Trajectory
by David Muller

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The first ancestors that we have record of are Leopold Muller and his wife Fana Mullerova. We only know their names because we have the birth certificate of Jindrich (Heinrich or Henry) Muller, who was born on April 3, 1839 and died on September 11, 1904. Leopold was my father’s great great-grandfather and Jindrich was my father’s great-grandfather.

Jindrich was married to Julie Quitt, who died on December 31, 1909. We know that Jindrich owned a company called Jindrich Muller und Sin (and son), which was a wholesale grain and grocery trading firm located in Sered, a small town on the right bank of the Vah River near Trnava and near Bratislava.

Jindrich’s son was Ignatz Muller, my father’s grandfather. Ignatz was born on March 12, 1867. Ignatz married Sophie Quittner in Sered. Ignatz took over his father’s business, buying and selling train loads of coffee and grains, and also added a retail store, selling groceries and hardware, in the late nineteenth century. Ignatz’s first purchase was the property at Midlarska Ulica in Sered where he had his wholesale and retail grocery. He later bought the property at Namestie Slobody Street where he had the granary. Later, in 1926, bought the property at Trnavska Cesta 1 where he had a fuel warehouse. From photos and documents of the period, it was obvious they were very successful and the name was well-known in the region.

Ignatz and Sophie had four children: Rozsi, Gyula, Lajos, and Nandor. Rozsi, the eldest, was the only girl. Gyula (or Julius) was the eldest of the boys, followed by Lajos (or Ludwig), and Nandor (or Ferdinand). The three brothers and their father Ignatz ran the wholesale and retail business in Sered.

Rozsi Muller married Alexander (Sandor) Schwitzer, the manager of the famous sugar factory in Sered, in 1915. They lived in a mansion next door to the sugar factory. They even had a tennis court.

They had two sons, Paul in 1919 and Henry in 1922, both born in Sered. In 1938, Rozsi sent her two sons to live in England. It is not exactly clear why she did that. We assume that she began to feel the winds of anti-Semitism and calculated that her children would be better off abroad. If that was her calculation, it certainly was prescient.

There is a photograph that shows Rozsi with her sons that appears to have been taken in England in 1938. If so, that means she could have stayed there, but apparently, she felt an obligation to return home to take care of her parents, both of whom were still alive.

Gyula (Julius) married Irene (Iri) Preisler in 1938. Irene was Catholic and converted to Judaism in an Orthodox conversion. They had two children, Julie and Paul, both born in Sered.

Lajos (Ludwig) married Magda Engel, who was from Lucenec, Slovakia. They had two children, Agata (Agi or Agnes) and Gyuri (George), both born in Sered.

Gyula and Lajos worked for their father in the business in Sered. Nandor (my grandfather), the youngest of the three Muller brothers and the more entrepreneurial, decided to venture out on his own and formed a branch of the family business in the nearby town of Hlohovec. In 1929, he built a retail store at Namestie Gottwaldovo 10 (now known as Namestie svateho Michala) on the main Stefanik Square right in the middle of town. Stefanik Square was in a perfect location, since both the local church and the farmers’ market were there. When farmers needed to buy supplies, Nandor’s store was close at hand. He also bought two other buildings nearby, one he bought in 1932 from Count Erdody in Nova Stvrt as a warehouse for fuel and the other he bought from the Eisler family at Stalinova Ulica 23 and he used as a warehouse for grains. The business flourished and soon Nandor became one of the town’s leading citizens. Much of his success came not so much from the retail store but from providing goods at wholesale, particularly wheat, oats, corn and sugar to the local jail.

Nandor and Magda Herzog were married in Hlohovec in 1928. They worked together in the store. Their son Henry (my father) arrived in 1930 and their daughter Alice in 1932, both born in Hlohovec. They lived in a spacious apartment above the store at Namestie Gottwaldovo 10. The couple worked hard, but they were prosperous and life was good.

So to recap, each of the four Muller siblings had two children, which was the requisite amount for families in that era: not too many and not too few. The four families were happy, healthy and prosperous. Life was great.

