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The Story of the Drechsler and Peczenik Families - Page 2

Ernie and Lora had already applied to go to America, and had their request acknowledged¹⁴ They were sent to a transit camp in a pleasant suburb near the Danube called Stadlau.

Nowadays there is an animal hospital there, a Judo organisation, an eminent football club, and a go-ahead evangelical Catholic church, besides the usual residential and business areas. Before the War, however, it was a place where the well-to-do had summer residences and it was in this area that the Nazis had set up camps under canvas to collect together Jews wanting to emigrate, supposedly to retrain them. A letter¹⁵ to Lora confirms her a place at this camp, and is dated 28 October 1938. We have a photo ¹⁶ taken there, showing Lora near the middle, wearing a head-scarf, and looking very happy.

However on the night of November 10th 1938, things came to a head with the pogrom called Kristallnacht, or the Night of Glass, so called because of the utter destruction wrought on all Jewish businesses that the roving Nazi thugs could find. For details of the bestial destruction wreaked on Jews in Vienna, please see relevant section of
The Simon Wiesenthal web-site at
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/albums/palbum/p04/a0214p2.html
You can also read there about conditions in Auschwitz where the little family of Lora`s sister eventually met their fate.

This forced Ernie and Lora to attempt to leave Austria with greater urgency, and they quickly applied for and received permission to come to England instead of America, he with the hairdressing tools in one of his great-coat pockets, and the Hebrew Service-book in the other. They also had one or two attache cases, and his treasured clarinet.

Not every family escaped. His wife`s family, the Peczeniks, mostly got out to Switzerland. But remember his wife`s sister, Lina? She was married to the man with only one lung. By this time they had a little boy called Harry, aged about eight years old. As other members of her family were planning to leave, they urged this little family to do likewise.
"There`s plenty of time", was the husband`s response, time and time again. He just hadn`t the energy to make the decision and get on with the arrangements.

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¹⁵

¹⁶

Ernie and Lora arrived initially at the Kitchener Camp, Richborough, England, on May 12th 1939. There he worked as a hairdresser until the end of January 1940. Lora was posted to work as a live-in maid to a doctor`s family in Reading.

Eventually Ernie was allowed to leave the Camp and a letter to `pass` Ernie is preserved here. ¹⁷ He was given a letter of commendation¹⁸ to assist with finding work. He obtained a hairdressing post at Caversham, a part of Reading north of the River Thames. A Mrs Corbett¹⁹ (or Madame Corbett as she was known), of Church Street gave him employment through the Reading Labour Exchange, and he was given lodging by a family in Rectory Road.

Then the British government brought in internment as it was quite possible that the Nazis would be sending spies to England in the guise of refugees, so on July 4th 1940 Ernie was sent to the Peveril Internment Camp, Peel, on the Isle of Man while a more thorough vetting was carried out. He applied to join the Pioneer Corps but was turned down on health grounds.
Ernie was so grateful to be safe and well-treated, that he took up barbering again, in addition to his other work, and shaved and gave hair-cuts to several eminent military men, as well as to other internees.
All the proceeds of this, he gave to a fund, for which he later received a letter from our King, George VI. He showed me this much-folded letter on several occasions, with enormous pride.

After the Camp was dissolved, he joined Lora at Reading. They were both given lodgings at the doctor`s house where she continued as a maid. Ernie worked at Thorneycrofts, an engineering firm, making propellers for motor torpedo-boats in Caversham. Here again he did hairdressing as a sideline, passing on all the proceeds to the Red Cross. A letter from Thorneycrofts supported his donation²⁰, and a Certificate from the Duke of Gloucester²¹ duly arrived to thank him. The following year a fulsome letter of thanks arrived for a similar donation, from the Guide Dogs²² for the Blind Association. And the next year came another letter thanking him for another contribution, this time from the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

Meanwhile Lina and her husband and small boy, Harry, were still in Vienna, living in the comfortable suburb of Vienna 16, in Reinhartgasse. But one day they received the order to move immediately into a flat in a block in the centre of the city, to Judengasse, in Vienna 1, near to St Stephen`s Cathedral.
Several decades later I, the writer of this story, visited Vienna and made my way to the huge block of flats into which scores of Jewish families had been herded. I stood on the opposite side of the road, and thought of its past.
Outside on the pavement was a policeman pacing up and down on sentry duty, the only one I noticed in Vienna. What were the authorities expecting, I wonder. It was a moving experience.

