Antisemitism on the Rise

Barbara Bandler Steinmetz

Per the Race Laws the Bandlers must leave Italy within six months. In the spring of 1939, Margit and Alexander pack up what items they can—clothes, documents, photographs, and other tokens of their charmed life in Lussinpiccolo—and ready Ann, now 6, and Barbara, only 3, for a journey into the unknown. They board a ferry to the port city of Trieste where they deposit some of their suitcases in a storage facility. The family plans to reclaim their luggage after a trip home to Budapest, but they are never able to return to Italian soil to claim their belongings. More than 80 years later, Barbara still holds the keys to their abandoned suitcases.

Keys Alexander Bandler took with him as he and his family fled Lussinpiccolo in 1939.

Courtesy of Barbara Bandler Steinmetz

Transcript

Barbara: I was in Italy approximately three years. We left Italy. We were still in Trieste in 1939. September 1, 1938, there was-- Mussolini had to comply with Hitler's demand to rid Italy of its Jews. And so there was a proclamation that went out that all Jews that were not born in Italy after-- that were born in Italy-- I'm sorry-- that were not born in Italy before 1900 had to leave the country. And so my parents had to dispose of the hotel and, and leave the country.

We-- my father really was very knowledgeable about what was going on in Europe, partly because there were so many guests there. He was always very interested in politics, and he was-- he was very up to date with what was happening in the world. And since the Nuremberg laws and since all of-- and since Kristallnacht, he had a premonition of what was happening in Europe and what was going to happen. And so he started looking for other places for his family to go before we were actually-- before we actually left Italy. And so he started writing letters. He started inquiring from guests that came from other countries whether we would be able to get entry into their countries. And so, so when we left Italy, it was, it was not only not a surprise for my dad, but he was trying to already make arrangements for us to go elsewhere. The problem, of course, in Europe was, where do you go? But we had to-- we had to leave Italy. We had to pack all of our belongings and leave them in warehouses-- in a warehouse in Trieste, because, of course, we were only able to travel with just the things that we could carry easily.

"We had to pack all of our belongings and leave them in warehouses-- in a warehouse in Trieste, because, of course, we were only able to travel with just the things that we could carry easily."

USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, Interview 38619

Transcript

Barbara: So we left Italy about 19-- well, in 1939, the beginning of 1939. In March or April of 1939, we were still in Trieste. But that fall, that summer and fall, we went back to Hungary after we left Italy. We spent-- my sister, my mother, and I spent the summer in Hungary with our family, saying goodbye, and I think trying to figure out what we were going to do next. My father was trying to convince members of his family that it was time for everyone to leave, that 1938, '39, things were really imminent. Poland had been invaded. Things did not look good for the Jews. But Hungarian Jews had lived very comfortably in Hungary for a very long time, and they felt very comfortable with their non-Jewish neighbors. And they couldn't believe that in a country where they were relatively accepted and free, that, that they were threatened. And so both my parents come from rather sizable families, particularly my father. His-- he was-- his mother came from a family of 14, so there were lots of aunts and uncles and cousins all over. And so I think they spent that summer trying to convince people to leave, to no avail.

People seemed to, to feel that he was over-alarmed about what was going to happen. They, after all, had their homes. They had their belongings. They had their lace and their velvet and their clothes and their belongings, and they were very attached to their belongings. And they-- unless the threat was really imminent, they really didn't want to leave them. My father really had a very different view of things, and it was something that was imbued in us for all the years that he was alive-- that things were not important. It was people that were important. It was what you have in your brain and in your heart, that that was the only thing that was really important. And that's totally transportable. And it was something that was constantly talked about, because my parents left Italy, and it, seemingly, from our point of view, it seemed like they left it easily. I'm sure that it must have been very painful for them.

"I think they spent that summer trying to convince people to leave, to no avail."

USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, Interview 38619

Barbara’s now homeless parents have seen firsthand in Italy how a comfortable life could be undone by antisemitic rhetoric and rightwing nationalist decrees. In Budapest, the Bandlers urge their extended families to leave, fearing that Hungary’s developing alliance with Nazi Germany will soon bring devastation to the country’s large Jewish population. Since the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, a growing nationalist and fascist movement is gaining ground in Hungary.

But despite a deeply entrenched history of antisemitism in their native country, Alexander’s and Margit’s family cannot imagine that they too could fall victim to persecutions and violence at the hands of their fellow Hungarian citizens. The Bandlers, however, are convinced they cannot safely remain in Hungary.

They set off again in the summer of 1939 for Nice, a large port city in southern France that had not fallen to the Nazi and Italian military machines. Here they are safe, at least temporarily.