Then things began to change. Hitler and the Western allies signed the Munich Agreement on September 30, 1938. Among other things it divided up Czechoslovakia, ceding the Sudetenland, the part that was closest to Germany, to the Reich. Slovakia became a separate country. Though nominally independent, Slovakia existed only as a German satellite. It was governed by the Slovak People’s Party, led by Josef Tiso. It had a paramilitary arm known as the Hlinka Guard. The remaining parts of Czechoslovakia, Bohemia and Moravia, had independence very briefly but eventually came under German control as well.

On the streets of Sered and Hlohovec, things were getting progressively worse for the Jews. Swastikas were painted on the gates of Jewish homes and Jews were regularly derided in the streets.

My grandfather had an employee named Ferko (or Frank in English), who did deliveries and other errands for the family. Ferko was not Jewish. He lived on a farm on the outskirts of town. One day, Ferko met with my grandfather and announced that he was leaving Slovakia and moving with his family to Canada. He explained that he had gone on a hunting trip in the woods and had seen some camouflaged tanks. He took that as a sign that war was imminent, and having lived through the First World War, he wanted to get out of Europe before there was another one.

My grandfather tried to talk Ferko into staying, but after it was clear that Ferko’s mind was made up, my grandfather let Ferko know that he, my grandfather, would pay for the ship’s passage for Ferko, his wife and his two children, and also that he would give them money to get off the ground in their new country. (This was the first time of several in his life that my grandfather did this sort of thing. More on that later).

At the beginning of 1938, Ferko, his wife and two sons settled on a farm in a place called Wainfleet, a small town outside Welland, Ontario in the Niagara Peninsula. Their first year was really tough for them, and they were grateful to receive packages of dry groceries which Nandor shipped them regularly from the store’s inventory.

In mid-1938, Ferko sent a letter to my grandfather warning of the impending threat of the Nazis and begging Nandor to leave Slovakia and come to Canada with his family. The letter started “Dear Boss.” He still called my grandfather “Boss” even though he now lived at the other end of the world! However, Nandor wrote Ferko back that he was not persuaded. Perhaps life was too good for him to imagine the events that would destroy it.

Then, late one night in November of 1938, several dozen members of the Hlinka Guard showed up at Nandor’s home. The leader of the group was actually a manager in Nandor’s warehouse. They demanded that Nandor come downstairs and open the gate. Nandor had no choice but to do so because he knew that the group was large enough to break down the gate if he refused to open it. As soon as Nandor opened the gate, the men grabbed him and beat him badly, breaking his left forearm and five of his ribs.

It was that event that convinced Nandor that he had to get out of there. He called a meeting of his siblings and let them know that he was taking his wife and children somewhere, he did not know where. He asked everyone else who wanted to join him. Lajos and Magda said yes. Gyula and Iri felt that they could hide behind her former Catholicism and stay out of harm’s way. Rozsi and Sandor felt they had to stay to look after the parents, who were too old to travel. Besides, they felt that things would blow over.

Thus it was decided that Nandor and Magda would leave with their two children, and Lajos and Magda would leave with their two children. Now Nandor needed to obtain eight visas, and they were impossible to get when so many other people were making the same decision to leave. He tried to get visas to enter Palestine, at that time under the control of Great Britain, but was turned down. He tried again, this time to enter the United States, but was refused again.

Finally he went to the Canadian Embassy in Prague, where he applied for eight visas – four for his own family, and four more for his brother Lajos, Lajos’ wife Magda, and their two children. Once more the answer was no. Canada was only accepting farmers, and even then, only with a financial sponsor, or guarantor, who had to have been currently living in Canada.