¹⁷

¹⁸

¹⁹

²⁰

²¹

²²

From that flat, Lina sent a few letters to her sister Lora in England. I have them with me as I write. She tells of a few everyday matters, hopes her sister and brother-in-law are well, but confesses to a gathering sense of dread and foreboding. One such letter has a few sentences written by the little son, Harry²³, to his dear "Tante u. Oncle", in a careful rounded hand.
A last little note is a reply on the back of a Red Cross²⁴ form, answering Lora`s pleas for information on the front of the form. This little note is addressed to Reinhartgasse 8, in Wien 16, but the reply comes from Judengasse 7, Wien 1. So while Ernie and Lora were establishing themselves in Reading, Lora`s poor sister and family were being rounded up, and ground down. Imagine the terror for them, and the sense of helplessness for Ernie and Lora. Eventually the letters stopped. Lina and her family with other occupants of the flats, so conveniently assembled, had been taken to Auschwitz.

Later the news of their death reached Lora and Ernie in England, and the shock to Lora brought on epilepsy. Her English doctor certified this, and that the seizures shaking her uncontrollably, caused the detachment of her retinas and complete blindness.

After the War, Ernie worked as a hairdresser at a salon in Caversham. They applied for, and were granted British Nationality ²⁵ in November 1947. He progressed to a more prestigeous salon in Friar Street, Reading, and eventually obtained the post of manager of the new hairdressing department at Reading`s best department store, Heelas, in June 1949, at a salary of Ł4.10.0d plus 10% commission, plus meals and afternoon tea ! A letter after 5 years` service ²⁶ shows the high esteem in which he was held.

While on the staff there, he was voted by employees to be their representative on the Board of the store. In those days staff of several years standing were made Partners, and he had a photo of a Dinner at which he was one of the guests. He was so proud yet grateful to England, for not only giving him refuge from tyrrany, but giving him the means to rise in the world as his ability allowed.

During 1951 and 1952 they persevered in their application to move on to America, where two of Ernie`s brothers were now living. His brother in California provided details of his own income for an Affidavit to be issued, as otherwise America would not entertain the notion of accepting them. But in spite of this, and a most sympathetic plea from Lora`s Reading Medical Consultant, the American Embassy turned them down because of her epilepsy. The decision evidently rested on which particular type of epilepsy she suffered from. What a difference of attitude between Britain and America! However Lora worked for some years at the world-famous Reading biscuit manufacturers Huntley and Palmers.

The far-flung family kept up an assiduous correspondence between Caversham, Los Angeles, Tel Aviv and Zurich. I have half-a-dozen letters dating from June 1953 to December 1955 from the eldest brother, Alfred, in California. It is fascinating to see how his language gradually became interspersed with such English words as `in a hurry', `new job', `boss', `with room and board', `check for 60 Dollars', `Record player', `newspapers', `Hot Springs in der desert', `on the corner', `in the Store', `aber keine Nylon Stockings in Briefe'. Also `die Vienna Records hier in Los Angeles, from original recordings, produced in Austria', and `Donnerstag ist mein day-off'; `ein television 17 inch console fur $90 verkauft', and `es hat eine Indoor Antenne'; `Ich must Downtown to Los Angeles fahren';
I especially like `Ich habe mein Recordplayer reparieran lassen. I connect him with my Radio und bemitre der Radio als Loudsprecher '.
²³

²⁴

²⁵

²⁶

This photograph²⁷ in Ernie and Lora`s back garden, in 1975, shows Alfred second from the left, with the youngest brother, Kurt, on the right. Ernie and Lora had moved to a rented flat in Florida Court, Bath Road, Reading, and later they bought this their own bungalow in Caversham. They were now the proud owners of a garden, and life seemed very good. He took many photos of the garden over the years, including some when his brothers and nephew were visiting from America, and one when he was larking about with a friend, both wearing wigs from the salon.²⁸

He had taught himself to play the clarinet very creditably, and took part in a clarinet concert at Reading`s Hexagon Concert Hall along with about a hundred other amateur clarinettists. His favourite style of music was jazz, for which he had an inborn sense of rhythm.

