Alice “Litzie” Trustin Shoah Foundation Testimony Transcription (Part 2)

Trustin, can you tell me a little about your home in Vienna growing up?

Well, we lived in an apartment, as most Viennese people do. And it was a, it is a beautiful city, and it was a beautiful city. I loved school. I loved everything I was doing. Funnily enough, I was very interested in theater, and I was able to go to a wonderful, special school, it was called the Schubert Konservatorium for acting. And that was really my big outlet. And, you know, life seemed so pleasant. We would take vacations every summer, like everybody in Austria does. And it's such a beautiful little country, it really is. And no one ever thought that these same people that you saw every day and with whom you spent time would act this way. And I know many didn't want to. I know it was tremendous fear. It was this, like a pyramid that they built that everybody was spying on everyone else. But it came to a very abrupt end. I mean, you didn't dare go out in the street. If you went to the grocery store, you know, it was a horrendous affair because is somebody going to catch you? If you were not Christian, all Christians had to wear a swastika automatically. So if you didn't wear a swastika, they knew right away, you are not a Christian, you must be Jewish. That's fair game. They could do anything they liked. How on earth my parents, you know, as a child you are afraid, but you forget about it too, but not as an adult. And it's really... You know, if any Austrian would hear some of these things, and I'm such a lucky person, I got out, but for all of those whose stories are so much worse than mine, if they would really hear this and could put themselves in my place, or someone else's place, I think that they won't believe it. Well, they've been in the state of denial [chuckles] ever since, and I can understand that too. But it was a very pleasant life. You know, we loved music, my parents loved the opera. And even though, you know, the depression was probably just as bad as anywhere else, in fact, I'm sure it was, somehow the Viennese had a much happier way of looking at things always. They were, I think, compared to the Germans, they were always easier going and happier people. And even though the times were bad, somehow people managed to rise above it, until that fateful day. But, you know, we would go to the park every day and play. And my mother we, like everyone else, we had help in the house, and she was probably our dearest friend and biggest help afterwards, although she had been married and had a child, and we had just seen her but not really regularly. And it, in fact, so many people came back to Vienna. My uncle and aunt from Israel came back to Vienna.

This was after the war?

This was after the war. They wanted to finish their life there. My two aunts that my mother was able to get out to England went back to Vienna. It was still home, you know, they just... When you were in your 40s, as they all were, I suppose, or somewhere around there, a foreign language is a very difficult thing. Not having a real profession for these women, you know, what could they really do in England? Nothing. And my mother, of course, came to the States, we brought my mother over here. So the little bit of the family that was left went back to Vienna. And I think they felt more comfortable there than England. I loved England, by the way, I just adored England, and the English and everything about it. They were the most wonderful people in the world.

Was your family very religious?

No. My father, I think probably was, because I remember once seeing him laying tefillin. And I really, I don't know how I knew what it was, but he must have explained it to me. But we had, it was a strange sort of arrangement. We belonged to a conservative synagogue in Vienna. I think it was Pazmanitentempel. And my father had a seat there, but you see, the women still stayed upstairs in those days in a conservative synagogue, in Vienna anyway. And the children had a whole different program. We had a lesson in our public school once a week given by a Jewish teacher. And we would, you know, learn things out of the Bible. And I frankly don't remember much. And we must have learned some Hebrew because when I go to temple now, there are certain prayers I can still reel off by heart, and I must have learned them then, because that's the only way I would know it. And that's kind of nice. That kind of makes me feel good. I learned something. And then on Saturday morning, we would have to go to the big synagogue, and then we would get a card, on which was printed what the lesson was for that day. And then we would have to bring that the next week to our teacher in public school. And that's how he knew that we attended, [chuckles] you know, instruction. And this is all really that we did, except on the high holidays when I know we all went. But my mother was not too religious, although I remember my mother praying every night, as long as she was alive. Then a little incident. I was on a street car once in Vienna, and across from me is this middle-aged man. And he looked familiar, but I had to, I couldn't quite, I couldn't quite remember the picture exactly because he looked different. His teeth were knocked out. And I realized, after a few seconds, it was my teacher from, my Jewish teacher from school. And he just barely acknowledged. And you see, this is the sort of thing that happened all the time. They would pick up people off the street, and there was nothing wrong when they would punch you and kick you and knock your teeth out. I mean, that was just fair game. And obviously that's something that on that order that happened to him. And, but, you know, the Jewish population in Vienna, I really don't know exactly what it was, but obviously it was minuscule in comparison to the total population. And then of course there was that famous Kristallnacht in November when all the books and temples were burned. And then, of course, you couldn't go to temple 'cause there was nothing left.

Were you still in Vienna at the time--

Oh yeah, oh yeah. And we could see the fires burning all over the city. It was really horrible.

Can you tell me more about that?

