 |
|
| Contact Us | Classifieds | Search: |
Purchase online
BOL Online
|
The gift of life
How a small Bohemian town saved a troubled Nobel Prize laureate
For The Prague Post (January 8, 2003) "I shall never forget the friendly reception at our visit to Prosec." The words are those of author Thomas Mann, written in July 1947 to Rudolf Fleischmann, a resident of the village about 170 kilometers (105 miles) southeast of Prague. To all appearances, Prosec is a run-of-the-mill small town in the Czech-Moravian highlands. A current profile might read: 525 meters (1,732 feet) above sea level, population 2,159. There's a church, a school and a post office but no ATM. Prosec would likely have remained a town of minor consequence were it not for a little-known service it rendered to Mann, a Nobel Prize winner. The town's role in helping Mann is recounted in a new book, My Prosec and Thomas Mann, by Marie Rut Krizova and Vaclav Vojtech Tosovsky (published only in Czech). Petr Pithart, president of the Czech Senate, was in Prosec in October for a formal presentation of the new work. He lauded the civic courage of the town during an era that he called "a time of great tension and fear in Czechoslovakia, but also a time of great determination." "The village was actually a little enclave of avant-garde artists," recalls Fleischmann's daughter, Milena Grenfell-Baines, of the decade before World War II. Her father, an amateur violinist, was part of a group of poets, musicians and playwrights attracted to Prosec by Fleischmann's brother-in-law, Bernard Kosiner, one of the first people in Czechoslovakia to broadcast art criticism on the radio. Also an accountant and Town Council member, Fleischmann was presented with a unique opportunity to help one of the literary legends of his day. Literary exile By the mid-'30s, Mann had an impressive career stretching back more than three decades. Born in 1875 in northern Germany, he started writing short stories and plays in school. During his fin de siecle stay in Italy with his older brother Heinrich, also an author, Mann started the masterpiece that would win him the Nobel Prize in literature almost 30 years later: Buddenbrooks (1901). An epic saga of the gradual decline of a wealthy Hanseatic family, the book was a bestseller at home and abroad. By the time the tide had changed for the worse in Germany, Mann had also penned literary milestones such as Tonio KrOger (1903), Death in Venice (1912) and The Magic Mountain (1924). When Hitler came to power in January 1933, Mann was on a lecture tour in France. He never returned to Germany. He would never again live in Germany, moving instead to Switzerland.
In his novella Mario and the Magician (1930), Mann had anticipated and warned against the rise of fascism. But prophets who bear ill news are rarely welcome. So when Mann spoke out publicly against the Third Reich in the Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung in 1936, whatever toleration the German government may still have harbored for a Nobel Prize laureate was spent. Mann was expatriated in December 1936 -- and without a passport his safety was precarious, even in neutral Switzerland. A safe haven Help arrived from a most unlikely source: the town of Prosec. The chain of events began with two men in Prague, jazz composer Jaroslav Jezek and a Professor Kozak, who contacted Bernard Kosiner in Prosec when they heard about Mann's crisis. Kosiner talked to his brother-in-law, Rudolf Fleischmann, who hatched a plan to grant Mann and his relatives domicile status in Prosec. This status would enable the authorities to make the Manns Czech citizens. In 1936 Czechoslovakia was not yet occupied territory. But in the shadow of Germany, shielding Mann was a bold move, supported by then-President Edvard Benes. Fleischmann traveled to Switzerland to meet Mann and fill him in on the details. Fleischmann later wrote: "I can remember distinctly that it was at 11 a.m. when I stood in front of the villa, at Kuessnacht, No. 33 Schiedhaldenstrasse, overlooking the lake at Zurich. ... I rang the bell and a maid dressed in black with a white apron quickly answered. Just as I was giving her my name I saw behind her a tall, slim man of about 60, a face stern and ascetic. It was Thomas Mann. He stretched out both hands, he helped me off with my overcoat and led me into a large room. I gave him President Benes's message. I soon realised that Thomas Mann knew all about Prosec from his brother and I knew from Heinrich Mann's letters to me how happy he had been to have his Czech passport." Back home, Fleischmann still had to convince the mayor and Town Council. He was assisted by a cleric, Father Jerabek, whom Fleischmann described as "the most noble and heroic of priests." With the council still wavering, Jerabek held a worship service, quoting from Mann's biblical trilogy Joseph and His Brethren. "From that moment, I knew our battle was won," Fleischmann recalled. In November 1936, the Czechoslovak Consulate granted citizenship to Thomas Mann and his family. Mann visited Prosec in January 1937, greeting and thanking the townspeople and making the affiliation with his newfound homeland official. Mann moves on With the new passport, Mann was able to leave Europe. He went to the United States in 1938 and landed at Princeton University, relocating to California two years later. In 1944 he became a U.S. citizen. This did not sit well in Prosec, even though the Nazis had annulled Mann's Czech citizenship after Bohemia and Moravia became protectorates in 1939.
When Mann's Czechoslovak citizenship was restored after the war, he wrote to the Prosec Town Council: "You probably know that I became an American citizen two years ago. I did not make this decision lightly and do not wish to seem disrespectful by having exchanged my Czech citizenship for an American one; but the circumstances made it necessary for me to do so, and I have stated my reasons for this to President Benes who was so kind as to express his fullest understanding. It is important to me that you know this." Meanwhile, Fleischmann and his family were also forced to flee. His children were put on a Kindertransport to the United Kingdom, organized by the "British Schindler," Nicholas Winton. His Latvian wife made her way to England via Norway, while Fleischmann himself traveled right into the snake's pit -- Berlin. It was the one place, he was convinced, "that nobody would look for me." Aided by strangers and, incredibly, by a German Army officer who helped smuggle him out of the country, Fleischmann was reunited with his family in Britain. "There is no gift in the world which can repay a man who has risked his life for you," Fleischmann said of that German officer. Presumably, Thomas Mann felt the same way about Prosec, Fleischmann and all the Czechoslovak people who helped him escape Nazi oppression.
Sarah Carlsson can be reached at
features@praguepost.com
|
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.