought, and his occasional use of niveauin appraising a person's character, actions, Bildung, or thought. I would also be puzzled that, in his Logic, Hegel, constrained by the discipline of his dialectic progression, imagined measure merely to arise from the synthesis of quality and quantity; it seemed to me that measure can be fundamental to quality as well as quantity (though in each in a different way), and not simply the dialectical reduction of the former to the latter, as in socio-psychological statistics. Measuring temperature, though useful for how we are dressed for prevailing weather conditions, is not about qualities such as hot or cold, but about modern mathematized physics. All such reflections, rooted in the early realization of ideal standards, had to wait for a much later time of life. As regards the academic subjects of the Gymnasium, I experienced failure in contrast to my high expectations. High achievement in primary school was based on my easy absorption of what was taught in class. I simply had not learned to study at home, or even to do assigned homework properly. But Gymnasium, an eight-year university preparatory course, was serious business, requiring a disciplined regimen from the beginning. Also, I was not prepared for and did not take to the mode of teaching in the Gymnasium. Aside from the deference to the authority of teachers, especially those with the professorial title (earned by those who held doctorates), we had to stand in front of the class for reciting as well as for individual Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts http://www.existenz.us Volume 5, No 2, Fall 201012oral exams. On those occasions the anxiety of standing on the raised podium, painfully aware of some twenty pairs of eyes and ears poised to see and hear me, cost me a goodly part of displaying what I knew and what I could do. My awkwardness did not endear me to the teachers. It turned out that in this atmosphere it was important for students to meet as friends after school and study together. This was not an option for me, since I neither lived within walking distance of others nor in the sort of neighborhood for Jewish youngsters to walk to with a sense of safety. Still, what I heard in class and what I absorbed in cursory homework constituted a good amount of what did not reliably show in exams, but which I carried usefully with me in later life. Edith, who would in time be my wife, was the Prima6 of her class; in later years she would often be amazed by what I remembered of the intricacies of Latin, which she had long forgotten. As to companions, there were a few. Ours was a large classroom, with space in the back, which we used in the ten-minute pause between classes to let off early teen-age steam. After a sheltered early childhood, I was amazed what games and tricks one could play, in which I joined with gusto. The professors took turns walking the halls during the break, and a boy gave a signal whenever he saw a professor approach. It did not always work, and I was usually one of the cut-ups. My reputation in behavior also went down. Sometimes, when no one got caught, the class was asked that the guilty ones stand up. Usually no one stood up, so I would stand up, even if I had not been one of the participants. I was only vaguely aware that it was wrong, but I thought it honorable to stand up for others, since my reputation was tarnished anyway. It was an utterly foolish thing to do. I still had a lot to learn about right and wrong, about what was sound and what was foolish.The second year of Gymnasium was known as particularly difficult. My parents seemed to have no idea of what was involved in succeeding there. They had no experience in supervision of my studies and homework. My father had left Gymnasium because the closest university had a numerusclausus with respect to Jewish applicants, and in any case he was more interested in preparing for a commercial career. All my mother had to offer was her memory of her brother Max, the first in the family and only one among her 6 CSE Comment: the best student in the class. many siblings to go to Gymnasium and on to university, having been capable of studying in a roomful of family members, as if no one else were there. In retrospect I can say that it was no surprise that I flunked the second year and had to repeat it. The last time we met Elisabeth Saner before her untimely death, we talked about my failure. Being a schoolteacher, she asked, "Were you not motivated?" The question surprised me, because my motivation to learn was strong and unabated. My frequent daydreaming in class was not vacuous, because I was preoccupied with my thoughts. And my hurried way of doing homework gave me time to read and study what was of more immediate interest to me. I told Elisabeth that by the time I was 14 or 15, I had read half of Shakespeare's some 30 plays in the Schlegel-Tieck translation. The significance of KingLear and Hamletwere then still too difficult to grasp, JuliusCaesarfascinated me because it incarnated history. Somehow Timon of Athens made the deepest impression on me. As I understood it at that time, here was a rich man foolishly bestowing largesse on sycophants, who turned away from and against him once the riches were spent. Instead of contempt for their perfidiousness, Timon turns to self-destructive hatred. I naively thought that an alternative was possible, namely to rise from