Harry´s Blog

Herbert Kuhner

Herr Kuhner, if you do not withdraw your case, we will send the public health officer.
- Anonymous caller

Martin Luksan suggested I tackle this again, so here goes!

Yes, this is a trip down Memory Lane, but there is nothing sentimental about it. These were not the good old days. There’s no dabbing at the edges of your eyes with a hankie when you think back.

I’d like to express my gratitude to all the people I encountered who helped me achieve a better understanding of the past.

My First Experience with Inhumanity:
Let me go back to 1938. I was three at the time. My mother and I were in my grandmother’s apartment in Rueppgasse in the 2nd district of Vienna. The doorbell to my grandmother’s rang. I ran to the door and opened it. It was the SA. They entered to ransack the apartment. One of them, I remember clearly, wore a brown suit and limped. The other wore a grey suit. They searched the apartment. The brown-suited man pushed my grandmother, who was eighty-three away from the sideboard in order to ransack it. And indeed it contained her shopping money.

I see that occurrence as clearly as if it were taking place right now.

My parents left what had become Ostmark with me in 1939. Members of my family who remained at that address, as well as at Kärntnertrasse 28, my paternal grandmother’s address, were deported and murdered. Incidentally the latter address used to be occupied by the Educational Academy of the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party. It is now the home of a trend chain store.

After my return to Austria in 1963, I set about translating and publishing Austrian poets. I considered it my special mission to render those poets who had experienced the Shoah.

The conditions were anything but sanguine and salubrious. It was as if I had never left.

I soon got into hot water. Apparently, I can’t let things be. I simply had to stir the pot. And I seem to keep on stirring and stirring.

I’ve always said that I wanted to have smooth sailing, but I couldn’t help rocking the boat. Rocking seems to be in my genes. Stepping out of line, which is a movement my feet can’t seem to avoid making.

I’ve been termed a troublemaker. Yes, that’s what I am, and that’s what I’ll be as long as I am on this planet.

This is the nub: after the military defeat of the Third Reich, the spirit was and is carried on by also neo-Nazis, who operate more or less, outside of society - but also the revisionists, who paint the brown past in rose-colored tones.

The spirit has also been channeled into the arts, flowing with great ease, with no end in sight.
The sado-masochistic ideology espouses extreme forms of violence such as rape and murder, pedophilia, the vilification and bludgeoning of cripples, as well as political assassination. In this cult of cruelty towards man and beast, beast often acts as an ersatz for man.

The advocates operate under the sacred carapace of art, while journalists bow low in abject approval and politicians dance to their tunes.

Violence, when packaged as art, is a commodity that sells extremely well, and there’s plenty financial padding. There are fortunes to be made and fortunes to be enhanced for the purveyors and their intermediaries. And, what’s more, “entertainment” of a kinky sort can be privately provided.

It is convenient, when the revisionists, who defend the violence of the Right, condemn the violence of the Left. This amounts to the wrong man saying the right thing for the wrong reasons.

What a boon!

Otherwise, no dissent allowed.

The tactic is “Now you see him, now you don’t.”

What’s my transgression? Could it be anything that I have written? Am I a purveyor of mendacity? Mendacity can be countered with veracity. As in Kafka’s The Trial, the charges are never enunciated.

Suppression of ideas is the best validation of those ideas.

“Violence Under the Guise of Art” is the rub. Dealing with that in a critical manner is verboten. It’s like drawing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

From Memoirs of a 39er: When these types look in the mirror, they see the image of a coward and scoundrel. They don’t believe in the survival of the fittest since they’re unfit for anything but scheming. And anyone who is fit or capable must be neutralized or put out of commission. They realize at an early age that the best tools they can use to accomplish this are cunning and mendacity the worst aspects of diplomacy. The talk is always of democracy. They are democrats in word but totalitarians in thought and deed. Their ilk can no longer kill openly within the law. But even in the past these types didn’t pull the trigger. They always had vassals to do the dirty work for them. Today they operate in the same way. Their fuel is hatred and envy. Their weapons are slander and defamation, but they use lackeys for the leg and paper work. And there’s an abundance of loyal lackeys to choose from.

Obviously it’s not the man in the street I’m describing but rather politicians, cultural functionaries and “intellectuals.” My encounter has been with assassins of the spirit.

Actually the only people who tried to help me were conservatives, namely Ludwig Steiner, Heinrich Hämmerle and Manfred Welan.