Well, see the trouble is that made you even more afraid, that made you withdraw even more because you knew that, you know, each time one of these things occurred, it brought it closer home to yourself, to your own family. And it just, it just, you felt like an animal that had to burrow in a hole somewhere. It's so inhumane. And it's hard to realize that people can really go to that level, but they certainly did. They certainly did. Anyway, my mother was able through, this was a Quaker organization in England. English people would apply, give their names, to be willing to accept children into their homes. And eventually it was in May, 1939, that my sister and I, on a train of 150 children, left Vienna. And I remember, my father and the aunts who were still in Vienna, come to the train. And, of course, that was the last time I saw my father. And when we got to England, by the way, the train was quite an experience. They sealed the train until we got to the German border, the German-Dutch border. And we were all scared silly, but nothing happened. And we were allowed one suitcase each. And when the Dutch police came in, it was so wonderful, and they brought us hot cocoa. I'll never forget that. And from that moment on, you know, you could breathe and realize that they can't get you anymore. And then we took the boat train to England, and my mother was there.

How long before you got England did your mother arrive in England?

My mother left in January 1939. And we left in May, and it took all that time. She literally stayed up night and day at the, what would be the Jewish community center in London, and just knocked on every door and every committee and every organization and put our name down, you know, everywhere that there was some hope that the children might be brought out. And if she hadn't been there, we would not have made it. Nobody would've.

Was she working as a nurse at this time in England?

Yes, but she took a little time before she did that because she just had to stay in London. And fortunately, there was a, you know, I don't know the details and, unfortunately, I never talked to my mother about this. But fortunately there were Jewish committees that were helping people like herself to get in touch with the right organizations and people. And fortunately, they were all sort of congregated in the same area, and so she did that. And then she went to Manchester, but she came to London. Was it London? Yes, I think it was London, where we were met by her and this wonderful Mrs. Richie, who is the family with whom I lived in England.

Did your sister and yourself stay together?

No. The Richie family were wonderful in accepting both of us to come out, but my sister was already 15 at the time. And she had had, you know, some, she had been in Gymnasium, which is like our high school, private high school. And they just couldn't take both of us, and I was 12. So my sister, unfortunately, had to go to work. And I stayed with them in Manchester. And my sister went to a lovely little town called Dorking in Surrey where my mother's youngest sister, whom my mother had got out of Austria, was living and working at the time, so she was there with her sister, I mean my mother's sister. But I was very fortunate in living with this wonder, wonderful family. He was a college professor at Manchester University, and she was a marvelous, ah, talk about the greatest, you know, I can never thank enough, thank them enough for being so fortunate of and being with them. And they had a daughter and a son, and the daughter and I became very good friends, Claire, and we still are, and we write, and we see each other occasionally. And their son, Jay, was in the military during the war. And he's now a college professor. And it was such a contrast. Of course, I knew practically no English. My father was able to get a teacher for us, a college student in Vienna, Jewish college student, and she came once a week and gave us lessons, my sister and I. But, you know, it was pretty limited. Not only that, it didn't last very long. And when I got to England, I started school very quickly, and the teachers were absolutely marvelous. And the only thing I got out of doing was Latin because they had already had a year of Latin, and I was starting French and English all at the same time. So, but you know, children can pick up languages very easily, especially when you hear it around you, I didn't hear any German, you know, it was essential. So it wasn't hard to do. It's much harder for older people, but it's not hard for children to do.

At the age you were when you got to England, having left your father behind and your mother was living in another city, what were some of your feelings at that time?

Well, there was so many new things to adjust to. I got there in May, and I didn't go to school until the following fall. And, actually, my mother was in Manchester also. And I quickly learned how to bicycle, and I would go and visit my mother. And that was wonderful, but she was very busy. And everything in England is so completely non-European, their habits, their food, you know, the afternoon tea that we had every day. It's so different from a big city life, you know, that I was used to. And, of course, I try terribly hard to fit in and learn and understand. And pretty soon, of course, the air raids started. We were in Scotland, as a matter of fact, when war was declared. It was September 3rd, 1939. And it was so, you know, it was expected, but you really never thought it was gonna happen, but of course it did. And then we had to start school, and that was my beginning of school, which was marvelous, 'cause I loved every day of it. In fact, that really became my whole life, was school. And then, of course, the bombing started. And for some reason they hit Manchester very hard. I don't really know why, but it was an industrial city. And fortunately, it happened to be Christmas vacation, but our school, our high school where we were, this is a private school, which had been a hospital in World War I and had a lot of buildings and they probably thought it was still a hospital. And, of course, to them, that was fair game. So the whole thing got bombed pretty badly, but nobody was there. But we spent a lot of times in very makeshift shelters. I remember at the Richies' house, under the stairs, it was a two-story house, under the stairs was a closet, like, you know, we have it right here in this house. That was our shelter. And Claire and I, there wasn't room for any more, would lie in this little hole because that's the best protection we had. And we were never hit directly at all, so, you know, we were very lucky.

