Growing Up with Houdini

Part One: Escape from the Nazis

For as far back as we have records, the Muller family lived in the town of Sered in what today is Slovakia, not far from Bratislava. The family was in the wholesale grain and foodstuffs business, and operated a retail general store as well. The business was started by Heinrich Muller in the 1860s. His son Ignatz Muller took over the business and added a general store around the turn of the century. In the late 1920s, Ignatz’s son Nandor expanded the business by opening a second branch in the nearby town of Hlohovec. By the time Nandor’s son Henry was born in 1930, the business was flourishing and the family prosperous.

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. Nandor had an employee named Ferko (or Frank in English), who made deliveries and did other errands for the family. Ferko was not Jewish. He lived on a farm on the outskirts of town. One day, Ferko met with Nandor 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.

Nandor tried to talk Ferko into staying, but after it was clear that Ferko’s mind was made up, Nandor let Ferko know that he, Nandor, 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.

At the beginning of 1938, Ferko and his family 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 Nandor warning of the impending threat of the Nazis and begging Nandor to leave Slovakia and come to Canada with his family. The letter began, “Dear Boss.” He still called Nandor “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. 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. Thus it was decided that Nandor and his wife Magda would leave with their two children, Henry and Alice. Now Nandor needed to obtain 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 visas. Once more the answer was no. Canada was only accepting farmers, and even then, only with a financial sponsor, or guarantor, who had to be 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, 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, named 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 swore an affidavit that he was a farmer, and then returned to the Canadian Embassy. This time, on his wife Magda’s advice, he took with him a huge wad of cash. He went to 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 the 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 to Canada in hand.

Nandor then arranged an amazing plan. He found a private pilot with a small plane.

Nandor convinced this pilot, in exchange for a pile of money, to fly the family 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 Nandor was able to arrange all this and actually carry it out under such harrowing circumstances is truly remarkable.

At last, on September 13, 1939, having cleared their physicals, the Mullers embarked on the ship The Duchess of Atholl, a name they would always remember.

The Duchess of Atholl was completely full and even overflowing when it set sail, surrounded by a convoy of warships. All the ship’s lights were totally blacked out at night. But it made it across the Atlantic and docked in Montreal on September 22, 1939.

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 message transmitted by the Immigration office was that there was no such name as Nandor in Canada, so the name became Ferdinand from then on. Fortunately, all their papers were in order, stamped, and the Muller family was cleared to enter Canada.