Lily Juffy Haber, an energetic grandmother who was raised in Vienna, Austria, still remembers the tumultuous days of the Anschluss. Despite reports of probable violence, Lily’s boyfriend, Kalman Haber, persuaded her to go with him to the plaza to witness first-hand the Nazi  seizure of power.

There Lily watched clashes between Hitler loyalists and Austrian socialists who did not want the Nazis to rule Austria. “It was very scary,” recalls Lily, who was only 19 at the time. “The next day Hitler arrived and the city was filled with cheering crowds and Nazi flags and large pictures of Hitler. Most Austrians showed no resistance at all. They thought that Hitler would bring prosperity.”

But Lily and Kalman knew better. They fled home for safety. Kalman, a senior leader of a Zionist youth group, knew that Zionists were especially vulnerable so he quickly burned his list of members. Lily warned her mother, Ernestine, and her brother, Alfred, to stay indoors.

Several days later, a young boy showed up at Lily’s front door and ordered Ernestine to go outside and join many Viennese Jews who were scrubbing the streets and gutters on their hands and knees, surrounded by crowds of jeering Austrians. Most Jews, fearing for their lives, were afraid to disobey; others were bullied or beaten by Storm Troopers until they complied.

But Ernestine courageously refused. “Go tell the police or the Führer or your guard that I won’t go,” she said forcefully and shut the door.

Several days later, Lily’s brother, Alfred, was stopped on the street by SA men. When they discovered that Alfred was Jewish, they ordered him to stand in front of a Jewish shop for the entire day, carrying a sign reading, “Don’t buy at Jewish stores.”

After the incident, Alfred knew he had to leave Vienna, but he didn’t have time to obtain exit papers. So he joined friends who had bribed a German border guard into letting them cross into Belgium illegally. Alfred managed to find shelter on a farm near the border. Eventually he went to Brussels. There his escape tragically backfired: When the Nazis occupied Belgium in 1940, they began rounding up Jews. In 1942, Alfred was deported to Auschwitz and killed.

"Vienna: A City of Contrasts"

In the early years of the 20th century, Vienna developed a reputation as a cultural and cosmopolitan Mecca, renowned for its wide tree-lined boulevards, wonderful strudels and coffee cakes, and magnificent concerts. People from all over Europe thronged there. Jews also emigrated there, even though the city was a hotbed of antisemitism. By the early 1930s, almost 10 percent of the city’s 2 million residents were Jewish. And under the government of Engelbert Dollfuss, a tolerant Christian-Socialist, many Jews thrived. By 1937, Jews dominated the fields of advertising, furniture-making, and newspapers; over half the country’s lawyers and doctors were Jewish.

Many Austrian Jews were active in the Zionist movement, which had been popularized by a young Jewish journalist and lawyer, Theodor Herzl, who worked in Vienna. Herzl called for the creation of a national homeland for Jews as a powerful antidote to antisemitism which could erupt anytime. Young people were especially attracted to the utopian outlook and pioneering spirit of Zionism.

By Lily’s early teens, there were numerous Zionist youth groups in the city. Lily, idealistic and proud of her Jewish heritage, became caught up in this climate. When she was 13, she joined "Hashomer Hatzair" (the Watch Guard), a popular Zionist youth group that sponsored cultural programs, sporting events, and workshops designed to equip young people with the skills needed to develop collective communities. “The aim was to get young Jews to go to Palestine and build a new Jewish homeland,” says Lily, who became a group leader. “That’s what Herzl stood for.”

But Zionism did more than influence Lily’s philosophy. When she was 16, she met a young man there who was to change her life: Kalman Haber. Kalman, a 21-year-old engineering student , was a senior leader in "Hashomer Hatzair". Handsome, feisty, and smart, Kalman was a natural leader, and Lily admired him right away; he shared her desire to settle in Palestine. When Lily’s father died in 1935, Kalman went to the Juffys to pay a condolence call. Soon afterwards, Kalman began courting Lily.

They soon fell in love and planned to emigrate together to Palestine. The Anschluss accelerated their plans: As Austrian Jews became subject to the same restrictions as German Jews, Kalman and Lily  decided to marry right away and go to Palestine.  

