 |
Family History
Wines Photography Books |
|
|
TheRagens Wine Tastings
|
In my grandfather's (Frank Munk's) autobiography, he includes one section, Chapter 11, that briefly describes the circumstances of his emigration to the United States in 1939. In 1999, my father presented a paper to the Monday Club (an organization associated with the University of Washington) that documented this extraordinary chapter in my grandparents and my mother's life in considerably more detail. This is the story.
LEAVING
PRAGUE A History Of
The Munks’ Family Departure
From Prague In 1938-1939 This is the story of a narrow escape. The events described occurred many years ago and were buried deep in files, letters, and family memories. They were revealed recently in a memoir and in detailed interviews. Undoubtedly, there are countless similar stories, maybe some associated with members of this Club, but this is one that I am very close to personally. This
particular story is factually accurate. Several participants are still living
and this paper has been checked and rechecked for fidelity to the events. The
historic period under review is within the memory of the older members of the
Monday Club; the events are a deeply meaningful part of our shared heritage –
never to be forgotten! It is one family’s dramatic and extraordinarily
frightening final days as citizens of Europe. When
the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in 1918, Frank Munk was a student in his
last year of high school in Kutna Hora, a small medieval town some 40 miles east
of Prague. Both as a child and an adult, Frank was a natural leader. On the day
following the liberation of Czechoslovakia, October 28, 1918, the students at
his school asked him to speak for them at a citywide rally. “It was my first
experience in public speaking and it convinced me that I was able to do it.”
he told me. In 1919, he left Kutna Hora for Prague to attend university. At that
time, Frank spoke Czech, French and German fluently and had some knowledge of
English. (At his death, in January, at age 97, he was fluent in at least 8
languages!!) His linguistic and leadership talent led to his election as head of
the foreign department of the newly organized Central Union of Czechoslovak
Students, an organization that quickly became a part of the overall political
leadership of the new country. The Czech government sponsored and subsidized
Frank’s attendance at one international conference after another. As
far as I know, there is nothing in the American experience that corresponds to
the role student leaders played in Czech politics in the 1920s. Even in the
recent past, the events that precipitated the end of the Communist regime during
the Velvet Revolution of 1988-89 were student-led. Frank noted, “Occasionally
I received calls directly from Dr.
Edvard Benes, then Czech Minister of Foreign
Affairs, later the president of Czechoslovakia.” In 1922, one call led to a
meeting where Frank was asked if he would be interested in promoting a
multi-country gathering to be called the Congress of Slav Students. “I
expressed considerable interest, and …[Benes] told me I could have all the
money I needed to travel to Poland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, etc. to arrange to
bring participants to Prague to a conference which was held later in 1922.”
Frank organized the entire event and it was successful. After
graduation, Frank spent half his time traveling abroad dealing with student
organizations and conferences. The remaining time was spent as head of the
Foreign Department of the Prague International Fair, which was intended to help
stimulate Czech exports. With his involvement in both political and economic
activities, he soon developed a public stature. At the end of the 1920s, Frank
joined the National Socialist Party, a political organization advocating, among
other things, a mixed economy. He soon became chairman of the Economic Committee
of the party and had some influence initiating two devaluations of the national
currency. In
1931, Frank was offered a Fellowship by the Rockefeller Foundation and he and
his wife, Nadia, left Prague in September for a one-year Fellowship at Harvard;
he extended their stay another year in a similar capacity at Columbia
University. (Frank received his Ph.D. in Prague in 1936.) When he returned from
the United States in 1933, Frank spent three months in Berlin researching his
first book, which explored the intricacies of distribution costs for retail
businesses. His visit to Berlin came only two months after Hitler assumed power
and during those three months he observed first-hand the beginnings of the Nazi
regime. Returning
to Prague, Frank became manager of the Czech division of Adrena, a leading
German addressing machine company. In 1937, he changed jobs, becoming the heir
apparent to the general manager of a chain of small department stores - similar
to today’s Wal-Mart stores - located in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and
Rumania. He held this position until May 1939. That job and his previous one
both paid very well. Frank commented, “I never had so much money, before or