I cannot claim that I exclusively blocked by the Left due to the “Colored Bird” and a political hermaphrodite.

Here are some low-life highlights:

I got wind of the interception of an invitation to attend a literary festival in Australia and published the story in Index on Censorship in London.

“Things came to a head in 1975 when an invitation to attend the Adelaide Festival in Australia to read my translations of Austrian authors and my own work was intercepted by an Austrian government official. In his confidential report he stated, “Herbert Kuhner is an exceedingly weak author who could never represent Austria in any way.” After I had published an article on the interception in Index (2/1976), the official continually attempted to cast aspersions on my mental health in oral and published statements. “He (Kuhner) is in a different psychological situation. It’s a pity that he sits at home with his fantasies.” (The Gazette 2/1977). On 27 July 1977, I was called into the Austrian Foreign Ministry, where two interrogators attempted to intimidate me into signing an ‘apology’ to the official in question. The session lasted for over two hours. When the senior interrogator stated, “If you are man enough, you will make an apology,” I replied, “I will not allow myself to be insulted any longer,’´” and left the premises.

More from Index concerning Der Ausschluß: Memoiren eines Neununddreißigers (Memoirs of a 39er: a novel of sorts):
Adventures with Edition Atelier and Ariadne Press
I was surprised when Edition Atelier of Wiener Journal agreed to take on 39er. However, following the acceptance came the stipulation that I use my own imprint and seek financial backing. I received no money and ended up paying the tab -and there was worse to come.
I did receive a subsidy from Wiener Journal. I had set up a connection with an American
Wiener Journal had agreed to distribute Der Ausschluss (Memoirs of a 39er) and I received a subsidy for the book.

I had set up a connection with an American university press for a book of poetry by a Carinthian Slovenian author; Janko Ferk’s Buried in the Sands of Time resulted as a joint venture. However, the translator was not credited on the cover as had been agreed, and when I brought this to the publisher’s attention, my literary texts, which had been typeset for a forthcoming issue of the journal, were thrown out.

I had brought two additional authors to the publishers for a bilingual co-publication venture with a pre-publication sales scheme. Subsequently, the university press and the translator were excluded from participation.

I wrote to the publisher and received a reply suggesting that I call to arrange a meeting. On 14 February 1990, I called Editor-in-Chief Peter Bochskanl. I was told over the phone, ‘Your behaviour is revolting and uncouth. You have a persecution complex.’ When I reminded him that he had asked me to call, he gave me an appointment. The verbal abuse continued, and when he again accused me of bad behavior, I suggested he look in the mirror. At that he said, ‘Appointment cancelled!’ and hung up.

(His master’s voice: Erhard Busek: “Why have you brought lousy Kuhner over to me?”)

The same day, he sent me a bill demanding that I return the subsidy, subtracting my sales earnings for Memoirs and the translation fee for the Ferk book.

On 19 March 1990, Herr Rainer Lendl of Edition Atelier wrote to his distributor, “We hereby cancel Herbert Kuhner’s Der Ausschluss from our publishing program. All copies are to be returned to the author.” And they were.

Thus I had been provided with a fitting epilogue for my book.

Wiener Journal is the “unofficial” organ of the then Minister of Science and later Vice Chancellor. The cultural editor of the journal informed me that the proceedings concerning me were at his behest. I must add that the man has a unique view of democracy and freedom of speech.
Skirting the Truth
“Concerning the trilingual volume of poetry by Janko Ferk, for which Herbert Kuhner provided the English translation, it was the explicit wish of the American publisher (Donald G. Daviau) that Herbert Kuhner’s name as translator not appear on the cover of the English edition; naturally we had to adhere to that wish.”
- Peter Bochskanl, Das Menschenrecht, Nr. 4, Dez. 1990

“So he’s (Bochskanl) trying to put the blame on me. That’s absolutely ridiculous. We always put the translator’s name on the cover.”
- Donald G. Daviau, letter to Herbert Kuhner, Dec. 10, 1990

“As far as the cover is concerned, I had nothing to do with the decision. The design was done in Vienna and my colleague (Ms. Joris Johns) accepted it. If I had made the decision, the result would have been the dame….Most English translations appear without the name of the translator the cover….I did not make the decision but I defend it.”
- Donald G. Daviau, Editor of Ariadne Press, Das Menschenrecht, January 16, 1991

Since I was at odds with such powerful adversaries, my Ariadne colleague, thinking that I must be moribund, decided that he could be best served by giving me the coup de grâce.