In April 1956 Ernie received a Statement of Account from the Jewish Synagogue in Vienna, for work done on his father Leopold`s grave. Evidently his father had died on 21st January, 1942, in what circumstances I have no means of knowing. It included the cost of a gravestone, the engraving, summer flowers and evergreen according to season, and one photograph of the grave.

Ernie and Lora did make one or two trips to the Continent, to France and Belgium to my knowledge, so it is possible that he was able to visit his father`s grave back in Vienna, and possibly also the grave of his mother. He regularly filled in the Jewish Memorial ²⁹ Certificate, giving the date of death as 31st Jan. but a second Certificate gives it as 21st Jan. The first certificate has been corrected all down the dates for the memorial day, so he must have decided to start a fresh certificate. After all, that`s the most he could do, at this distance and this time away from the actual date of his father`s death.
²⁷

²⁸

Ernie had now moved from hairdressing in the big store, and bought a salon³⁰ of his own in Caversham Road in August 1957. The photo shows him with his young Polish assistant, Madjevski. The old cottages next-door have now been pulled down.
The second and third photos are of a better property he bought later, in the same road, and he is seen here with Lora who worked as his assistant for some time.

He told me that he was never more happy than when he had his own business. Eventually he retired, but kept his hand in by working on Saturdays at an up-market salon in nearby Henley-on-Thames, the owner of the salon sending a car for him. Later he just trimmed the pates for some elderly friends.

He played his clarinet³¹ for his own amusement, and took up painting. He went to classes for several years, some of his paintings and sketches 32 being outstandingly good.

For several years they were able to go to the Jewish Home for the Blind at Southbourne, near Bournemouth, for a week`s holiday, when a Polish friend, Stefan, took them there and back by car.
²⁹