since.” During
the latter part of the 1930s, Frank remained politically active. He was a member
of an informal gathering known as “Havel’s group” (Havel was the father of
The Czech Republic’s current president, Vaclav Havel) that met from time to
time to discuss the political scene. Incidentally, Madeline Albright’s father
was a member of this group. President Benes, who replaced Masaryk in 1935, asked
“Havel’s Group” to invite the leader of the Sudeten Germans to a meeting
to see if he was a loyal Czech. The Sudetenland was that part of northern
Czechoslovakia that bordered Germany. After
much debate, the group invited Konrad Henlein, the Czech leader of the German
pro-Nazi movement. “We invited him at the direct suggestion of President Benes
who wanted to know if some kind of deal could be struck.” The report to Benes
concluded, Frank said, with this summary: “You can’t deal with this man. You
can’t trust him. He is a strong supporter of Hitler and a secret Nazi.” In
May of 1938, a few months after Germany invaded Austria, Czech intelligence
warned the government that Germany was moving military installations to the
Czech border. On May 20, 1938, Benes declared a partial mobilization. The Czech
call-up, though successful, enraged Hitler. During that summer, Frank’s
brother-in-law, Arthur F. Scott, husband of Nadia’s sister, Vera, visited the
Munks in Prague. Dr. Scott, a chemistry professor at Reed College in Portland,
and Frank visited the Czech army units on the German border. While impressed by
the caliber of the army personnel and the army fortifications, it was clear to
both men that the outlook for Czechoslovakia was gloomy. On this trip, Dr. Scott
offered to help Frank if he and his family ever needed assistance in the future.
Frank said that offer was greatly welcomed since it opened up the possibility of
some day living in the United States. During the summer of 1938, the Czechs tried to enlist the support of the French and British in the face of German pressure to annex the Sudetenland. Public demonstrations against a surrender of this territory occurred daily throughout Czechoslovakia and particularly in Prague, but to no avail. On September 30, 1938, Hitler met with Mussolini, Chamberlain and Deladier, representing Italy, England and France, in Munich. The three statesmen capitulated to Hitler; one-third of Czechoslovakia was ceded to the Germans. These three men believed Hitler’s promise that Germany would be satisfied with this territory and go no further. Chamberlain declared that now there would be “Peace in our time”. Churchill, of course, had an entirely different view of events and his views eventually were proven correct. Frank
told me that the worst moment of his life and the lives of all the Czech people
was September 30, 1938, when the major powers sold the Czech people down the
river. “To all of us, it was the end of freedom and democracy.” A March 29,
1999, article in The New Yorker magazine suggests the Munich appeasement plays a
similar role in the thought processes of our current Secretary of State,
Madeline Albright. The
Germans immediately occupied the border districts and many Czech citizens living
in the Sudetenland became refugees. The developing crisis finally forced the
Munks to think of their own predicament. On November 17, 1938, Nadia wrote her
sister, Vera Scott; “Our situation is complicated by the fact that Frank was
born a Jew. Already we hear on the street, ‘Jew, you will be shit!’ From the
open door of a coffeehouse, a bunch of rabble are shouting, ‘Jews out!’ We
wonder when we will be forced to adopt the Nuremberg Laws. That would mean our
children will not be allowed to go to school and enter the professions and all
the other consequences. Even though I am not Jewish and Frank hasn’t practiced
any religion for 20 years as our family has not [practiced Catholicism]…
Suzanne and Michael will be condemned for life without a chance to be educated
and lead normal lives…. Yesterday in the Sudetenland all the Jews were forced
from their homes and made to run to the Czech border on their knees and kiss the
ground. But our border guards forced them back, so now they are crowded into a
camp on a tiny sliver of ‘no man’s land’ between the borders. It’s
raining hard with the temperature near freezing. There are hundreds of them:
men, women and children living like hunted animals.” Nadia then concluded this
letter to her sister, “…because we have all lost our sense of propriety,
I’ll ask you and Art straight out: Would it be possible for you to send us an
affidavit, which we would use only when it becomes absolutely impossible to
continue living here? I expect we would be able to take several thousand dollars
with us legally…so we would be able to support ourselves for awhile after we
arrive.” In
spite of the deepening uncertainty, the daily affairs of life somehow went on.
Nadia concluded her letter by telling her sister that their mother was “lonely
but loving and courageous. She visits us very often and is buying a season
ticket to the National Theatre. So she is still an optimist!” On
November 27, 1938, Frank wrote to his brother-in-law, Arthur Scott, in Portland.