By using my bilingual abilities to translate and publicize Austrian literature internationally, I have made a major cultural contribution. It has brought me nothing but punishment. I have constantly been exploited, defrauded, plagiarized as an author and translator and had my name expunged from my literary work, translations and articles, even from my books. Since I did not react passively and had no powerful backing, I was declared fair game and every day was open season.
Another Encounter with a Publisher
On June 28, 1983, there was a presentation of Hawks and Nightingales: Current Burgenland Croatian Poetry at the Croatian Academic Club. Dr. Albert F. Reiterer, then Editor-in-Chief of Braumüller Verlag composed a three-page invitation for the occasion an which the names of neither the editor nor translator were to be found. When queried about the omission, Dr. Reiterer stated that it was intentional and that it was not publisher’s policy to give such credit. On November 10, 1983, a presentation of Hawks and Nightingales was slated to take place at the America House, for which I had acted as an intermediary. Presentations of Carinthian Slovenian Poetry and Hawks and Nightingales were to follow. On November 9th, a day before the presentation, the United States Cultural Attaché received a letter from Dr. Reiterer withdrawing from the presentation. Dr. Reiterer wrote: “I would like to convey to you, that due to recent events, our publishing house will not be able to send a representative to the reading that you have planned.” The “motivation,” Dr. Reiter’s action, which was not stated in his letter, was the invasion of Grenada, under the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The presentation was canceled and the other two presentations did not take place, and that was the end of my relationship with the America House.

After this action, Dr. Reiterer harassed me by sending me a bill for complimentary copies of Hawke and Nightingales, which I had distributed for publicity and funding purposes, as had been agreed upon with Peter Tyran, the editor, as witness. When Herbert Gassner bought 50 copies of Hawks for the Croatian Cultural Association, on condition that Reiterer desist, the eminent anti-fascist editor wrote me: “We regret that a third party, who is not involved in any way, has been drawn into this.” For Reiterer, harassing me took precedence over the profits made from Gassner’s offer.
The Second String
They’re second string state-promoted and supported authors. These scribblers can never make it big like the mountebanks in the forefront. They’re penny ante all the way, small time literati who were born to be vassals, and they make perfect agents. They’re small fish that swim with the big fish and snap at the leftovers. It’s their job to undermine and defame anyone who gums up the works. They contact editors, anthologists, organizers of readings and translators. The word is to excise the works of those who are out of line. And just to be sure that the spiritual hit is carried out well, they whisper pernicious rumors in unison.

They are incapable of criticizing dissenting views or defending their own views openly. They can only take action surreptitiously.
The Co-Editor Bites the Dust
He writes extensively about the perpetrators in the days of yore. He’s good on details concerning the barbarism of the past. If you’re a poet who writes on the subject, he’s the one to go to since he edits a poetry series.

He had a co-editor, who belonged to an older generation. His former colleague, a refined and cultivated older poet, did not have a particularly sanguine life. As a young man, he was inducted and spent six years of his youth wearing a uniform he hated. He was one of those who had to go while Waldheim and others fulfilled their martial duty in the Wehrmacht, which by no means could have been considered the defence force of Austria.

When the Franz Richter supported the publication of volumes of poetry by Wolfgang Fischer and Herbert Kuhner, two emigré-remigrés who had experienced the Third Reich and its repercussions first-hand, he was shouted down and forced to pack it in by Manfred Chobot. And that was that! This of course is an isolated incident and is atypical. Anti-fascists and philo-Semites in Austria are invariably ready to lend a helping hand to those who were victimized by the Third Reich.
Politically Uncommitted and Committed Action
from Mixed Bag, a collection of Poetry and Prose
by Stephan Eibel Erzberg
edited and compiled by Herbert Kuhner

An example of politically uncommitted action: Joe Berger let me know that Helmut Zilk and Ursula Pasterk liked my play, The Office for Responsibility, very much. However, they had decided to cancel the production of the play which had been scheduled to be premiered by Paul Blaha, the director of the Volkstheater on October 26th of 1984. “You must realize that the Kurier and the rest of the news media are conducting a campaign against Hannes Androsch in order to split the Socialist Party, and you have him on the second page,” said Berger. “Look”, he went on, “you can’t always play the role of the wild one. You’re no longer that young, and you have to think in other dimensions. Zilk told me that if you keep your mouth shut, he’d be beholden to you. Pasterk is slated to be director of the Festival of Vienna and the play will get a large-scale production. With slight changes, of course.”

