Hedy Weiss

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Hedy Weiss*

I was born in Vienna, Austria. I attended a conservatory for music majoring in piano. I had a wonderful life with my mother, father, 2 brothers and 3 maids. I met my husband on a tennis court and we got married in 1928. I taught music, played piano and bridge. He had a shoe factory that produced about 1000 pairs a day. 2½ years later, our son Ernest was born. We still traveled. It was a different life in Vienna. “Let’s go for a week to Paris,” and we went to Paris.

In 1938, our second son, Peter was born. 2 months later Hitler came. Even before, Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, asked the Jewish people and the anti-Hitler people to give money to try to stop the Nazis from marching into Vienna. Everyone gave money, but it did not help us. During that time it was not good for middle class and poor people in Vienna. Hitler and his people said “If you say Heil Hitler, you get a job,” and they did get jobs. I had 2 children, 1 nurse who was 50 years old, and a young girl who cleaned the house. One evening, after going to a Hitler rally, the young girl came home and packed her clothes. I asked where she was going. “Oh, I cannot say,” she said and left.

At first, we really were not afraid. We thought that what we read in the newspapers about Germany was impossible. We did bellieve that in Germany Hitler let people leave with their belongings. When Germany came to Vienna, things became very tough and no one was allowed to leave. We were called to the capital and questioned. Then we were given pails and ordered to wash the stairs. I was excused because I just had a baby. I stood in line and sold my jewelry for very little money. I gave my mother's diamond to my aunt whose husband nailed it into a box. (My aunt sent me this diamond.) That same evening, we got a call from Nazis who were in our factory looking for our money. We told them there was no money there because it was Saturday. Robert unsuccessfully tried to get help from a non-Jewish lawyer. When my husband closed the factory for a 2-week vacation, it was taken over and given a new name.

One day, in March, we got a telephone call warning us that if the Sudetenland did not surrender, the Jews, especially business people, would be taken to Dachau. My husband's friend said “Come, I’m a Judge” and if you come to the City Hall, they will not look for you there. Before he could leave his office, 2 men came, asked his name and if he was Jewish. He was taken to the police station to be interviewed. We didn’t see him for a whole year. He was shipped right to Dachau. A commissioner took over our factory. Although they gave me very little money, I still had my beautiful apartment and piano, and the nurse stayed even though I couldn't pay her the full salary. We had already taken out money to go to Switzerland and had little additional money. In April, many of the women whose husbands were taken to Dachau were told that for $500(shillings), we could get our husbands back. I gave the money, but my husband was not released. When he did return, he would not talk about his experience in Dachau except that it was terrible.

My father-in-law was from Yugoslavia. He and his nephew, a reporter in Vienna for the newspaper, Zagreb, had an idea. They learned that when my father-in-law had become an Austrian, they didn’t cross his name off as a Yugoslav citizen. He immediately got Yugoslav papers, passports and we went to Berlin where he was told that if we were Yugoslavian, they could not keep us. It took about 9 months until my husband was released to Berlin to another town, then to Vienna. And then, in December or January we were given 24 hours to leave Vienna and could take only $8 each and not too many belongings. We joined my in-laws in the border town of Koprivnica where we stayed in one hotel room. We were the first immigrants and the few Jewish people there were so wonderful to us. Since, he could not earn money there, my husband decided to move us to Zagreb where he started to work with shoe models. My parents illegally joined us and we all stayed there for 2 years until the Nazis came. About a week after we had left Koprivnica, big trucks came and took all the Jews, including my in-laws, to a concentration camp. When the Lutwaffe came to Zagreb and started shooting everyone walking in the streets, we gave my parents our apartment and headed for Split, Czechoslovakia, as my mother was a citizen there. We later returned to Zagreb to see a Gentile doctor when I learned I was pregnant. A friend in the Bolivian embassy gave us Bolivian passports. We went to Sushak on the border of Italy where we found a nice apartment and waited. We wanted to get to the next town over, Abazia, a beautiful Italian vacation port that’s connected to Sushak by a big bridge. We were allowed to walk over the bridge with our belongings in a little wagon only after we gave our apartment to the man at the Italian Embassy. When we came to Italy, we were told we could not enter. I started to cry. We insisted that we were Bolivians. We were then told that only a judge could give us permission to enter. It was a Sunday. So we walked with a policeman, our little boys, and wagon to the courthouse. With the help of a lawyer, who would not take any money, we were given two weeks to stay in Italy. That’s all we wanted. We still did not know what to do. My husband decided we should to go to Portugal because it had a big harbor and maybe we could get permission to go the United States. My mother-in-law had a brother in Chicago who was a banker. When Hitler came to Austria, all the nephews wrote to him for an affidavit and were told that he would send it but they would have to sign a paper promising never to contact him or ask for help, to just forget about him. My husband was too proud to accept this. It was a mistake. The others accepted and went to America.