“At present one has the feeling of being in a house or on a house-top,
surrounded by a rising tide and no one can tell how far it will rise….I shall
feel very grateful to you and Vera if you could let [us] have that affidavit. We
may not need it but it would be encouraging to know that the door remains
open.” Meanwhile,
Nadia Munk, with countless others, helped in the resettlement of the Sudetenland
refugees. During that process, she made the acquaintance of Miss Beatrice
Wellington, a Canadian high school teacher from Vancouver who came to Prague in
1938 as a representative from a Quaker group in Switzerland. Miss Wellington,
who was helping to evacuate Czechs to England, experienced some language
difficulties. She could only speak English and someone from the Prague City Hall
asked Nadia Munk to translate for her. Miss Wellington also needed help finding
an office and Nadia asked Alice Masaryk, the daughter of the former Czech
President for whom Nadia had been a personal secretary, for help in finding an
appropriate location. Miss Masaryk was unable to help. A close Munk family
friend, however, known to the Munks as Uncle Klouda, a Senator in Parliament,
wangled an office for Beatrice Wellington in the Ministry of Social Work. Miss
Wellington visited England during the Christmas holidays and on her return told
Frank and Nadia, now friends, that “Hitler will invade all of Czechoslovakia
and that, if the Munk’s needed help in getting out, she would try to assist
them.” She said that Frank’s Jewish heritage placed the whole family at risk
and advised them to leave immediately. On
January 23, 1939, the Czech government, headed by Emil Hacha, ordered the Czech
police to cooperate with the German police in suppressing Communist activity. It
was a signal that the Czech government would accommodate Nazi policies.
“Moderate” anti-Semitism suddenly became acceptable. But life for most
people remained relatively normal. On
January 4, Frank applied for visas. On January 28, 1939, Frank again wrote to
his Portland brother-in-law. “There is not much change here. Things continue,
but very slowly and so far life…is livable. It seems however as if there
should be some dramatic development in the European situation within the next
few weeks, if not days. Nobody knows what will happen.” On
February 13, Frank received a letter from Dexter Keezer, President of Reed
College. Keezer said that while formal arrangements had not been completed, the
College had a small grant which, coupled with the possibility of other funds,
might be combined to underwrite a Reed College course on the economics of
distribution. Keezer asked Frank to mail or wire Reed with a list of the
documents required to request a “non quota” U.S. visa. On March 5, Frank
wired Keezer: “Can get preferential visa immediately provided you airmail me
valid teaching contract stating period of engagement, salary, signed and sealed
by qualified college offices. Thanks.” Frank
continued his daily work routine while he waited for a response from Reed. He
did have an occasion to verify Miss Wellington’s warning when he visited with
a diplomat who later proved to be head of British intelligence in Prague. A
third, highly dramatic warning, came from a close personal friend of Nadia’s,
Mrs. Bondy, who told Nadia she was divorcing her Jewish husband and urged Nadia
to do the same. Many, many years later, Frank wrote, “I was, of course,
foolish not to have tried to leave earlier when it would have been easier, but I
believed, wrongly as it turned out, that I could weather the storm on account of
my ‘Aryan’ wife”. On
the morning of March 15, 1939, a snowy day in Prague, Hitler gave the Czech
government a surrender ultimatum and then, later the same day, the German army
rolled across the Czech border. That night, a friend, a Czech Senator, alerted
Frank that the Germans were in Prague. “In the morning,” Frank wrote,
“…I got up at the usual time and drove to my office and, on the way, met
part of the German army, tanks, motorcycles, the whole works. There was great
confusion because in Prague, until that time, we drove on the left side of the
street and the Germans came in driving on the right…I found myself standing
between German tanks and the people who were shouting and protesting. It was a
real collapse.” That afternoon, he said, the German soldiers stood around
mixing with the Czechs. “I went down from my office and there were hundreds of
Germans. They had some trouble being understood and I helped some officers
communicate with the local citizenry.” The next day, Czechoslovakia was
annexed to Germany under the title of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Frank’s
son, Michael, has written a brief description of the events on March 15 and the
following days. “On the very morning of March 15, when the Nazis marching into
Prague were welcomed by the Hacha government, the Czech authorities implemented
the January 23 agreement…and arrested 2000 suspected Communists in the
[following] five days. Also on March 15, Czech fascists invaded Parliament and
proclaimed General Gajda head of a ‘Czech National Committee’ comprised of
the anti-Semitic ANO, the Nazi Vlaska, and Gajda’s National Fascist Community.