I called a TV-reporter who was planning to do a feature on Who is Responsible for the Cancellation of the Production of the Office for Responsibility? The feature was never televised.

Bruno Kreisky’s telephone conversation with me in 1985 would also fail to serve as an example of politically committed action. He asked me whether it was true that The Office for Responsibility had not been produced due to Androsch. I told him the story according to the information I had.

“I wouldn’t put anything past Zilk,” said Kreisky, “but Pasterk is a decent person.” “That may be your view,” I said, “but I’ve had my fill of the word ‘decent.’” He added that he had heard that the play was a bad one. “That could very well be,” I said, “but the quality of the play has not been a factor in these dealings. If the play is indeed bad, Paul Blaha, the director of the theater, should be replaced since he chooses bad plays for his program. Helmut Zilk who had the production cancelled should be appointed as co-director and should share Blaha’s salary.” Kreisky replied, “You have a point and I’ll look into the matter. I’ll speak to Pasterk and see what she has to say.”

I never heard from Kreisky again.
Quotes by Austrian Luminaries and Notables
If you call him an American, he’s offended. If you call him an Austrian, he’s offended. American or Austrian, he’ll always be a Jew!
- Jeannie Ebner, author and editor

Unfortunately, the fact that that you are American and not Austrian or East European seems to be an insurmountable obstacle as far as Jeannie Ebner is concerned. My assertion that you were born in Vienna and are a resident of Vienna can change nothing.
- Letter Andreas Okopenko, February 22, 1969

The Commission, decisions are bound to bound to guidelines rejects your request, since according to your own information, you are an American citizen.
- Letter from Jeannie Ebner, July 8, 1993

He thinks that he is not accepted as an author because he is a Jew. The truth is that he is a mediocre author.
- Alois Vogel, author and editor

Shut your mouth! You are a mediocre author. You can all kiss my ass!…I’ve been stomped on for years, and now I’m doing the stomping.
- The same

Herbert Kuhner is an exceedingly weak author who could never represent Austria in any way.
- Wolfgang Kraus, Head of the Austrian Literary Society and Cultural Advisor to the Foreign Ministry

He is in a different psychological situation. It’s a pity that he sits at home with his fantasies. I still hope I can help him.
- The same

Kuhner is an insignificant author and will never read on our premises.
- Reinhard Urbach, right-hand-man to Dr. Kraus at the Austrian Literary Society.

Herbert Kuhner is a psychopath. He needs a subscription to a psychiatrist.
- Factotum at the Austrian Literary Society

I’ve known Kuhner a long time … he’s leveled scurrilous attacks at various people.
- Martin Esslin, author and critic

Every author falls into a deep depression or hysterical paroxysms if another author is printed, gets a good review, receives an award or is sent to as foreign country as a delegate. Aside from his literary rank, the Foreign Ministry has a right to choose a representative when funding a trip to Australia.
- Hans Weigel, The dean of Austrian critics, Profil

You have besmirched the reputation of a man of honor in a foreign journal. If you are man enough, you write an apology to Dr. Kraus.
- Gregor Woschnagg, Austrian Foreign Office

Herr Kuhner, if you do not withdraw your case, we will send the public health officer.
- Anonymous caller

If I were convinced about the literary quality of the book (Der Ausschlus /Memoirs of a 39er), I would not have asked for details concerning its contents. I have come to the conclusion that it deals with a very personal situation, which is presented in erratic segments.
- Peter Huemer, ORF (Austrian Radio)

The jury, which is independent of the Municipal Cultural Department has unanimously cast its vote against this book (Der Ausschluss/Memoirs of a 39er)….I feel that I must adhere to that decision. (Reinhard Urbach Otto Breicha and Friederike Mayröcker and Jutta Schutting, Two poets represented in Austrian Poetry Today.)
- Dr. Ursula Pasterk, the Municipal Cultural Coordinator of the City of Vienna