But on the day that they planned to meet at City Hall to apply for a marriage license, Kalman did not show up. After waiting for more than an hour, Lily knew something was wrong: The city was teeming with SS men and Nazi Storm Troopers who were vandalizing Jewish homes and brutalizing Jews on the streets. Young men were particularly vulnerable. Lily panicked and called Kalman’s home. His family told her that he had been arrested that morning, but they did not know where to find him.

Several days later Lily received a note that Kalman managed to smuggle out to her: The Gestapo had arrested him and several hundred other Jewish men, most of them prominent leaders or Zionist activists. They were being held in a makeshift prison in the basement of what was once Lily’s elementary school. Kalman had volunteered to go into the school yard to help bring bundles of straw through the window for prisoners’ bedding. There he had stopped a young boy walking on the street and persuaded him to
carry a message to Lily.

Ten days later, Kalman was brought in for questioning. By then there were only some fifty prisoners left in the school. The others had either been released, promising to leave Austria at once, or they had been sent to Dachau, a large German internment camp for political prisoners.

Several high-ranking Nazis were in charge of the interrogation. Kalman later realized that one of his interrogators was Adolph Eichmann, the infamous Nazi. Eichmann, stationed in Vienna, was then in charge of the newly-formed “Office for Jewish Emigration,” the sole Nazi agency authorized to issue exit permits to Jews. Three years later the agency was used to oversee the extermination of millions of Jews and Eichmann was still in charge. But at this point in time the Nazis were more interested in pressuring Jews to leave the country than in killing them.

Eichmann ordered Kalman to sign a document stating that he had come to the Gestapo for police protection. Kalman refused. The officers threatened to hurt him physically if he didn’t sign. Kalman was smart enough to believe them. He signed the paper, saying that he was planning to emigrate to Palestine. The officers gave him fourteen days to leave Vienna.

“I need more time,” protested Kalman. “I’m getting married and I need to settle family matters.” “You have to get out,” they responded. “If we find you here in two weeks, you will be arrested.”

When Kalman returned home, he and Lily immediately made plans to emigrate and get married. (Kalman also had to arrange for a release from the Austrian army—he had received orders to report while he was in prison!) Like many other young Jewish couples who were hastily marrying to leave Austria, Kalman and Lily arranged to have a Jewish ceremony in the Stadtempel (The City Temple) on June 8. But the wedding was a lonely affair, attended only by Lily’s mother, Kalman’s father, and two of his six siblings.

“There were so many marriages like ours that day; it was like being on a conveyer belt,” recalls Lily. “The flowers were plastic and were passed from one bride to the next. After the ceremony we just left, got on the streetcar and went home. The Nazis were all around. We were afraid. It was very scary.”

"Everywhere an Obstacle"

Shortly after the wedding Kalman flew to Milan, Italy, to join Lily’s sister, Gisela, who had gone to Milan a week before the Nazis invaded Austria to visit her aunt, Mali Waldman. Lily planned to join Kalman as soon as she obtained a visa and helped her mother close up the family’s apartment. After standing in long lines, Lily managed to get a temporary passport good only for six months. Then she and Ernestine sold their belongings. But when Lily returned to her home to turn in the key, the building superintendent grabbed Lily by the arms because Lily had left an item there, and she sent for a police officer to arrest her. Terrified, Lily punched the woman in the stomach and ran, spilling the contents of her purse as she did so. Still on the run, she picked up the items from the street and jumped onto a moving streetcar.

That evening, Lily took her mother to the train headed for Italy. Then Lily returned to Kalman’s family apartment, walking through streets filled with SS men and police. Suddenly, a group of Storm Troopers accosted her and pushed her against a wall. “Why aren’t you wearing your swastika emblem?” one of them asked brusquely.

“I’m not Austrian, I am Polish,” said Lily, thinking quickly. Poland was not yet under Nazi rule. As a Polish citizen, Lily was not required to wear a swastika. The men had no way of knowing she was Jewish. They did not think to ask her.