one's fallenness with head held high, come what may; I would find out, vital though it was, that there are times when this is insufficient. In those years I read many other authors. But, there was always Goethe and his Faust. I read the first part several times. The second part was, at that time of life, too diffuse, but I did read the last act patiently, especially the end. Faust was my preliminary exposure to philosophy. It was not as yet philosophizing; instead, I took from it passages that impressed me, pearls of wisdom, so to say. From Faust's initial declamation I sensed his inner anguish over the fact that after studying all that can be studied, including philosophy and theology, he finds that he is no wiser than before. And yet, he is driven to penetrate "what sustains the world at its inmost core." In contrast thereto is Faust's assistant Wagner, who exits after his intrusion with "I know much, but would know everything." In time I would realize that man in time can at best attain a fundamental principle, upheld not as proven conclusion but in the mode of faith. In entering into his wager with the Devil, Faust is contemptuous of the Devil's wiles and steadfastly maintains that if ever he were content enough to rest, Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts http://www.existenz.us Volume 5, No 2, Fall 201013or: "if ever I would say to a moment, stay, you are so fair," then the Devil would have won the bet. The term of the wager ties in with Faust's last scene. Blinded by the burden of cares (Heidegger cites this episode in presenting his idea of care: Sorge), Faust is either not aware of his blindness or perceives it as a symbol: "Night descends more deeply, but within me shines bright light." In this light, Faust oscillates between final visions of wisdom and illusions of his accomplishments. As to the latter, he imagines an army of laborers to be building the wall he had designed to hold back the sea, thus providing new land for multitudes. He believes that with this achievement "the trace of [his] earthly existence will not perish for eons." On the other hand, in an ironical twist—which did not escape my childish mind—through his causing an old couple's house to be burned down (and, hence, their deaths) because it stood in the way of the project, Faust realizes "wisdom's ultimate conclusion: to stand in freedom with people that are free." Murder and forced labor here, a free man among free men there. The blind Faust is so taken with his vision that in anticipation of his illusory accomplishment he utters the fateful words: "stay, you are so fair," and dies. The Devil thinks he has won the wager, and to claim Faust's soul he stands before God, Who tells him: Wer immer strebend sich bemüht, den können wir erlösen. We can redeem him, who ceaselessly strives and labors. God says "can redeem," not "do redeem." Thus the promise of salvation is not a matter of fulfillment in life eternal, but how we labor toward it in our temporal lives.Did I understand all this in my early teens? I doubt it. But I perceived these thoughts to be pregnant with meaning and powerfully expressed in simplicity as only Goethe could. I carried them with me as I grew up, and, in so many ways, I recognized their meaning in later life. Just one example: Jaspers concludes his radio lectures of 1950 (Way to Wisdom)with these words:We have but one actuality: here and now. What we miss by evasion will never return.... Each day is precious: a moment can be everything. We are remiss in our task if we lose ourselves in past or future.... [O]nly by taking hold of time do we get to where all time is extinguished.In those early years of my education and self-education, I encountered many other thoughts and insights which impressed me and made me receptive for their philosophical elaboration in later life. Here only three examples: Bias was one of the seven wise men of Ancient Greece. One time his hometown of Priene (in Asia Minor) was about to be sacked, and the inhabitants began to flee, carrying whatever of their possession they could, all but Bias. The others asked him why he was not carrying his belongings, to which Bias responded (presumably in Greek) omnem meum mecum porto, "all that is mine I carry with me." This story alerted me to the primacy of man's thoughtful inner life. The other two examples taught me again that man is confined to time, that he must die, that what he is and does in temporal life counts, and that the material aspects of life, though indispensable, are not of primary importance. The second story deals with Croesus, the legendarily rich King of Lydia. When Solon visited Lydia, Croesus pointed to his riches and wanted Solon to admit that he was the happiest man on earth, to which Solon responded, "I do not as yet know how you will die." Sometime later Croesus foolishly made war against and was defeated by the Persian King Cyrus, who then him placed on a pyre. Croesus's last words were, "Solon, Solon, Solon…"Finally, I refer to a short story with the title "How much Land does a Man Need?" by Tolstoy. It is the story of a man greedy for land, who upon death only owned a plot six feet by three. Having flunked sixth grade and faced with having to repeat the year, my father wanted to take me out of the Gymnasium and have me prepare for a commercial career, perhaps also to save me from embarrassment. I implored him to let me stay, and he relented. In