After Returning to the Scene of the Crime: Herbert Kuhner was forced to leave Austria in 1939. In his Memoirs Kuhner presents the balance sheet. His book deals with his experiences after returning to the “new Austria.” In it he describes the incredible chain of intrigue, baseness and calumny that he has encountered. The aspects of Austria life that the author brings to the fore in his Memoirs, which have been unanimously rejected by the “independent” jury of the Municipal Cultural Department of the City of Vienna, must not be hushed up.
- Karin Bauer, Der Standard

Your behavior is revolting and uncouth. You have a persecution complex.
- Peter Bochskanl, Editor-in-Chief of Wiener Journal

We hereby cancel Der Auschluss (Memoirs of a 39er) by Herbert Kuhner from our publishing program. All copies are to be returned to the author.
- Rainer Lendl, Editor in Chief of Edition Atelier of Wiener Journal

Why have you brought lousy Kuhner over to me? (”Mies” = lousy)
- Erhard Busek, Eminence Grise of Wiener Journal

Bruno Kreisky schaltete sich ein: Das ist mir alles Wurst! (It’s all sausage to me!)

It was unwise of you to review Kuhner’s book. (to a colleague who had reviewed Broadsides & Pratfalls for Ex Libris, ORF.
- Bodo Hell, author

Why did you tell him?
- The same

When there were „complications” concerning a writer’s pension when I turned sixty, Konstantin Kaiser and Stephan Eibel spoke for me to green politician Friedrun Huemer, who told them to desist.

What could they do that they haven’t already done? Throw you in jail?
- Feliks J. Bister, former editor of Das Menschenrecht (Human Rights)

What Herbert Kuhner has experienced in Austria is the rule, and nothing but that!
- Stephan Eibel, writer, Vienna

Memoirs of a 39er is the story of an unrequited love. The experiences of the author who was born in Vienna, had to flee the Nazis in early years, grew up in America and returned to Vienna with the illusion that he would be welcomed with open arms in his birthplace. But for those who love without being loved in return, a rude awakening in inevitable. . Kuhner brings the experiences of his remigration to life in bright colors. His conflict with Austrian bureaucracy would be comical were it not tragic. I hope that he will find another location for his talents and finally accept the fact that his love for Austria and its capital Vienna can be nothing but unrequited.
- Stella K. Hershan, Austro-American writer

Memoirs of a 39er is a chronicle of Herbert Kuhner’s heroic opposition to the hardships of trying to be a literary man in a country whose cultural climate is antipathetic to him, and indeed seems to present him at every turn with new sources of agony.
- Emile Capouya, writer, critic and my literary mentor, U.S.A.

Harry, I just read the pieces. You are wonderfully dedicated to high purpose! I don’t know who but you could write so well on these topics. But, my gut reaction is you must do everything you can to come home at last. Clearly, you are living in enemy territory and it is tearing you apart. You need to find a place in yourself to feel well. They say you take yourself wherever you go, and it may be that your habit of seeing the world so harshly will fly with you to even the finest abode. But you are steeping in this pain right now. I do so want to see you applying your genius to more life-affirming subjects.
- David Axelrod, poet, U.S.A

Harry, it’s impossible to use irony on Fascists. They don’t get it.
- Winston Kulok, friend, U.S.A.

It is incomprehensible to me how any Jew could ever return to the killing grounds. You chose to go to Hell and then you complain that the landscape is littered with devils.
- Cynthia Ozick, writer, U.S.A.

I am no longer taken aback by all of this. Why should I get riled up? I have become acclimatized. It’s the way of the world on this piece of geography. I can only ask, “What else is new?”

Let me say I am not a member of the “Club” and I never will be. The individuals quoted here typify that august body. It is hard to find words to describe them accurately. I did find some, but I expunged them. Once a word has been said publicly or published, it is fact and history and can come back to haunt you - as the deadbeats in this account can verify. I write in hot blood, I revise in cold blood. However I did let one word slip out.

In this setup, the people you should know are the people you wouldn’t want to know.

I‘m just not their kind of guy. I was not cut out to be a spiritual assassin.

Actually, I do owe them something - I was looking for the key to man’s inhumanity to man, and they helped me get closer to finding it.
From the Horse’s Mouth:
Mühl about his colleague: “Nitsch is a sadist with a mania for approbation, an autistic alcoholic who’s completely narcissistic and a mother’s boy who didn’t get enough attention. Rainer is genuinely violent and a sadist. Nitsch torments the participants in his actions; they’re constantly freezing. He arranges that intentionally. I’d like to know how many became ill, how many caught pneumonia, how many died.”