Hacha abolished parliament and all political parties, repudiated democracy, and
condemned ‘Jewish influence!’” Frank
still continued to work daily. “In fact, some of our best customers were
German soldiers,” he told me. I asked Frank why he didn’t leave following
the invasion. He said, “That is a very good question. I couldn’t conceive of
living anywhere but Prague. I had a very good job and we had many very good
friends. While we occasionally thought of leaving, ultimately it became
impossible because the borders were closed. No one could leave the country
without a permit from the Gestapo, the German Secret Police.” On April 9, 1939, Frank again wrote to his brother-in-law. “Dear Art: I hope Mr. Keezer has received my letter sent on March 5…. The Consul in Prague tells me we could get the regular visas in about a year’s time. Only the Department of Labor in Washington could grant an exception. Otherwise, we try to get to England and await further events there. I think it would be very helpful if you could see the man in charge of immigration in Portland and ask his advice about how to get to U.S.A. Other things being left unsaid, I am
Cordially
John Frank
clearly was concerned about government censors. On
May 4, President Keezer sent the letter of commitment in contractual form from
Reed. It read “I am happy to inform you that you have been appointed
Instructor of Economics at Reed College; your minimum salary to be one hundred
dollars a month and your appointment to run for two years from the date when you
arrive at Reed College which we sincerely hope will be at the earliest possible
moment.” The letter was properly notarized and signed. But, of course, it
wasn’t received in Prague for several days. A
problem associated with a non-quota visa was a U.S. Department of Labor
requirement that academics seeking such a visa must prove that they actually
taught courses for two years preceding the request for a visa. On May 6, Frank
wrote Arthur Scott that “The American consul in Prague has now found my
documents satisfactory, including the proof of a teaching experience of at least
24 months duration, since I produced evidence…[of] lecturing in Economics at
the School of Political Science in Prague. The only thing we need now is a valid
teaching contract from Reed…. As soon as I can produce this contract the
Consul will give me a non-quota visa for the United States.” On
Monday, May 15, a stranger visited Frank’s business office. He showed Frank a
card, which identified the visitor as an officer in the former Czech Secret
Service. The visitor said, “I am to show you a little paper. I am sure you
will not need an explanation.” It was a Gestapo order to arrest all members of
the Economic Committee of the National Socialist Party. Frank said “My name
was on top since I served as its chairman. I thanked him and went home directly
to tell Nadia – ‘We do have to get out as soon as possible.’” Frank
never knew who sent this mysterious messenger and he never saw the man again. The
warning came with no offer of assistance. The Gestapo was not permitting anyone
to leave the Protectorate. In desperation, Frank asked Mr. Gibian, the Jewish
head of the Addressograph Company where he had previously been employed, for
help in getting out. Gibian told him that other Jews were able to get Gestapo
departure documents by paying off a certain clerk at a particular hotel. Nadia
immediately left for the hotel carrying a large sum of money. At the hotel, she
noticed a couple who seemed to be waiting for the same clerk. After awhile, one
said to the other, “Something’s wrong. We better get out of here.” Nadia
instinctively followed them. Later she learned the clerk had been arrested. Nadia
and Frank were frantic. But Beatrice Wellington, with no knowledge of these
recent events and entirely on her own initiative, contacted them with a plan! In
fact, Frank later wrote, that for weeks Beatrice Wellington had been “looking
to find a way…to get us out. I myself [had] been trying hard but all my
contacts with the Czech government and authorities were useless since the
Germans and especially the Gestapo [were] masters of everything.” It turned
out that Miss Wellington had successfully sought permission for forty to fifty
Jewish children, whose parents had left prior to the March 15 invasion, to leave
the country on May 15 to join their parents in England. At great risk to
everyone involved, especially herself, she asked to place the Munk family
members on that list. “By a miracle,” Frank later wrote, “there was a Mrs.
