The globe-independent. (Hagerstown, Md.) 1943-19??, 1946-04-04


success - which i
has been con- aAS ~
siderable. A Czechoslovakia Jew,
Wechsberg has travelled and lived
all over the Continent and, as vio-
linist in ships orchestras, has girdled
the globe. Some of his most delight
full sketches have dealt with his ex-
periences and the characters he met
while playing his way around the
world. Several years ago he settled
in America and became, in due time,
an American citizen.
Came the war and Wechsberg en-
listed and wound up - since he is
quite linguist - in ca, and event
ually the Psychological Warfare Di-
vision of Intelligence.
In the New Yorker of March %,
Joseph Wechsberg describes his re-
turn to his native city, (Moravska-
Ostrava, the fourth largest town in
Czechoslovakia) whence he had
gone to find his parents-in-law. He
had little hope of finding his own
mother, who had been taken away
to a concentration camp in the early
days of the German occupation -
nor did he find her - but he did
find his wife's mother and father
and the story of their reunion, and
the conditions he found in his native
city makes a human document that
no one who is trying to understand
our times, should miss.
Part of the charm of Wechsberg's
writing is his gift for effective I'M
reinstatement and his light sure
touch, which, while missing nothing,
gives undue Importance to nothing.
Instead, he does his reader the COM
pliment of letting him tread beside
him in his passage through the
world, to linger where he chooses.
In what is obviously shattering ex-
perience, this rare skill has not fail
ed him. The implications are there
the impact hits you, not like a bat
tering RAM but rather like an
anaesthesia - leaving you seriously
numb.
Out of the hundreds of people
Wechsberg had known and grown up
with, he found NINE alive and ac-
counted for, although some of them
were not recognizable - one so
often isn't after years in concentra-
ton camps. He found the ugly coal
mining city of his birth uglier than
ever in its ruins. 1t is in the Russian
Zone of Occupation and Wechsberg
hitched ride there on a Red Army
truck. When he got out of the truck,
the gaunt scarecrows standing idly
in the street surrounded him with
cries of joy at the sight of his Amer
lean uniform. We're the Americans
coming, they wanted to know.
Wechsberg explained that they were
not, since this was the Russian Zone,
he was just lone native returning
to find relatives. With grim disap-
pointment in every line of their
tired, undernourished bodies, they
turned away.
On the street where he had lived,
every house stood intact except one
his childhood home. Of that there
was nothing left but ruins. Walking
through what remained of the
scenes of his boyhood, Wechsberg
came at last to the street where his
Wife's parents lived. The house was
standing, every blind drawn. He
knocked and knocked. Finally from
above came a faint reply, then, as
he shouted his name, the scurry of
steps and the opened door and the
oblivion of a wordless, sobbing re-
union.
The rest is a bitterly delicate
mosaic of what is happening all over
Europe today To tell more would
spoil Wechsberg's constrained ac-
count his simple statement of
facts, which asks no quarter. I
recommend it from the depths of my
heart to every person who feels
and suffers for the sorrows of the
world. It won't take you long to
read it - SO much more is unsaid,
than said. When you have finished
you will know that sustaining the