Nitsch about his colleague: “Mühl’s specialty is minors and sex and my specialty is the
agonizing torture of animals.”
The Best Man as Turncoat Pal

Michael Ley:
From Romanticism to Aesthetic Religion:
Gnosis, Irrationalism und Anti-humanism in Modern Art

Akademie der bildenden Künste Wie
Bawag Veranstaltungszentrum
8. Mai - 10 Mai
2003

Art and Violence
Context for Post-War Austrian Art

Nazi Art was a simple and sterile depiction of mother earth and the fatherland. The true sado-masochistic, anti-humanist and murderous elements of the movement were missing in its art. Actionist art or “non-art” or “anti-art” has provided what was missing. Actionism does not only depict violence and cruelty, it presents it to the public. The actionists degrade and flay humans and they torment animals and kill them as an ersatz, by their own admission. The editors will draw parallels between National Socialism and actionism, and show that the latter is an outgrowth of the former.

The above served as the original concept for a symposium that took place in Vienna in May 2003. Herbert Kuhner, the initiator of the symposium, was excluded from participation by Dr. Michael Ley, one of the three organizers. Dr. Helmuth Kohlenberger, the other organizer, stayed neutral and participated.
The Takeover
A had a theme,
which B had also dealt with,
who said let’s take it on together!

B suggested
that C be added to the team,
A said okay
(not knowing that
he had assented to what would become
his own exclusion.)

A used the salami tactic
to take the whole thing over,
neutralising B in the process,
giving A the heave-ho
and slamming the door shut after him.

Although, positing such theories has brought decades of repercussions, I’m sticking by my guns. The primary tactic is “now you see him now you don’t.” But sometimes you get a glimpse of the sneaky dealings. And speaking of guns, one of the users of this tactic stated that he feared my attendance at the events of the Austrian Literary Society, since I was armed and crazy enough to gun him down. Just call me pistol-packin’ Harry. Just for the record, I do not own a weapon. I do own a pen, and my most violent act was to uncap it. And this I did and do prodigiously. Pen now translates as computer.

The courageous hero is since deceased, but I had nothing to do with his demise.
Recommendation
The following incident best illustrates the conditions. A literary piece of mine was published in an anthology of Jewish authors. After the fact, the legal counsel of the Socialist Party and the Jewish Community arranged a meeting with the editor and protested against my inclusion. He is a “brother” of sorts, with whom I had had no communication whatsoever; as a matter of fact I had never even met the gentleman. His objection was seconded by the President of Reporters Beyond Borders, who needless to say, should be opposing censorship instead of endorsing it.

I am not taken aback by all this. I have become acclimatized. It’s the way the cookie crumbles on this piece of geography.

That’s the kind of integrity that prevails. I can only ask, “What else is new?” Such occasions are nothing out of the ordinary. Things are the way they are, and that’s the way they are.

The tactic is “Now you see him, now you don’t.”

You should not have included Kuhner in your book!
- Dr. Gabriel Lansky, Legal Counsel to the Socialist Party and the Jewish Community, to Ruth Wodak, editor of Only in Vienna: Stories of Everyday Events by Austrian Jews. (Lansky was seconded by Rubina Möhring the President of Reporters Without Borders.)

Here’s the piece that should not have been published:
Nostalgia for Princeton

Published in Das kann einem nur in Wien passieren
Ruth Wodak, editor, Czernin Verlag, Vienna, 2002.
German translation by Bruni Blum
& Zwischenwelt 3/2001

English original published in
The Sons of Camus International Journal,
London, Autumn Issue, 2006.
Literary Short Fiction Writer Award
from The Sons of Camus Writers International Journal
for Achievement, given by editor Ann F. Davidson
to Herbert Kuhner on 30 October 2007.

Nostalgia means thinking back to when you thought about the future. After the future has arrived, it’s the past that dominates one’s thoughts. Princeton was a part of my life and will always be a part of my life. I spent the war years there and attended St. Paul’s Parochial School. I remember the excitement of hearing about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And soon after that, war was raging in Asia and Europe. Yet Princeton and St. Paul’s were safe. The nuns were strict, but kind and caring. Sister Ellenita was the one who taught me to read. Sister Mary Anne had a piano in class and she would play and sing the songs of popular films of the day like Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s.