³⁰

³¹

³²

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PAGE 3 =>

The Story of the Drechsler and Peczenik Families - Page 2
Ernie and Lora had already applied to go to America, and had their request acknowledged¹⁴ They were sent to a transit camp in a pleasant suburb near the Danube called Stadlau. Nowadays there is an animal hospital there, a Judo organisation, an eminent football club, and a go-ahead evangelical Catholic church, besides the usual residential and business areas. Before the War, however, it was a place where the well-to-do had summer residences and it was in this area that the Nazis had set up camps under canvas to collect together Jews wanting to emigrate, supposedly to retrain them. A letter¹⁵ to Lora confirms her a place at this camp, and is dated 28 October 1938. We have a photo ¹⁶ taken there, showing Lora near the middle, wearing a head-scarf, and looking very happy. However on the night of November 10th 1938, things came to a head with the pogrom called Kristallnacht, or the Night of Glass, so called because of the utter destruction wrought on all Jewish businesses that the roving Nazi thugs could find. For details of the bestial destruction wreaked on Jews in Vienna, please see relevant section of The Simon Wiesenthal web-site at http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/albums/palbum/p04/a0214p2.html You can also read there about conditions in Auschwitz where the little family of Lora`s sister eventually met their fate. This forced Ernie and Lora to attempt to leave Austria with greater urgency, and they quickly applied for and received permission to come to England instead of America, he with the hairdressing tools in one of his great-coat pockets, and the Hebrew Service-book in the other. They also had one or two attache cases, and his treasured clarinet. Not every family escaped. His wife`s family, the Peczeniks, mostly got out to Switzerland. But remember his wife`s sister, Lina? She was married to the man with only one lung. By this time they had a little boy called Harry, aged about eight years old. As other members of her family were planning to leave, they urged this little family to do likewise. "There`s plenty of time", was the husband`s response, time and time again. He just hadn`t the energy to make the decision and get on with the arrangements.	¹⁴ ¹⁵ ¹⁶
Ernie and Lora arrived initially at the Kitchener Camp, Richborough, England, on May 12th 1939. There he worked as a hairdresser until the end of January 1940. Lora was posted to work as a live-in maid to a doctor`s family in Reading. Eventually Ernie was allowed to leave the Camp and a letter to `pass` Ernie is preserved here. ¹⁷ He was given a letter of commendation¹⁸ to assist with finding work. He obtained a hairdressing post at Caversham, a part of Reading north of the River Thames. A Mrs Corbett¹⁹ (or Madame Corbett as she was known), of Church Street gave him employment through the Reading Labour Exchange, and he was given lodging by a family in Rectory Road. Then the British government brought in internment as it was quite possible that the Nazis would be sending spies to England in the guise of refugees, so on July 4th 1940 Ernie was sent to the Peveril Internment Camp, Peel, on the Isle of Man while a more thorough vetting was carried out. He applied to join the Pioneer Corps but was turned down on health grounds. Ernie was so grateful to be safe and well-treated, that he took up barbering again, in addition to his other work, and shaved and gave hair-cuts to several eminent military men, as well as to other internees. All the proceeds of this, he gave to a fund, for which he later received a letter from our King, George VI. He showed me this much-folded letter on several occasions, with enormous pride. After the Camp was dissolved, he joined Lora at Reading. They were both given lodgings at the doctor`s house where she continued as a maid. Ernie worked at Thorneycrofts, an engineering firm, making propellers for motor torpedo-boats in Caversham. Here again he did hairdressing as a sideline, passing on all the proceeds to the Red Cross. A letter from Thorneycrofts supported his donation²⁰, and a Certificate from the Duke of Gloucester²¹ duly arrived to thank him. The following year a fulsome letter of thanks arrived for a similar donation, from the Guide Dogs²² for the Blind Association. And the next year came another letter thanking him for another contribution, this time from the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Meanwhile Lina and her husband and small boy, Harry, were still in Vienna, living in the comfortable suburb of Vienna 16, in Reinhartgasse. But one day they received the order to move immediately into a flat in a block in the centre of the city, to Judengasse, in Vienna 1, near to St Stephen`s Cathedral. Several decades later I, the writer of this story, visited Vienna and made my way to the huge block of flats into which scores of Jewish families had been herded. I stood on the opposite side of the road, and thought of its past. Outside on the pavement was a policeman pacing up and down on sentry duty, the only one I noticed in Vienna. What were the authorities expecting, I wonder. It was a moving experience.	¹⁷ ¹⁸ ¹⁹ ²⁰ ²¹ ²²