Two weeks later, Lily flew to Milan to join Ernestine, Gisela, and Kalman, all of whom were now sharing Mali’s large apartment. Several months later, Kalman’s brother, Joseph, who had been trained as a doctor in Vienna, left Austria and joined them. In Milan he began dating Lily’s sister, Gisela, whom he had met briefly in Vienna. Joseph hoped to emigrate to England as a physician. Lily and Kalman still hoped to go to Palestine. But the British, who controlled Palestine, were restricting the flow of Jews into the country. Lily and Kalman couldn’t get a visa. And they didn’t have much money, since they had not been allowed to take any with them out of Austria.

Late in August they set out for Switzerland where, they had heard, the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) was helping Jews find money for travel. When they arrived in Zurich, the Swiss authorities asked them to state the purpose of their visit.

“We were just married,” Kalman said, afraid to admit their real aim. “We’re on our honeymoon!”

The fib backfired: When they registered at the JDC, the Swiss police were informed of their real purpose. They were arrested for entering the country under false pretenses and thrown into prison.

“I was so scared, I cried the whole night,” Lily recalls. “I was in a woman’s prison, with prostitutes and drunks. Kalman was in the men’s prison. When he talked back to the officials, they threw him into solitary confinement.” A day later they were released, but Kalman had to sign a document stating that they had entered under false pretenses. They could never return to Switzerland.

But with the money they received from the JDC, they could return to Italy and buy tickets for passage to Cyprus, a British Crown Colony and the only country that would grant them a visa. Settling there, they hoped, would make it easier to emigrate to Palestine.

They set sail for Cyprus in September 1938. In port, the British would not allow Lily to disembark, since her passport would expire in three months; the British would only accept passports valid for at least a year. Kalman refused to abandon Lily, until a member of the Cyprus Jewish community came aboard and persuaded him to disembark. On land, he urged, Kalman could try to find help.

“Kalman cried,” Lily remembers. “He didn’t want to leave me on the boat. I cried too. I was very sick. It was a nightmare.”

Lily then sailed to Haifa, Palestine, where a German official took her passport and her visa. He returned with a German passport marked with a “J” for “Jew.” On it he stapled her Austrian visa for Cyprus.

Meanwhile, Kalman frantically sought out officials who could help Lily. When Lily’s ship returned, officials allowed her to disembark, because Kalman was already on shore. The other Jewish passengers were not so lucky; they were returned to Italy, because they did not have proper papers.

In Cyprus, Lily and Kalman made their way to the capital city, Nicosia. Kalman found an engineering job overseeing the construction of a reservoir for an irrigation system. Lily worked in a lingerie shop. They lived in a rented room; later they rented a small stucco house on farmland outside of the city. Eventually, Lily opened her own shop, designing and making custom brassieres and girdles.

They were not well-off, but they were safe: On November 9, 1938, Lily and Kalman heard an ominous radio broadcast. The Nazis were burning synagogues and raiding Jewish homes and stores in Germany and Austria. It was Kristallnacht.

“We were very upset,” recalls Lily. “Many members of Kalman’s family were still in Vienna. Soon he managed to bring two of his sisters, a brother-in-law, and a nephew to Cyprus, but his third sister and his father remained trapped in Vienna. Luckily, they got to England before the war started.”

"From One Sanctuary to Another"

During the next three years, the Habers managed to make a life for themselves in Cyprus. Then, on June 1, 1941, the Germans drove British forces out of Crete; soon after, the Germans bombed Cyprus. All German and Austrian refugees—even Jewish refugees—were now considered “enemy aliens” by the British government. Kalman and his brother-in-law were interned in a camp with other German men.

The woman remained in Nicosia. Then the British decided to build a separate camp for Jewish refugees in Nankumba, Nyasaland (now Malawi), a British protectorate in East Central Africa. While it was being built, the British sent all Jewish refugees living in Cyprus to Tel Aviv for safekeeping.

Lily and Kalman arrived in Palestine after a treacherous voyage on seas laden with mines. But when they arrived, they were elated: They had finally achieved their dream. Even so, they were still considered “enemy aliens” and were not permitted to work. “We spent our days sightseeing,” recalls Lily, “and we managed to live on a small allowance that the British provided for food and rent. But we were with our own people. It was great!”

Six months later the Habers left Palestine for Nyasaland with a hundred other Jewish refuges from Cyprus. “We were given a tiny room in a U-shaped refugee barracks,” recalls Lily. “The room had dirt floors, a bed, a table, two chairs, and mosquito nets. Despite the netting, we both caught malaria!”

