Escape to Africa. Henri Diamant
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again that he could be trusted to handle effectively and proficiently any task that was assigned to him. And so, a couple of years later, he was promoted to District Manager of the Znojmo region. As a result, we had to move once again. But this time no one complained because we were moving closer to Kravsko and our grandparents.
As District Manager, father had two distinct areas of responsibilities. He had to manage the largest store in his District, the one located in the center of Znojmo, and at the same time supervise all the units in surrounding towns.
The large store faced Horni Zamesti, Znojmo’s major square. It was the only modern structure around the square, and with its four floors it was also one of the tallest. It had a flat roof and a large BATA sign prominently displayed at the very top of the building.
The entire first floor, bright and attractively appointed, was devoted to retail sales. It featured comfortable chairs, large displays and a concealed warehouse full of merchandise. The second floor held a large shoe-repair workshop on one side, and several pedicure booths on the other.
The third floor was reserved for single employees. It had several dorms and a large area for dining and social activities. The manager’s apartment occupied the complete fourth floor.
Our family had a maid because mother worked with father on the sales floor. She supervised the cash registers, and kept an eye on the entire business during father’s frequent trips into the district. The maid took care of us kids, cleaned the apartment and did some cooking. Occasionally, we were allowed to play with the toys displayed in the children’s section of the store (the company manufactured amazing toys, most of them molded in rubber). I spent long and happy hours in the company of all kinds of handsomely detailed toy soldiers and military hardware. The array included horse-drawn guns that were capable of firing rubber shells. And those shells easily toppled enemy troops, even at some distance (provided I aimed well, which was not always easy to do).Several of the soldiers held little electric bulbs that flashed Morse codes when activated by remote control. Let me assure you, I had great fun with all that military hardware.
I can truly say that we were good kids, and usually managed to stay out of serious trouble. But boys being boys, there were some exceptions to the rule. I remember the time when one of my innocent experiments went terribly wrong. I was playing on the roof, where we kept a couple of pet doves, when I decided to find out how fast an object would drop to the street after I released it from my towering vantage point. So, I chose a heavy hammer from my tool-box (I loved making things out of wood, and had a complete set of tools at my disposal) and threw it over the wall that ran around the perimeter of the roof. Fortunately, no one got hit with my missile. Unfortunately, the hammer bounced off the pavement and, for no good reason at all, decided to fly straight through one of the large and very expensive display-windows in the front of the store. That was the time that I receiving a good whipping from father.
The city of Znojmo is surrounded by a remarkable countryside. First there is the Dyie River that flows through one part of the town. Then there are lush forests, fertile fields, beautiful orchards, large vineyards and many recreational areas. We swam in the Dyje River (it was within walking distance from the store), and went on day trips into the nearby forests any time father was able to take off from his grueling schedule. We picked mushrooms and ran after butterflies whenever we emerged into meadows full of wild flowers. And when we stopped to rest, father liked to whittle twigs that he transformed, in no time at all, into whistles capable of producing clear, shrill sounds.
We also spent many happy times with our extended family in Kravsko, and enjoyed the company of our Viennese cousins, Susanne and Ruth, whenever their parents came down to visit. One summer season, Aunt Johanna rented an apartment in downtown Znojmo, and we actually became fond of having them constantly around, even though they were mere girls.
Visits with our family in Lostice were, as I mentioned earlier, quite infrequent. I guess that was because it took several hours to get there and father could not take too much time off from his responsibilities. Even on Sundays, when retail was closed, father regularly set up spot-checks of stores to find out whether any of them were having inventory shortages. Father worked seven days a week.
It was at the tender age of six years, during the 1936 school year, that I entered the first grade, and my days stopped being all fun and games.Still, it was not long before I adapted to the new routine, and to the new direction that my life was taking.
However, some time later, cracks started to appear in our peaceful universe, cracks that, in general, appeared insignificant. Yes, Europe’s crisis evolved slowly at first, but then its ominous rumblings took on the life of a runaway locomotive. There was no stopping the world from tumbling into an abyss.
Father saw the danger for what it was, and decided to save our lives by taking the family out of the country. Fortunately, the company had just started a program that gave its Jewish employees top priority for job-openings outside Czechoslovakia, and father jumped at the opportunity. And to move matters along, father requested an immediate transfer from the Retail Division to the Import/Export Division named Kotva (Czech name for anchor) because it was in the process of a vigorous expansion, and was opening new branches all over the world.
His request was approved in due time and, once again, new challenges were set in motion for our family. Father was assigned to a lesser job, one that allowed him to report regularly to Zlin, for Kotva’s orientation meetings on procedures and intricacies of the import/export business. He became the manager of a small store in Zidenice, a suburb of Brno.
We moved to Brno during the early part of 1938, an astounding city as far as I was concerned. The scope and cosmopolitan diversity surpassed anything else that I had experienced before. It was, and still is, the administrative and cultural capital of the Province of Moravia, and the second largest city in the country.
We had barely settled into our new home, when father was forced to leave for several weeks. It was not Zlin that required his presence that time. Being a reservist, he was recalled to temporary duty in the military. Czechoslovakia was determined to defend its borders against a potential german invasion.
I may be prejudiced, but father really was a dashing dragoon, and I have a picture to prove it. The photograph shows him in a standing position; he has a cap with a short visor on his head, a thin moustache on his upper lip and he is attired in a belted jacket, with a long sword clipped to the left side. He also holds a riding crop with his left hand, and a cigarette with the other. This is definitely a picture of the neatest cavalryman I had ever seen.
As I said before, Czechoslovakia mobilized because Hitler wanted to annex the Czech territory known as Sudeteland. It was ready to fight, even against the worst of odds, to prevent the break up of its territory and maintain its borders. It even formed alliances with France, England and other countries in the hope of safeguarding its independence. Unfortunately, nothing helped. In September of 1938, at the infamous meeting in Munich, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain surrendered to Hitler’s demands and sacrificed Czechoslovakia in the name of peace. Hitler had promised during the meeting that the Sudeteland would be his only territorial demands in Europe. But, as the World found out, this was just a ploy on his part. He grabbed the Sudeteland on September 19, 1938, and overran the rest of Czechoslovakia on March 14, 1939.
Fortunately for us, we managed to leave Czechoslovakia at the end of January, 1939, and narrowly escaped the Nazis by the skin of our teeth.
This is how it all came to pass.
After the reserve forces demobilized, and father returned home, he notified the office in Zlin that he wanted to get out of the country without further delays. He made it clear that he did not care where he would be transferred, as long as he could leave within weeks.
And so, as I mentioned at the beginning of this Memoir, the first position that became available was the one in Romania. Father “grabbed” it without hesitation, and arranged to have our travel documents processed on an emergency basis. At the same time, our parents started to grapple with another dilemma. They had to think about what to take along to our new destination, and what to leave behind. Eventually, practicality won over sentimentality, and they decided to leave most of our possessions in the good care of relatives. We were going to take