Uncle Franz in Hiding (8 February)

I knew my Uncle Franz and Auntie Giesela had escaped from Europe to Canada during the War, but the details were unclear. Then one summer day he invited me to join him on a forest path behind the Point. “Let’s go down the track a little. It’ll be quieter away from the shore.” At length we stopped at “a knee-high fold in the rock that summoned us to sit down, which Uncle Franz was the first to do. He was panting.

“He pulled a White Owl cigar from his breast pocket and lit up…Then he leaned back on one elbow to look up into the sky. … And from there he embarked on a story that I had not heard before.”

From a first meeting on the banks of the Danube, to a whirlwind romance and a marriage just weeks later, to a desperate decision to flee as soon as possible, he traced their clandestine route across Europe to Milan, then to Marseille, Spain, and finally Portugal. He recounted close calls, moments of fragile calm, and strokes of incredible luck, all leading up to improbable sponsorship by a Canadian contact of a friend, a person they had not so much as met.

That last turn of events left me wondering if he and Auntie Giesela were still in touch with their eventual saviours, which made Franz stand up and lead me back towards the cottage. “We can go and talk to them right now.  … They’re your granny and grandpa.”

(pp. 110, 111, 116)

(Illustration generated by AI)