September, mindful of my failure but with head held high, I entered the class of students one year younger than I. To my astonishment they applauded; evidently I had quite a reputation. I was thinking of somekh nophlim, of a chance to rise again after falling through failure.My first year in the new class (1936/1937) was academically better, mainly because I remembered so much from the previous year. I still had no friend with whom I could study. As to companionship, there was a very bright boy, Theo F., who was a cutup and went so far as to annoy the teachers, a thing I would never do. My interests and capacities expanded. I became keenly interested in biology, a school subject. The teacher, Professor Kann, had us draw familiar biological objects to enhance a sense of observation; I thrived on Miss Kann's special approbation of my performance. I bought myself small booklets on Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts http://www.existenz.us Volume 5, No 2, Fall 201014astronomy, learned about amazing things that happen in the farthest reaches of the cosmos, and began to take notes on observing the daily change of sundown. Perhaps most telling is a drawing from art class. Professor Löwenfeld assigned us to draw with imagination, and then color subjects with which we were familiar, often biblical themes. I took three of my drawings with me when I emigrated. As I look at them, I realize my sense of observation and my early talent for drawing. The drawing from that year was the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise. Paradise is to the right; the scene is lush with plants, a pond, and filled with animals—I loved animals, in their diversity, beauty and variety of shapes since very early childhood, when I decided that I would become a veterinarian. To the left is the fallow earth to which Adam has already stepped, while Eve picks up a frond as a souvenir. The two hold each other tenderly by the arm, signaling a loving bond the meaning of which I could not have fathomed at that age. In the spring of 1937 I became bar-mitzvah with Rabbi Murmelstein, and soon after had my first brush with death. I was one of the first in the school to come down with diphtheria. When a few more cases occurred, the school was closed for a while. Even though I was very sick, I remember our physician and two professors of the medical faculty consulting about my case at my bedside. At that time antibiotics had not as yet been developed, and the only thing to do was to hospitalize me. That evening I was picked up by an ambulance, and a huge man carried me down the steps. Like a limp sack I was slung over his shoulder and could see the neighbors watching, their faces betraying extreme concern. I vaguely wondered whether I would ever be back. The first few days at the hospital I was hardly awake, but I do remember interns taking turns examining me. When the crisis passed, they began feeding me. One of the nurses, the blond one, brought me the heel of a loaf of bread covered with a thick layer of butter and a slice of ham. I looked at it and saw that not only was meat and dairy combined, but the meat was pork, as non-kosher as food can be. I told her, I could not eat this. "Why not?" she asked. "For ritual reasons," I replied. She understood and explained that God would want me to get well, and eating this would help. I do not know from where I had strength to fight the disease; rophe holim (You heal the sick) came to mind.After three weeks I was well enough to be dismissed. In preparation, I was to be bathed from head to foot. The blond nurse and another one undressed me. When the latter nurse saw that I was Jewish, she proceeded to vituperate against the Jews; the blond one put a stop to it by saying, Juden sind auch Menschen(Jews are also human beings). Though I was astonished at that attack on me by an adult, especially in my helpless and embarrassing state, I was sufficiently inured against the prevailing anti-Semitism not to let it get me down. I did not even tell my parents about it. But, I never forgot it. It was another puzzle to think about. Within a year that nurse would not have to work with Jewish staff or care for Jewish patients; the former would be dismissed, the latter no longer admitted. The school year 1937/38 would be the last one for most of the students at the Jewish Gymnasium. We were delighted with a new subject, namely English. After the intricate grammars of German, Latin, and Hebrew, English was easy, well worth the price of learning the unusual way of using the alphabet. To those of us who would be fortunate enough to escape what was about to descend on us, that one year of English would prove to be a godsend. In February 1938 Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg was summoned to meet secretly with Adolf Hitler. The latter pressured Schuschnigg to restore the legitimacy of the Nazi Party in Austria. In the following weeks the pressure of the German Nazi regime on the Schuschnigg government mounted. Finally, on March 9, 1938 Schuschnigg announced a plebiscite, in effect asking the Austrian voters whether they preferred an independent Austria to one that would be part of Germany under the Nazi regime. The plebiscite was to take place in four days, on March 13. Schuschnigg was celebrated as heroically standing up to Hitler, and it was evident that the plebiscite would deliver a resounding victory to him and a