The family lodges in an apartment on 16 Avenue Georges Clemenceau in the heart of the city. Like most refugees, they lack the appropriate work visas, but amidst the chaos of the times, Alexander is able to find employment in a restaurant and Margit in a hospital kitchen. Young Barbara and Ann attend a German language school in Nice for part of the day but are often left alone in the apartment while their parents labor long hours to sustain a life on the run.

 

Receipt issued to Mr. Bandler in Nice for payment of the registration fee with the refugee assistance organization (Comité d’assistance aux réfugiés), February 21, 1940.

Courtesy of Barbara Bandler Steinmetz

Rental agreement for the apartment at 16 Avenue Georges Clemenceau, Nice, dated 13 September 1939.

Courtesy of Barbara Bandler Steinmetz

Letter confirming Barbara’s attendance at the Ecole Primaire de Sainte Helene Maternelle, City of Nice, dated 21 December 1939.

Courtesy of Barbara Bandler Steinmetz

Translation

Holocaust Awareness Institute

City of Nice

Nice, 21 December 1939

Primary School of Sainte Hélène Maternelle

I, the undersigned, Madame Estève, Director of the Sainte Hélène Maternelle, hereby certify that the young Barbara Bandler, age 6, currently attends our primary school.

M. Estève

Clothing Dispensary

8 rue Hôtel des Postes

 

 

Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in May 1940. On June 25 of that year, France capitulates to the Nazis. According to the terms of the armistice, the southern and eastern parts of the country are to remain unoccupied, but will be governed by a collaborationist government known as the Vichy regime, after the city of Vichy where it is headquartered.

Even after the armistice, the war is ever-present in Nice, which is part of Vichy France, thanks to frequent clashes between German and Italian forces and Free French Forces in and around the city. Barbara is taught to take her older sister’s hand, hide under a sturdy kitchen table, and stay away from windows whenever the air raid sirens sound.

The young girls are terrified by the bomb blasts, but their mother Margit would suffer most directly. When Italian bombers launch a raid near the hospital where she works, shockwaves topple a large pot of boiling water from a stove onto Margit as she tries to take cover. Boiling liquid showers over her, resulting in third-degree burns.

During the interwar period, France had been fairly welcoming towards Jewish immigrants, many of them coming from eastern Europe. But with the arrival of a steadily increasing stream of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany during the late 1930s, the French government begins to tighten its immigration policies. When the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France are invaded by German forces in May 1940, approximately half of the c. 350,000 Jews living in France are foreign citizens. France surrenders to Germany on June 22, 1940, and a Nazi-friendly collaborationist government known as the Vichy regime assumes control of the unoccupied, southeastern portion of the country. The Vichy government quickly adopts Nazi anti-Jewish policies, and in October passes a series of anti-Jewish legislation. One of these laws allows for the immediate internment of foreign Jews in France.

A little more than a year after the Bandlers were expelled from Italy as foreign Jews, they find themselves facing a similar—albeit more ominous—threat. Despite Margit’s still painful injuries, the ever-present threat of advancing Axis forces convinces Alexander that his family must flee once again.

Transcript

Barbara: When we lived in Nice, my mother and father both worked. I think my mother worked in some kind of a Jewish agency kitchen. Now one of the things that you might want to know about my mother is that she was an extremely educated woman. When she was a young girl, she was 17 when she graduated from a high school. And she went to the university, which was unusual in 1917 for a Jewish European woman to go away to school. She had her own apartment. And she received a degree in chemistry. She was a chemist and a pharmacologist. And before she was married to my father, she worked as a pharmacologist. And so she-- she was a professional woman. And here she was now in Nice. And she was working in the kitchen, cooking. She had an unfortunate experience. A pot of boiling water fell on her. And she had severe third-degree burns all over her legs. And she was hospitalized for a long period of time.

My father tried to take care of us. We were very young. And we were frequently left alone because both my father and my mother worked. And Tetsi, who was our nanny, although she also came to Nice, she also had to go to work. I mean, there was -- there was no money. We had no money to take with us. So everyone had to work. And my sister and I were frequently left alone. 

During those times, it was very frightening because this was the beginning of the invasion from Italy. And there were daily air raids over Nice. And my sister and I would hear the airplanes. And we wouldn't know what to do. And we were frightened. 

So we went and sat under the table, because it seemed like we remembered that our parents said you always have to get underneath something when you hear an air raid. And so we went under the table. And frequently when my father would come home, that's where he would find us, is under the table.

"Now one of the things that you might want to know about my mother is that she was an extremely educated woman."

USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, Interview 38619

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