W went to Portugal by train and it rained inside. I sat there under an umbrella with my baby. Upon arrival, we asked for help from the Jewish social service agency and were told that we had no chance to go to the US. And so we bought a visa to Cuba for $300 and left on a special immigrant boat. The Cubans on the boat knew that we were not Bolivians. When we showed out passports, I spoke a little Spanish. I was good picking up new languages, but my husband wasn’t. In the meantime, I learned how to play the accordion, I was a pianist, and on the boat I played with the orchestra.

When we arrived in Cuba, I already had a job to play for $5. There was an Austrian club that was only for Jewish people, mostly immigrants. In the one year when my husband couldn't work because he only had a visitor's visa, I played in theaters and in concerts, not that I was so great. A funny story...One night I was in a nightclub with friends. They asked for an accordion player in order to find out how the people liked an accordion. I was sitting with friends in the audience and all of a sudden the conductor said, “I see the greatest accordionist from Yugosalvia, Hedy Weiss. I almost died, really, But he had my accordion on his hand; Calonje was his name. He called me to the stage and he gave me the accordion and he told me something I didn’t expect: “It’s midnight, we play on the radio, would you play something into the radio.” I knew a few songs, but not many. And so I played on the radio in Cuba. Then I played in a trio and had a big success, but the others were very good. That’s how I earned my money in Cuba.

When the Belgium Jews came, they wanted to open diamond factories and needed workmen. They told the government that they would employ 2000 Cubans if they also allowed non-Cuban engineers (Jewish) to be hired. Of course my husband didn’t even know what a diamond looked like. He and all the immigrants paid $300 to learn how to cut diamonds. The first week he earned $12, then $15, and after several months, $500/week with no taxes. We moved into a better apartment for $75/months and bought 3 rooms of furniture for $90. The Cubans were very good to us, helpful, and nice. And we did not feel anything from the war, not even food shortages though sometimes we couldn’t get beef. Most of the women worked polishing the diamonds. I played the accordion.

We were in Cuba when the war was over in 1945. We got an affidavit from one of my husband's customers, Abeles, from the Form Fit people. I went to the American Embassy, but we still didn’t get an immigration number. I told them that we had such a nice apartment, but we would like to go to America to build a new life. He came to look at the apartment and we got a number! We had a hard time getting to America. There were no boats coming to Cuba. Also, my husband was a diamond cutter and under suspicion when a bit diamond was stolen in Cuba. We eventually did come to America in 1946 to Miami and then to New York. My husband immediately earned $150 a week. When we first arrived in New York we had a very expensive apartment in a hotel because we couldn’t get anything else. I didn’t even know how to wash a floor, as I had never done so before. It wasn’t easy here in the beginning. When my younger son was 8 years old, he was in the third grade and could only speak Spanish. When we were in the other countries, my older son Ernie was not in school long enough to understand the languages. He was reading a little English, but spoke German. They put him in the junior high school, which was a mistake as he had no background and sat in the class without understanding a word. But both sons adjusted, learned, and graduated from Boston University.

I have been back to Yugoslavia. I had many friends there most of whom were killed by the Nazis. I also went to Vienna where I have relatives and to Czechoslovakia where I have a cousin. I looked for my houses, for my place, and everything had changed. No, I wouldn’t want to live there anymore. I still have my Bolivian passport with the name, Heviga Valles. Hedviga. My name is actually Hedvig, but when I got my citizenship, I became Hedy.

I left Vienna in 1939 when I was 34; now I’m 83. My husband was the tough one and I was the one who always said “tomorrow everything will be better”. That’s what helped me. I had been a very spoiled person with two children. My life in Vienna was really much different, but I would never want to live there or in Europe again. I only really and truly want to live in America.

Taken from Hedy Weiss's testimony recorded on video by The Holocaust Center on 11/12/1988.

*Hedy Weiss died on October 26, 1990.

To learn more about Hedy's family and what happened to them, please read Ernest Weiss' testimony.

*Deceased

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