Fairy Tales (nonfiction) by James Josef Allina; PublishAmerica (c) 2013; ISBN 9781462659692; 182 pages, $13.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO —Fairy Tales is a two-part memoir. The first part, in the voice of the author’s uncle, Josef Benesch, focuses on living conditions for Jews in Vienna after the Anschluss with Nazi Germany The second part, in author James Josef Allina’s own voice, tells the story of his mother, Trude (Benesch) Allina after her family immigrated from Vienna to San Francisco.
Even for readers who are not members of the Benesch/ Allina families, this memoir has considerable value. For one, it shows that in the initial years after the Anschluss, or merger, of Austria and Germany, the Nazis humiliated, impoverished, brutalized and sometimes arbitrarily killed Jews, but still had not embarked upon their later policy of genocidal mass murder.
The Nazis’ racist goals at the time were to drive the Jews out of German occupied lands and to confiscate their belongings. The mass murder campaign was not devised until after the Wannsee Conference of 1942, after Germany had conquered much of the European continent and realized that many of the countries outside its orbit, including the United States of America, were unwilling to accept Jewish immigrants, except in special cases.
In the first part of the book, Josef Benesch, a well-to-do businessman, describes being arrested, tortured, and imprisoned at Dachau, and relates the laborious process by which the family had to surrender its wealth and possessions to get out of Austria. He and his wife Mami were able to find sanctuary in the United States thanks to the sponsorship of another family named Benesch, who were unrelated to Josef.
When he and Mami told Americans how the Nazis were treating Jews, their stories were greeted with incredulity. Surely, these were “fairy tales,” thought the disbelieving Americans. But of course they were not.
Josef’s younger sister Trude was unconventional in many ways. From an early age, she was selling leather goods to customers in her parents’ store. While Josef was pursuing a legal career, their father died, and Trude took a more senior role in the business. Still she found time to date other well-off Jews, especially Paul Allina, who enjoyed drawing attention to himself by driving a new red convertible. When Trude found herself three months pregnant with the author’s older brother, Alfred, she and Paul decided it best to marry.
Not long after Alfred’s birth, Trude’s mother, Katarina, was arrested by the Gestapo, as was Trude’s husband, Paul. Ever resourceful, Trude bribed the Nazis to get them out of prison, and having obtained a sponsorship affidavit from a cousin in San Francisco, arranged for their immigration with her and Alfred to the United States, where the author of this book, James Josef Allina, later was born.
Understanding manufacturing and having an eye for fashion, Trude created a business called “Trude of California,” which specialized in dresses for girls. It became quite successful, simultaneously spelling success and troubles for the family. Trude liked being in charge, which was resented by Paul. Their arguments were loud, noisy and sometimes violent. Eventually the couple divorced. Trude’s second marriage also was tumultuous. And her relationship with her son, the author, was strained almost to the breaking point before she died.
One can’t help but reflect while reading this portion of the memoir, how many other successful enterprises like “Trude of California” might have been created by any of the 6 million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis, if the United States had a more open-armed immigration policy.
One also can speculate that Trudi, traumatized by the death of a father who left her nearly in charge of the family business, and by a husband with a large ego, but no practical earning power, distrusted men, and came to believe that she could never rely on them, but must instead depend only on herself.
This memoir suffers from typos and other mistakes that could have been eliminated with more vigorous editing by PublishAmerica. Nevertheless, it is a book of importance. It offers us insights into the Anschluss portion of Holocaust history, the shortsightedness of American immigration policy, and how historic events can affect not only the lives of the people who suffered through them , but those of the generations who follow.
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Author Allina has a few of these books left in stock. A check for $13 will cover the cost of the book, tax, shipping and handling. Purchasers may send their checks to Allina at 9420 Fortune Lane, La Mesa, California 91941-4408.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com Comments intended for publication in the space below must be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his or her city and state of residence.