Munk going and we were all given as her children.” Specifically, Miss
Wellington put the names, Frank Munk, age 6, Nadia Munk, age 5, Michael Munk,
age 4 and Suzanne Munk, age 2, on gray cards. When the head Gestapo officer
signed the cards, for some fateful reason, the cards in their final form, did
not list ages, only names and passport numbers. Michael
Munk has noted that on Friday, May 19, “Czech fascists rioted in Brno and
Prague, dragging Jews from cafes and beating them. The riots continued until May
28.” But
also on May 19, Frank later wrote, “By another miracle… the contract from
Reed arrived [Friday] the day before the transport…was scheduled to go. Within
three hours I got from the American consul…the… non-quota visa. All my other
papers were O.K.’d by the Consul beforehand… Miss Wellington then got the
British and German visas within two hours.” Frank
and Nadia immediately arranged their personal affairs. They paid a British
couple they met while skiing to take a huge straw hamper filled with paintings,
silver and clothes to England with them. Nadia gave two fur coats to a member of
the British consular staff and Miss Wellington took some jewelry. It was all
later returned to the Munks. On
Saturday morning, May 20, the family left their home by taxi. They were leaving
a beautiful house that they had recently built in a Bauhaus style development on
a hill overlooking Prague. The beds were still unmade. They told the maid and
cook that they were off for the weekend and would return Sunday evening. They
told their plans to Nadia’s brother Vladja, and to no one else. They took the
taxi to the Wilson train station. Tickets were purchased and the train slowly
pulled out. Miss Wellington saw them off. By this time, she had helped a number
of other people escape. She told Nadia: “Whenever she saw people off at the
station, her knees were like boiled macaroni!” The
border separating the Protectorate from Germany was about 30 minutes north of
Prague. The Munks were virtually the only passengers in their railroad car; the
refugee children were in other cars. When the train stopped at the border, two
SS men in black uniforms with skull and cross bones on their hats, members of
the S.S. Death Head Brigade, asked for documents. Frank
wrote: “My spirits sank to the lowest level ever. I turned over our passports,
our Gestapo permits, and also our tickets. [One man asked] ‘How did you get
the exit permit?’ I knew we would be lost if I seemed worried. [Knowing the
Germans and their sense of subordination] I answered very businesslike, ‘if
you have any questions why don’t you call your headquarters in Prague and they
will tell you.’ All of this in German, of course.” The SS officer noted that
there were no ages on the cards, just names and passport numbers. They said
nothing, collected the documents and walked straight to the station building.
Frank said “I was never so scared in my life. I knew they could take us off
the train and that would be the last of us.” During an interview, Frank used a
curious phrase to express his horror of the moment: “My heart was in my
pants.” But before reaching the station, they turned in their tracks and came
back to the train. Frank was prepared to be arrested but instead, they simply
said, “Heil Hitler. We wish you a pleasant trip.” Frank mumbled something.
The train started immediately and, shortly, they were in Germany. Reflecting on
that experience, Frank thought that his reply made the SS interrogators believe
that they might get into trouble with their superiors were they to question the
documents, since the signature on the permit was that of the Head of the Gestapo
in the Protectorate and it was genuine. The original list submitted by Beatrice
Wellington, you remember, listed Frank as 6 years old and Nadia as 5. Had the SS
officers telephoned Prague, the correct ages on file there would have exposed
the entire scheme. “It was our salvation that the gray card issued by the
Germans didn’t give ages – only the names and passport numbers. But it was a
very narrow escape.” Frank
and Nadia remained extremely apprehensive. The family still had to spend the
rest of the afternoon and all night in German territory. Frank was concerned
that the SS men from the Czech border might alert Gestapo agents along the way.
When the train arrived in Leipzig that evening, on the platform was a man in the
brown uniform of the Nazi Storm Troopers waving at them. [Hitler had two private
armies – the Nazi ST and the Nazi SS. The Storm Troopers were organized to
fight street wars and the SS to fight international wars.] The man on the
platform was a German lawyer with whom Frank had had business dealings some five
years earlier. At that time, the German, a man named Thiersch from Leipzig,
visited Prague to ask Frank to keep funds for him since he, Thiersch, mistrusted
Hitler and wanted some money held outside of Germany. Czechoslovakia seemed a
safe place at the time. Frank held these funds as promised and, following the
invasion of Czechoslovakia, Thiersch returned to Prague and collected his money.
