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Jerusalem - Though eighty-five-year-old Eliezer Katz has lived in Eretz Yisrael for the last seventy years, his accent still rings of Vienna. In its tranquil home at 49 Neustift Street, in Vienna’s seventh district, the Katz family led a relatively uneventful life. For years, the father, Asher-Zev (“Zelig-Wolf”), had been a clerk at the railroad station, then switched to selling clothing. Leah was a homemaker; the children, Yaakov, Devorah, and Eliezer, attended school.

Then, on March 12, 1938, a few weeks before Pesach, the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, was declared. “That day,” Katz recalls, “I stood with my father on the street in Vienna, and we watched masses of people cheering the Nazi soldiers marching by. My father wrinkled his forehead and said that the Jews were in for some bad times. I was only just after my bar mitzvah, but I had already heard about the arrests and deportations that Jews had been subjected to in Germany, ever since the Nazis had come to power.

“Immediately after the Anschluss, our financial situation deteriorated. Father had been importing clothing from Germany. All his earnings were deposited in German banks. The Nazis forbade him to buy more merchandise or to access his account.

“Soon, things got even worse. Shortly after the Anschluss, all the Jewish students in my school were suddenly marched out of the building to another school, of only Jewish students. The teachers were all either Jewish or non-Jews who had been labeled disloyal.”

There were Jews who buried their heads in the sand, who were confident that their standing as veteran residents of Vienna, and the deep friendships they shared with their neighbors, would be

their saving grace in the face of trouble. Perhaps because he had been born in Galicia, and persecution of the Jews there was fresh in his mind, Zelig Katz understood what grave danger his family was in. He searched for a way to send at least his younger son, Eliezer, to safety. He made inquiries of the Blau-Weiss (Blue and White) Zionist youth organization, which prepared young Jews for immigration to “Palestina” — Eretz Yisrael.

“Father’s idea was sound, but since we didn’t have the necessary funds, he wasn’t able to procure an immigration certificate for me.” Then suddenly, with no warning, Eliezer’s father, sister, and brother were arrested and transported to an internment camp. He and his mother were left alone.

Soon after that, the Stormtroopers, brought a note to Eliezer’s home, informing what remained of the Katz family that, under the authorization of the Austrian Armed Forces, their home had been “reassigned”; Mrs. Katz and her son were to vacate the premises immediately.

“Days later, my mother and I were forced out of our home, leaving behind all our possessions. We moved in with another Jewish family, already living under extremely crowded conditions.

This happened to many families in our city — including the family of my future wife, Chava (Eva). They lived just a few streets away, though I never met her until years later, in Eretz Yisrael.”

Eventually, Eliezer’s father, brother, and sister were released,and the family was reunited, but their Austrian citizenship had been revoked. They were deported to Poland, but since the Polish government refused to grant them entry, they found themselves in no-man’s-land, in a remote village on the border between Poland and Austria.

A similar fate was suffered by 17,000 other homeless Jews. Among these refugees was the Grynszpan family. Herschel Grynszpan, seventeen, was studying in Paris at the time and learned of his family’s plight when they wrote him a letter asking for help. He took a gun to the German Embassy and shot junior officer Ernst vom Rath, who died three days later of his wounds.

Read below the entire story from this weeks Mishpacha Magazine