Nonetheless, life in Africa was relatively satisfying. Lily soon became pregnant and, nine months later, the British sent her to Zomba, where there was a European hospital. On March 1, 1943, Lily gave birth to a daughter, Ruth.

“Sadly, Kalman couldn’t be there for the birth,” recalls Lily, “but he managed to hitchhike to the hospital for a visit.” 

Eventually, Kalman was able to locate an engineering job in Zomba and they settled there. Later he found another job, managing a tea and tobacco plantation in a remote village. The family moved into a small, dirt-floored stone house that was infested with mosquitoes, scorpions, snakes, and tarantulas.  “You can imagine how scared I was,” recalls Lily. “You did not go out at night. You heard the lions roaring. The night watchmen would keep fires burning to keep the jungle animals away. Besides this, there were no stores, and I had to make Kalman’s shirts and Ruthie’s baby clothes. When Ruthie became sick with malaria, we had to take her through dirt roads to a mission hospital miles away. She was not even two years old, but we had to leave her there alone.”

"The Final Journey"

When the war in Europe finally ended on May 8, 1945, the Habers were legally free to leave Africa. But first they had to return to the refugee camps in Nankumba and Cyprus to be repatriated. After traveling to Nankumba, they took a train to Durban, where a ship was waiting to take them to Cyprus, They arrived in February 1946. By that time Lily was seven months pregnant with her second child and the captain wouldn’t let her board, since the ship had no facilities for pregnant women. So the family remained in Durban. On May 20, 1946, Lily gave birth to their second daughter, Suzanne. The Habers finally sailed to Cyprus in September 1946.

In Cyprus, Kalman and Lily decided to emigrate to America, planning to join Lily’s sister, Gisela, and Kalman’s brother, Joseph, who were now married and living in Rochester, New York. Lily and her children received permission to enter the U. S. right away, but Kalman was denied a visa: Since his parents had been born in Poland, Kalman was considered a Polish citizen by the Austrian Nazi government. Due to the large influx of Polish refugees after the war, there were strict U.S. quotas limiting the entry of Polish-born refugees. Kalman couldn’t get a visa. Finally, the U.S. Consul intervened and obtained permission for the entire family to enter as “displaced persons.”

Before departing for the U.S., Lily and Kalman returned to Palestine to visit Kalman’s sister, Mia, who had settled there and who was seriously ill. After all, it was their dream of reclaiming the promised land that had originally brought them together in Vienna. Now they wanted their two young daughters to meet Mia. She was thrilled to see her brother and his growing family one last time.

Finally, on January 4, 1947, the Habers boarded a small troop carrier, the "Marine Karp", headed for America. They couldn’t wait to rejoin their families in the U.S., but the ocean crossing was difficult and cold. Men and women were separated at night; the Habers—used to a tropical climate—had no warm clothing, and Kalman got seasick, leaving Lily alone to take care of the two young children.

These discomforts, however, were quickly forgotten when they arrived in the New York harbor. There, waiting for them on the dock, was Lily’s sister, Gisela. The two women had not seen each other in nine years and they wept as they embraced each other. Then they all took off for Rochester. Ernestine, still living in Milan, emigrated to Rochester later that same year. Lily eventually put her corset design skills to use and got jobs helping fit women with prostheses following mastectomies. Kalman was hired by Delco Products as an engineer and he developed his own real estate properties.

Soon Lily have birth to a third daughter, Deborah. Kalman passed away in 1994. Lily is now blessed with three daughters, four grandchildren, and a great-grand son named Kalman. Her oldest daughter, Ruth, an educator, lives in Indianapolis with her husband, Robert Rifkin, a lawyer. They have two married children and a grandson.

Lily’s second-oldest daughter, Suzanne, is a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester; her husband, William Thompson, is an economist. They have two children. Lily’s youngest daughter, Deborah, is the founder of the Rochester Children’s Theatre; her husband, Michael Taylor, is a world-renowned glass artist.

Excerpt from "Perilous Journeys: Personal Stores of German and Austrian Jews Who Escaped the Nazis" written by Barbara Lovenheim and Barbara Appelbaum