At that time, Thiersch said that if Frank ever needed help to send him a wire
saying “Aunt Mary arriving at…” and he would be at the Leipzig train
station. When Frank wired Thiersch from the Wilson Train Station, immediately
prior to departure, that Aunt Mary was arriving, he was not aware that Thiersch
had joined the Nazis. He was shocked when Thiersch appeared in uniform on the
station platform; Thiersch brought oranges for the two children. More important,
his welcome greatly impressed the train conductor who treated Frank and the
family with fawning respect after Leipzig. The night trip through Germany was a
night of fear, fear Frank said that you couldn’t possibly imagine. Finally,
though, the train reached the Dutch border. When the Dutch conductor relieved
the German conductor…”my wife practically kissed [him].” Frank told me. The trip ended at Flushing on the Dutch coast. “But there was a problem,” Frank wrote: “we were not permitted to take any money out and I was afraid to try smuggling. Unknown to me, Nadia had taken one single $20 bill. She concealed it behind a picture of a German town in the rail car. Once across the Dutch border, she tried to take it out but, alas, the bill had disappeared somewhere behind the wall. We were then penniless, but happy.” The family ate nothing on the two-hour ferry ride to Harwich, England where the American husband of another of Nadia’s sisters, a Guggenheim Fellow at Cambridge University, met them. The next morning, Frank took the train to London, went to the British Committee for the Refugees of Czechoslovakia, and borrowed funds to get his family to the United States. After
a steamship voyage aboard the S.S. American Merchant across the Atlantic, the
Munks arrived at Ellis Island in New York with three dollars and food saved from
the ship. The money was sufficient to get a taxi to the New Yorker Hotel.
“Since it was hot, I put the whole family in the bathtub of the hotel and went
directly to the American Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia.” There,
Frank borrowed needed funds. On the way to the West Coast, he made a stopover in
Chicago to convey important messages from Havel’s group to President-in-exile
Benes. President Benes arranged for Frank to lecture at the University of
Chicago where he earned a stipend of $500, his first American income. From
Chicago, they continued on to Portland, Oregon. His interview with me concluded,
“You know the rest of the story.”
Frank
Munk, my wife Susie’s father and thus my father-in-law, taught at Reed College
from 1939-1941 and then for three years at the University of California,
Berkeley, where he was a Professor of international politics and political
economy. In 1944, he became Director of training for UNRRA and was stationed at
the University of Maryland for two years. In 1946, he was named Chief Economic
Advisor to the UNRRA Mission to Czechoslovakia and Austria.
(Click
here to read of this experience.) During the latter
part of that year when he was considering returning with his family to Prague, a
friendly Russian Colonel secretly told him that if he wanted to succeed in
Prague, he should join the communist party. This advice convinced him that he
should return to Reed College as a professor. He remained in Portland for his
lifetime. At age 65, he retired from Reed and was a Professor at Portland State
University until the age of 88. Frank
was an intellectual – he studied everything from the weather to security
markets to international politics. For more than 20 years he appeared weekly on
Portland television where he conducted a one-person program devoted to
international politics. He founded the World Affairs Council of Oregon in 1950.
He was later named First Citizen of Portland and became a well-known public
figure in the state. Frank
didn’t suffer fools gladly. He did, however, have a modest sense of humor and
an extraordinarily quick wit that kept him in constant demand as a speaker. At a
party my wife and I gave for her parents on the occasion of their 50th
wedding anniversary twenty-three years ago, his wife, Nadia, spoke glowingly
about her life with Frank and concluded by thanking him for every day of the
last 50 years. Frank responded with four words, “What about the nights?” Frank was fully conversant with computers and used one until a few days before his death in January of this year. Several weeks before he died, he broke his pelvis and soon decided it was time to bring his life to an end. He intentionally discontinued medication for diabetes and congestive heart failure, fell into a coma, and died peacefully. When I interviewed him in 1998 for this paper, he expressly intended to attend this presentation.
I am interested in your perspective on what you found to be interesting within this paper. If you could please send me feedback, I would be grateful. Thank you.
Non-Fiction
Fiction
Return to family history.
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