rejection of Hitler. To meet the challenge, Hitler sent an ultimatum two days later, on Friday, March 11, that the plebiscite be postponed, that Schuschnigg resign, and that a Nazi be installed as Chancellor. The alternative was that the readily poised German army units would enter Austria and, if they met resistance, they would shoot their way in. On Fridays, between 7:00 and 8:00 pm, to herald the coming weekend, Austrian radio would bring a program of light music. Shortly after 7:00, as my family and many other Jewish households were finishing setting the table for the Sabbath meal, an announcer interrupted the broadcast for a special announcement. To the astonishment of the listeners they recognized the voice of Chancellor Schuschnigg, who told them that Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts http://www.existenz.us Volume 5, No 2, Fall 201015his government was resigning under threat of a German invasion, that they were yielding to force, and that he did not wish "to spill German blood," i.e., that the Austrian army had been ordered not to resist the German forces. Thus Schuschnigg, in effect, abandoned the Jews to the fate that awaited them under Nazi Germany's racial policy, after having successfully solicited the support of the Jewish community. Referring to the allegations broadcast by Germany that Austria was in turmoil, Schuschnigg emphatically called them lies "from A to Z." Thus he took leave of his brief place in history.We were shocked. What would happen now? We began to find out soon enough. To escape the Russian Revolution, Frau Bomse, our poor neighbor, had carried her little deaf-and-mute son on her back and had gone on foot until she reached the Austrian lands. That Saturday morning, March 12, she ventured out on the street and saw that around the corner the rabble had plundered Herr Weinberg's fabric store and beaten him bloody, while the friendly neighborhood policeman stood by without lifting a finger. Frau Bomse was not surprised; she remembered similar behavior by the Russian police during the pogroms.Hitler was expected to enter Austria and proceed to the city of Linz. The old buildings on the central square were decorated with Nazi flags and matching festoon. All but one. The square was filled with people, who were being regaled by a retired Captain Ziebland. The people were taught to shout in unison: Ein Volk, ein Reich! (one people, one country), and soon an enhanced version: Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer. Fearfully we wondered: How did easygoing Austrians, who traditionally looked with disdain on the ways of "the Prussians," turn overnight into a regimented mass hailing Hitler? But, Hitler took his time. As dusk fell, the windows of the houses facing the square were lit up, all but one. It was the property of a Jew and showed neither flag nor festoon. And here it came: Ziebland said, "We know who our friends are." The howl of the crowd was frightening. Finally, the house displayed flag and festoon, and the lights were turned on. Now the crowd sounded menacing. Shaken, we turned off the broadcast. The question remained: Now what? Self-assured and with inner strength, head held high come what may? Not in this situation, the realities of which would now unfold. On Monday, March 14, 1938 Hitler entered Vienna and proclaimed the Anschluss of Austria to Germany. On Wednesday schools reopened, except the Jewish Gymnasium. A few days later spokesmen of the Jewish Community (the leaders were arrested) managed to gain permission for our school to remain open until the end of the school year. We had new students in our class, who transferred from other schools from which they had been expelled because they were Jews. One boy told us what happened the morning when schools were reopened. One of his fellow students stood up and told the teacher he refused to sit in a class together with a Jew. There were other preliminary persecutions. Jewish men and women were picked up at random to scrub from the pavement slogans in favor of Schuschnigg's plebiscite. My father was one of them. At Hochstädtplatz he acted as if it was the most natural thing to do, even calling to an acquaintance watching from a window, "Nice evening, eh?" However, for most of those who had to scrub, surrounded by a mob of hostile watchers, it was a harrowing and utterly humiliating experience.The postponed plebiscite, now scheduled for April 10, asked the united German people whether they approved of the Anschluss. There ensued a hurry of activity to make sure the former Austrians would unanimously vote in favor. The Jews were removed from the voter lists. One after another of the Nazi big shots came to Vienna to give their rousing speeches. Hitler was scheduled for the day before the plebiscite. In preparation the streets he would travel were lined with huge pylons displaying the Nazi flag and crowned with the swastika symbol. The days of the Anschluss coincided with the Jewish festival of Purim. Its highpoint is the reading of the Scroll of Esther, recounting the saving of the Jews of Susa, the capital of the ancient Persian Empire, from the slaughter planned by King Xerxes's (Heb: Ahashverosh) Prime Minister Haman. Only thanks to the heroic effort of the Jewish Queen Esther and her uncle Mordecai was the danger averted. For children and youngsters a lot of merriment is connected with the festival. For example, at the synagogue reading of the Scroll, the children turn noisy graggers7 at the mention of Haman. All that was cancelled because of the Anschluss.Soon after our school reopened, Professor Löwenfeld gave us an assignment in his art class to 7 CSE Comment: a type of ratchet. Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts http://www.existenz.us Volume 5, No 2, Fall 201016make up for our missing the Purim festivities. It was the scene where the humiliated evil Haman was forced by the King to conduct the horse with the honored Mordecai through the crowd (Esther 6). With what seemed like an unspoken though unmistakable allusion to the pylons being erected, Löwenfeld had us imagine the setting of Mordecai's triumph. In my case, I drew rows of columns, adorned with Jewish symbols and colors, lining the two sides of the avenue. As usual, Löwenfeld walked the aisles to see the progress of our work. When he saw mine, he noticed the Hitler moustache and cowlick over Haman's forehead and silently took my brush to change the style of the moustache, telling me to have Haman sport a beard. Later generations of writers on the Holocaust would regard childish gestures such as mine as a first trace of resistance, a concept whose polar opposite would be posited as characterizing the Jewish victims of the Holocaust going to their death like sheep to slaughter. The terms of the polarity are tenuous, and as such do not account for the different stages of our fear induced by terror—of imposed spiritual as well as bodily impotence. Above all, one had to think of the possible consequences of any show of resistance, for oneself as well as the others. In retrospect I learned to appreciate the wisdom of Löwenfeld's monitoring our efforts, not only artistically but with a view to our new situation, and at the beginning of the persecution that would soon get much worse. If nothing else, Löwenfeld tried to confirm and uphold our self-esteem for us as Jews in the coming times that would test our mettle, young as we were. ExperiencesThe teenage years are when we become adults, begin to think about what to do with our lives, and, above all, enjoy the delights of being young. Under normal circumstances, we gradually slide into this period of life. But, the new situation consequent on the Anschlussthrust me prematurely into that stage as I turned fourteen. Those three features were not absent, but during the phases of the ensuing years they stayed at the periphery of my concerns. In the phase that ended with the school year—and for almost all of us with the end of the school—we became more and more aware of the pall that had descended on us. Though I could hardly imagine it, the realization became inescapable that the members of our class would be distributed all over the world, to places that hitherto were merely names to us. Up to now, the near or the far future, whatever it might turn out to be, would be enacted in the ambience of my age-companions, my family, and the society at large, as well as in the venue of my native country and the city with its culture, its challenges, and the opportunities it offered. But now all that was gone; in a real sense my world had vanished. Would there be a somewhere in the world out there, that could become my world? Once I met Herr Popp on my way home. It was the first time we had met since I left primary school, and the last time ever. He had been a teacher since before World War I, and I was to be the first of his pupils whom he expected to study at the university. He was visibly disappointed, though not surprised, when I responded to his question as to what would happen to me and my family, "We have to emigrate." During our brief encounter he frequently looked around, and I felt he wanted to see whether he was being observed speaking in a friendly way to a Jewish youngster. In later years I recognized the incident as an early sign of the atmosphere of terror with which the regime held its citizens in thrall, while the visible persecution of the Jews served to display how the regime dealt with what it deemed to be its enemies. And, when in later studies I found Heidegger disclosing the phenomenon of anxiety (beyond fear "of something") as the fundamental mood of man's existing in time, I thought that his dwelling in abstractions kept him from recognizing induced or reinforced anxiety as a political tool of control, i.e., beyond specific fears of reprisal, etc. For fundamental anxiety is not subliminal, but takes shape in the various modes of our thinking being, in our apprehension and apperception, thus it may feed fear "of something" and feed on fear. It did not take long for the mood of terror to capture the general population. A few days after the Anschluss, when the anti-Semitic policy of the Nazi regime became clear, Frau Kieweg, our neighbor who lived in a little apartment next to ours with her husband, a long retired police officer, reassured my parents, Für Sie geh' ich durchs Feuer (for you I would go through fire). It did not take long for her to respond only furtively to my greeting when we met in the hall and for her to avoid my parents completely. "We have to emigrate," I told Herr Popp. But how, and whereto? Jews who met in the street shared with each other vague bits of leads, ways to get started, requirements, and procedures. My father had the foresight to go to the United States Consulate and register his family on the waiting list under the