It has been over 65 years since the Holocaust ended through Allied force of arms, but Ernest “Ernie” Weiss still finds a captive audience whenever he tells the story of his family’s escape from Nazi Europe.
A member of the University of Maine-Augusta Holocaust and Human Rights Center’s speakers’ bureau, Weiss frequently speaks about his family exodus at Maine schools and public events.
Born in Vienna, Austria in 1931, Weiss was a young child when the Nazis annexed his country in 1938. Fleeing the Nazi advance, Weiss’ family traveled to Yugoslavia before escaping to Portugal, Cuba, and ultimately the United States.
Weiss’ family immigrated to Yugoslavia after his father was held for several months at Dachau, a concentration camp in Bavaria. His father was released after he was able to prove Yugoslavian citizenship.
Recorded in his memoir “Out of Vienna: Eight Years of Flight from the Nazis,” the story of Weiss’ family is an amalgamation of seven years of research. Weiss’ investigation saw him traveling around the world conducting interviews, from a small city near Tel Aviv, Israel to his hometown of Vienna.
Weiss’ memoir combines his own personal recollections with that of his relatives. Though the core of the book follows Weiss’ family as they flee Europe, much of it also explores the trials and tragedies that befell his extended family.
“Without these interviews I couldn’t have written the book,” Weiss said.
“Out of Vienna” follows 28 members of Weiss’ family. Nine of them were ultimately killed by the Nazis. One took their own life.
By the time he was 10, Weiss said he had lost all his grandparents.
“It’s very emotional for me to say that because I’m a grandfather,” Weiss said, visibly shaken by the memory.
Though they are the farther removed from horrors of the Holocaust, Weiss finds that young people make a better audience.
“They listen better than adults,” he said.
Kids, Weiss said, want to know more about him, about how he felt personally during his eight-year flight from the Nazis.
Adults ask more basic, fact-based questions such as “How did you survive?” and “How was your father able to leave Dachau?”
Weiss said that one of the most common questions he is asked by kids is whether he was afraid during this time.
Young people are also, it seems, more deeply interested in the personalities and motivations of the characters in Weiss’ memoir. Weiss recalled one time he was speaking before a crowd of high school students about his mother’s cousin Lisl and her boyfriend Bruno.
“Lisl and Bruno couldn’t go to a movie or go dancing. But they were happy just being together,” Weiss writes in his book.
As anti-Semitism rose sharply in Austria following Germany’s annexation of the country, Bruno immigrated to Palestine under the auspices of Jewish youth movement.
The 16-year-old Lisl, refusing to immigrate with her parents to China, was determined to follow her love to Palestine, legally or no.
Weiss’ grandfather ultimately convinced her family to go to China without her.
“‘You must leave,’ he said, ‘Your daughter is stubborn and in love. Let her stay with us until we find her a safe trip to Palestine.'”
Bruno and Lisl reunited in Palestine shortly after.
As Weiss finished telling his story, a girl in the audience raised her hand.
“Did they ever get married?” she asked simply.
Weiss answered in the affirmative.
“That was the most marvelous question I’ve ever heard,” Weiss said. “An adult would never ask that question.”
Hear more of Weiss’ story when he reads from “Out of Vienna” at the Skidompha Public Library in Damariscotta, Fri., Oct. 14 at 10 a.m.
