Sokal's Story (Part II)

Here Sokal interrupted his story, turning to me: “For sure you think that one of the neighbors heard the shots and so on. No such thing.” 

The buildings by Fleischmarkt were built in the twelfth or thirteenth century. The walls, at their thinnest point, were at least eighty centimeters. There were triple-panes, fairly large windows and when they were closed, no noise made it outside. 

This day because of the miserable March weather they were tightly shut, and in the parlor also covered with thick curtains of Italian velvet of the type terrazzo. 

The first thing that Sokal did, who knows why, was disconnect the telephone. 

Tante Ute lay dormant on the chaise longue, on which, even though she was very thin, with great difficulty her nephew put her. 

The SS-man lay on the floor. The whole time he was conscious, and his packed Walther, maliciously left in the reach of his hand, but it was of no use for him, because not one of his ten fingers would be able to pull a trigger. 

Sokal decided to arrange for his aunt in the morning a funeral. Funeral by cremation. 

Above all he had to contact one Zeleck, who his aunt often asked for help as a driver—a special driver. Usually she drove her own car, but sometimes a situation came up, for example some party or premier, when just someone like this was needed, to bring her there, let her out and at the appropriate time pick her up. 

A friend of her deceased husband, von Zeleck, as aunt called her, was great for this. Despite a relatively low stature he was very handsome and dressed very elegantly, and as a gentleman through and through he was a great driver, a seasoned automobilist and a very beholden friend of hers. He was from Poland and lived on Elizabethstrasse 15, meaning not far. 

Out of fear, for the heavily injured SS-man by chance not to do anything stupid, Sokal with great satisfaction, just in case, with two shots from the Walther hit the sucker’s knee on his healthy leg. 

Aunt’s recent guest let out another horrible yelp of pain. He knew that now he had no chance at escape. Sokal left, carefully closing the door with every lock. Down Rotenturmstrasse, on the side of Taborstrasse, with swastikas on their flags marched a long line of Austrian SA fighters. 

On Stephansplatz was another of the great mass meetings supporting Hitler and the Anschluss. Zeleck was at home. Sokal told him that his aunt asked him very much to be with the car under her house on Fleischmarkt and that for a couple of hours he would be very important for her. 

He handed him the documents and keys to the vehicle. He knew that Zeleck was exceptionally punctual. 

Returning on the way he stopped near the Rotenturmstrasse, where in the public garages Tante Ute kept her Citreon. All the supervisors there knew him. 

With the spare keys he opened the trunk and took a fifteen canister liter of gasoline, one of two, which his aunt, at Zeleck’s recommendation, always had in her car. Soon he was home, in which from his departure, though forty minutes had passed, nothing had changed. 

Now he had to work precisely. At seven in the morning he had to be ready to leave. 

From a special hiding place he picked two medium sized and indiscrepit suitcases. He knew that his aunt because of a very uncertain political situation for a long time did not hold money in the bank and that she even cleared out her bank safe. 

Sokal never really interested himself in this and knew only that which his aunt told him, but now, when everything was collapsing, he did not want anything from his aunt’s estate to be wasted. From numerous resourceful hiding places he pulled out large amounts of jewelry, gold bars and American dollars, the most credible currency in Europe, of which he counted more than fifty thousand. 

In addition he also found almost nine thousand British pounds, not to mention already French and Swiss francs, Italian liras, Polish złotys, Hungarian forints and different foreign bonds, promissory notes and of course the local currency, meaning Austrian schillings, of which compared to other currencies there was not much, which allowed the assumption that his aunt did after all have an account at some Austrian bank. Never in his wild imagination could Sokal even guess that his aunt was just such a wealthy person. 

Nailed to the floor the Hitlerite from time to time let out horrifying moans, which in a certain sense were a distraction, but Sokal decided to leave him until the very end at the brink of life. 

His aunt’s entire costly take had to fit in the two medium sized suitcases and in his backpack, meaning in regular luggage like that of hundreds of thousands or even millions of refugees who would soon make their way in the most different directions through all of Europe’s routes. 

The suitcases and backpack he took to the kitchen, where on a very large kitchen table he packed everything precisely. 

At the beginning he decided to save a few paintings, which while his aunt’s husband was alive were regularly purchased, mostly during their trips to Paris and Berlin. They were Matisse, Leger, Bonnard, Max Ernst, Picasso, Chagall and Kandinsky, luckily almost all of them were in a small format and fit in the suitcase. 

After taking the paintings out of their frames Sokal with great sensitivity divided them quickly with a kitchen knife from the stretcher, and when they didn’t fit in the suitcase, he delicately broke the canvas in half or into four pieces, being careful to never bend it with the paint on the inside. 

The most problems he had with the portrait of his aunt by Kees van Dongen. It was the largest painting in the collection. Tante Ute liked it very much, because really she looked beautiful in it, unfortunately he had to break it eight times, but Sokal definitely wanted to rescue it. 

Among the canvas he put different bonds and promissory notes or simply something from his whites or wardrobe. The jewelry he wrapped with some soft fabric and put into socks, the same he did with the gold bars, which were incredibly heavy. 

Other than the paintings, which he could pack into only the two suitcases, everything else went evenly among the suitcases and the backpack, aiming that the three pieces of luggage should be of about the same worth. Anyway you looked at it, the value of each was colossal. 

Of personal effects, not counting essential whites and clothing, serving mainly to secure the treasures, Sokal took only his transcripts of exams, colloquies, exercises and practicums, taken over the course of almost five years of study, his Polish passport as well as his Polish Tatran Society card, a few of his diplomas, photos, and an address book.