From that flat, Lina sent a few letters to her sister Lora in England. I have them with me as I write. She tells of a few everyday matters, hopes her sister and brother-in-law are well, but confesses to a gathering sense of dread and foreboding. One such letter has a few sentences written by the little son, Harry²³, to his dear "Tante u. Oncle", in a careful rounded hand. A last little note is a reply on the back of a Red Cross²⁴ form, answering Lora`s pleas for information on the front of the form. This little note is addressed to Reinhartgasse 8, in Wien 16, but the reply comes from Judengasse 7, Wien 1. So while Ernie and Lora were establishing themselves in Reading, Lora`s poor sister and family were being rounded up, and ground down. Imagine the terror for them, and the sense of helplessness for Ernie and Lora. Eventually the letters stopped. Lina and her family with other occupants of the flats, so conveniently assembled, had been taken to Auschwitz. Later the news of their death reached Lora and Ernie in England, and the shock to Lora brought on epilepsy. Her English doctor certified this, and that the seizures shaking her uncontrollably, caused the detachment of her retinas and complete blindness. After the War, Ernie worked as a hairdresser at a salon in Caversham. They applied for, and were granted British Nationality ²⁵ in November 1947. He progressed to a more prestigeous salon in Friar Street, Reading, and eventually obtained the post of manager of the new hairdressing department at Reading`s best department store, Heelas, in June 1949, at a salary of Ł4.10.0d plus 10% commission, plus meals and afternoon tea ! A letter after 5 years` service ²⁶ shows the high esteem in which he was held. While on the staff there, he was voted by employees to be their representative on the Board of the store. In those days staff of several years standing were made Partners, and he had a photo of a Dinner at which he was one of the guests. He was so proud yet grateful to England, for not only giving him refuge from tyrrany, but giving him the means to rise in the world as his ability allowed. During 1951 and 1952 they persevered in their application to move on to America, where two of Ernie`s brothers were now living. His brother in California provided details of his own income for an Affidavit to be issued, as otherwise America would not entertain the notion of accepting them. But in spite of this, and a most sympathetic plea from Lora`s Reading Medical Consultant, the American Embassy turned them down because of her epilepsy. The decision evidently rested on which particular type of epilepsy she suffered from. What a difference of attitude between Britain and America! However Lora worked for some years at the world-famous Reading biscuit manufacturers Huntley and Palmers. The far-flung family kept up an assiduous correspondence between Caversham, Los Angeles, Tel Aviv and Zurich. I have half-a-dozen letters dating from June 1953 to December 1955 from the eldest brother, Alfred, in California. It is fascinating to see how his language gradually became interspersed with such English words as `in a hurry', `new job', `boss', `with room and board', `check for 60 Dollars', `Record player', `newspapers', `Hot Springs in der desert', `on the corner', `in the Store', `aber keine Nylon Stockings in Briefe'. Also `die Vienna Records hier in Los Angeles, from original recordings, produced in Austria', and `Donnerstag ist mein day-off'; `ein television 17 inch console fur $90 verkauft', and `es hat eine Indoor Antenne'; `Ich must Downtown to Los Angeles fahren'; I especially like `Ich habe mein Recordplayer reparieran lassen. I connect him with my Radio und bemitre der Radio als Loudsprecher '.	²³ ²⁴ ²⁵ ²⁶
This photograph²⁷ in Ernie and Lora`s back garden, in 1975, shows Alfred second from the left, with the youngest brother, Kurt, on the right. Ernie and Lora had moved to a rented flat in Florida Court, Bath Road, Reading, and later they bought this their own bungalow in Caversham. They were now the proud owners of a garden, and life seemed very good. He took many photos of the garden over the years, including some when his brothers and nephew were visiting from America, and one when he was larking about with a friend, both wearing wigs from the salon.²⁸ He had taught himself to play the clarinet very creditably, and took part in a clarinet concert at Reading`s Hexagon Concert Hall along with about a hundred other amateur clarinettists. His favourite style of music was jazz, for which he had an inborn sense of rhythm. In April 1956 Ernie received a Statement of Account from the Jewish Synagogue in Vienna, for work done on his father Leopold`s grave. Evidently his father had died on 21st January, 1942, in what circumstances I have no means of knowing. It included the cost of a gravestone, the engraving, summer flowers and evergreen according to season, and one photograph of the grave. Ernie and Lora did make one or two trips to the Continent, to France and Belgium to my knowledge, so it is possible that he was able to visit his father`s grave back in Vienna, and possibly also the grave of his mother. He regularly filled in the Jewish Memorial ²⁹ Certificate, giving the date of death as 31st Jan. but a second Certificate gives it as 21st Jan. The first certificate has been corrected all down the dates for the memorial day, so he must have decided to start a fresh certificate. After all, that`s the most he could do, at this distance and this time away from the actual date of his father`s death.	²⁷ ²⁸
Ernie had now moved from hairdressing in the big store, and bought a salon³⁰ of his own in Caversham Road in August 1957. The photo shows him with his young Polish assistant, Madjevski. The old cottages next-door have now been pulled down. The second and third photos are of a better property he bought later, in the same road, and he is seen here with Lora who worked as his assistant for some time. He told me that he was never more happy than when he had his own business. Eventually he retired, but kept his hand in by working on Saturdays at an up-market salon in nearby Henley-on-Thames, the owner of the salon sending a car for him. Later he just trimmed the pates for some elderly friends. He played his clarinet³¹ for his own amusement, and took up painting. He went to classes for several years, some of his paintings and sketches 32 being outstandingly good. For several years they were able to go to the Jewish Home for the Blind at Southbourne, near Bournemouth, for a week`s holiday, when a Polish friend, Stefan, took them there and back by car.	²⁹ ³⁰ ³¹ ³²
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