Well, when you got there, you probably had a bit of a German type accent.

Well, you know, oh, when I got there, [chuckles] I don't know what on earth I sounded like, and, of course, I could speak so little. But was what was rather amusing, there was a German-Austrian club in Manchester for young people. And this was sometime after, you know, maybe six months after I'd been there, and I could speak English, you know, quite well. And I went, I thought I'd go to a meeting and see what's going on there. Maybe I'll find an old friend, you know, who knows? So I went there, and I ran into the teacher who had taught me in Vienna, this young college student, who was a lovely girl. And when she spoke to me, I couldn't believe the strong accent she had, and I didn't have one. I sounded terribly British in those days because, you know, that's what I heard and that's what I kind of grew up with. But she had, you know, a Viennese college German accent, and it was really kind of flabbergasting. It was kind of funny. But anyway, strangely enough, I went a couple of times, and I didn't like it very much because I felt the general tone of the people there, the young people there, they were rather communistic. And I didn't like that. I was much too British by then. And I felt, you know, that's a betrayal, and I didn't want to participate in that. And I'm sure it was just a small group and they were, you know, considerably older than I. And so I really stopped having any contact with my own group of people. And I just, I had very good friends at school.

At any time during this period, did you feel that having come from Austria, you were considered the enemy?

Never. Never, never, never. The English people were absolutely marvelous. You know, there's such a different psychology. Their whole thinking, their whole way of life is so different from Europeans, it really is. I can't see any connection there. It's unfortunate that they were fooled for such a long time with Chamberlain, but you know, this is how they are. But they were marvelous. They were absolutely marvelous.

How long did you spend with these people?

I lived with them until I, I'm trying to remember the dates. Let's see, the war was over in 1945. Somewhere along the way in there, I went to school and I went to a secretarial school, and then I got a job, and then I joined my sister in Dorking. And then, the American military was recruiting in London for linguists. And I applied, and I got the job. And then my sister applied, and then a friend of ours from Vienna, whom I ran into accidentally in Manchester, applied, and the three of us went back to Germany in October '45. They had to wait till I was 19. I wasn't quite 19. So they held us back. And at that point, the three of us went to Frankfurt to work at G2 in the IG Farben Building.

Was it difficult for you having, your family life was disrupted in Vienna, and then moving in with the Richies in Manchester, was that difficult leaving them?

Well, at first, of course, it was very strange, and I cried a lot. [chuckles] And, but the people were so marvelous that, you know, and we were still hearing from my father. In fact, my mother had sent two permits to him. One they said got lost and who knows, you know, it was so chaotic by that time in Vienna. It's hard to know what went on. The second one was after the war or just before the war started, and there was just no way he could get out anymore. But we still, you know, periodically would hear from my Tante Eran and we would get these strange letters, you know, from somewhere, and eventually they would get to my mother. So we heard when my grandmother and my aunt and uncle were sent to Theresienstadt, you know, this was all sort of piecemeal. And somehow, when you're a child, you can't help but get interested in what you're doing. I loved school. I loved learning. I loved sports. We had lots of sports in school in England, which you didn't have in Austria. All we had was gym, you know, and swimming in Vienna. But, and I was good at it, and I loved it. And I was very busy, and Claire became a very, very dear friend and we would take walks every day and talk. And of course, you know, one thing I was never a teenager. You know, when I think of teenagers and our children becoming teenagers, I became an adult at age 12. That's how it was. It was too, life was too serious. We had maps, we all kept maps in each room, you know, and we would check where the troops were and what was happening. And we listened to, and each child did that. It was so important, you know. There were no dances. There were no parties. There was nothing. It was nobody even thought about it. It was unimportant, the war, we were in this war, and it was awful, and it was England, and they had a very bad time of it. And this just took you, you know, and you grabbed it and you, you just, that was every day. And if things didn't go well, it was dreadful. And when things got better, you know, it was, everybody could breathe. There were years that, you know, I hadn't thought about that in so many years, but when you think of all the blackout. And when I was working in London, actually we were bombed out of London. But before we were bombed out of London, you would have to take a bus. And the bus, you know, the lights were so dim, you could hardly see, and when you get off the bus, it was pitch black. And you'd have to go and get to the train. And it was, it was a whole different life. You lived in the dark the whole time. And the moment you got inside, you had to make, before you turn a light on, you had to have your blackout curtains on. And so many things became so important that, you know, I hadn't thought about it. And of course the rationing, and the cold and the little heat that we had. I mean, life was pretty grim, but it didn't really bother us. You know, we were young and you can handle those things. This was, of course, in England I'm talking about. But of course I was in touch with my mother all the time, one way or another, wherever I was. And so, it was bearable.