The only person the Mullers knew in Canada was Ferko, and Nandor wrote Ferko explaining that they needed a sponsor. Ferko had no money at all and thus did not qualify. What Ferko did do, and remember that he spoke no English, was to go to the nearest town, called Welland, Ontario to look for a financial sponsor for the Mullers. He had a very novel way of going about his search. He walked up and down the main street of Welland looking for a store that might have Jewish owners. He did find one, called Mitchell’s Ladies Wear, walked in unannounced and asked for the owner. The owner, Sam Mitchell, came out and Ferko explained to him, in 90% Hungarian, of which Mr. Mitchell spoke not a word, and 10% English, about the need for a financial sponsor for the Mullers in Slovakia. Amazingly, Mr. Mitchell immediately said yes. He later explained that anyone who had a former employee who was that faithful must be an amazing family.

After Nandor received sponsorship documents from Mr. Mitchell, he and Lajos swore affidavits that they were farmers, and then Nandor went back to the Canadian Embassy. This time, on his wife Magda’s advice, he took with him a huge wad of cash in his pocket. He went into his appointment with the Canadian officer, handed him the paperwork and put the wad of cash on the desk. Thank G-d, the officer took the cash, processed the paperwork and handed Nandor eight visas!

It was now the beginning of the summer of 1939. With the Nazis already exerting control in Slovakia, it was no longer possible to exit the country, even with visas in hand to Canada. Nandor then arranged an amazing plan. He found a private pilot with a small eight-seater plane who was willing, in exchange for a pile of money, to fly them out of Slovakia! The plan worked!

They escaped via Bratislava, but still had to stop in Vienna to refuel. When they landed in Vienna, the small airport was already overrun by Nazi soldiers wearing swastikas. Amazingly, the Mullers were able to refuel and take off again for Brussels.

From Brussels Nandor had arranged a second plane to fly them to the western coast of France, and from there they chartered a third plane to take them across the English Channel to London. They had escaped. That my grandfather was able to arrange all this and actually carry it out under such harrowing circumstances is truly remarkable, and needless to say, my whole generation of Mullers and all those following owe our very existence to the fact that Opi accomplished this.

In London they were met by Rozsi’s sons Henry and Paul Schwitzer. This was wonderful, not the least of which reasons was that the two of them spoke English, a language of which the Mullers knew not a word. The two brothers had arranged a motel for the Mullers to stay in while they waited for the next ship. The motel, like the rest of London, was completely dark and ready for war. Everyone was given a gas mask just in case. Tethered air balloons were all over the skies of London to try to prevent air attacks.

After a couple of days, the Mullers moved into a house at 50 Park Crescent in Harrow that Paul and Henry had rented for them to stay in while they were arranging the Schiffskarten. Finally, the tickets were purchased to set sail from Liverpool on August 25, 1939 on the ship S. S. Montrose, bound for Montreal.

All that was left was the appointment for the medical clearances required to get on the ship. Seven of the eight Mullers passed the medical clearances, but little George did not. Little George had contracted pink eye, a contagious disease that would cause them to be blocked by immigration officials. The family was rebooked on the S. S. Athenia which was to depart on September 3, 1939.

Anxiously, they decided to stick together, and waited a week for the disease to run its course. They participated in air raid drills. And waited. Again, they were examined and again George failed his physical. At this point, the family was beside themselves with worry and fear. Bad news was circulating about an imminent commencement to war.

At last, on September 5, 1939, they all cleared their physicals. They embarked on the Duchess of Atholl, a name they would always remember. Their date of departure was September 13, 1939.

Meanwhile, German U-boats were patrolling the Atlantic, looking for British supply ships – even if they had passengers. In a tremendous turn of fate, it turns out the Athenia, the ship the Mullers had been scheduled to take, had been torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat.

The Duchess of Atholl was completely full and overflowing when it set sail with a convoy of warships surrounding it. It was totally blacked out at night. But the ship made it across the Atlantic and docked in Montreal on September 22, 1939 – Erev Yom Kippur!

Upon disembarking, the family was met by a Canadian immigration officer with whom the Mullers did not share one common word: he spoke only English and the Mullers spoke Hungarian and German. There was not a single Canadian immigration officer who shared any common language with them. The only thing that the officer could convey to them was that there was no such name as Nandor in Canada. From then on he was to be known as Ferdinand.

Fortunately, the papers were in order, stamped and the Muller family was cleared to enter Canada.

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