I remember two reproductions of paintings that were on the walls of Sister Ellenita’s class. The first showed Jesus the shepherd with a lamb in his arms. The second showed a boy and a girl crossing a bridge. Watching over them was a Guardian Angel. I forgot the Catechism that we had to memorize every day, but those two gentle depictions remain in my mind. I know that neither is a work of art. Call them corny if you like, but they stay with me and will stay with me as long as I live. I know what the world is like. I know lambs are not protected and that children are not watched over. No one watched over or cared for the millions of lambs that were slaughtered, and that slaughter took place while I attended St. Paul’s School. Today, I have nostalgia for the days when I felt that lambs would be watched over and cared for. I know that it isn’t that way, wasn’t that way and never will be, and that I have been betrayed.

I must interject here, that later I learned, that after the war, some of the prime slaughterers were given shelter in the Vatican, but that was not the fault of the nuns who taught me. They were good women and they too were betrayed.

I very foolishly came back to the killing grounds, where many lambs had been sent off to be slaughtered. So I know how it was and how it is. And by coming back, the depictions of my childhood have been cancelled out, cancelled out effectively forever.

Austria is to Germany what Ireland is to England. In the Land of the Southern Cousin, the language is more lilting, and that’s where the talent and the imagination are. Charmers and flatterers are good at creating fantasy and do not always adhere to the truth. Fantasy may sometimes be far from the truth, but if it is well delivered, is the truth really that important?

The basic difference between Irishmen and Austrians lies in the way they take a fall. The Irish seem to go down head first, often with a little help from the English, but Austrians have the feline quality of landing on their feet. But in spite of this, they have a chip on their shoulders and see themselves as fall guys.

Take World War II, for instance…! Ten years after the war, Austria was re-established within its pre-war boundaries.

The revisionists claim that there was no Austria during the war, and thus they conclude that all perpetrators were Germans.

After the war, the perpetrators that hailed from what had been Austria became Austrian again, but everything that had happened during the war was a German matter. Many of the murderers of wartime “Germany” got off Scot-free in post-war Austria. It was best to let bygones be bygones, and victim or perpetrator, we were all in this together and we are all in this together. So we rolled up our sleeves and made a go of it, and we’ll continue to make a go of it.

A charmer entertains you, and the charmers entertained for years, but then problems began to arise. And these problems, or rather Austria’s inability to face up its past, brought international opprobrium, and again Austrians saw themselves as eternal victims.

Austria provides entertainers in more than one sense. Austria has always exported culture, partially due to necessity. There has always been an abundance of talent in that east-most part of the West, but it has invariably had difficulty in thriving on its own turf.

Austria’s favorite son Adolf was the man who did most to disseminate Austrian culture internationally, unintentionally to be sure, but nevertheless.

One could say that at the present, minimalism is prevalent. The aim is to make the most perfect zero, and indeed there are many that defy comparison. Added to this, there is the element of brutality. Violence has been integrated into the arts and poses as a protest against violence. In such a set-up, the most bankrupt artists have the biggest bank accounts.

I have trouble forming zeros, and I made the mistake of poking fun at their shape, which is an unparalleled sacrilege. And of course I expressed my opposition to the practice of Violence Under the Guise of Art. Conformity and mouthing clichés are called for in Austria. Doubtlessly I did not fit into the scheme of things. Expressing dissenting views in Austria is a death sentence. My face must be a dead giveaway and they had me pegged before I opened my mouth or uncapped my pen.

Of course, I abhor those who attempt to “rehabilitate” the mass murderers, but those who to claim oppose them, match them in mendacity and maliciousness. In the “clash” between the revisionist and “anti-fascist” elements, my question is who tops whom? And when I ask that question, I am not kidding. As far as I am concerned, the antidote is not less toxic than the poison.

Shoah-Business thrives in Austria and there are many and cashing in on the Holocaust and using it as a springboard. Shedding crocodile tears is a very lucrative matter, and the last thing these intermediaries want is a fly in the ointment. In all my years in Austria, I have been exclusively blocked by self-styled anti-fascists and philo-Semites. They have appointed themselves as deputies and they are telling the story, and telling it for me too, and God forbid that it should come from the horse’s mouth!

In such an emotional morass, is it any wonder that Austria is at the top of the international suicide list? When duplicity prevails, many find the courage to take the cowardly way out. Bringing an adversary to do himself in is a wonderful ersatz for pulling the trigger or driving the knife in.

But let me go back to Princeton, which is the town of my reverie, the town where I had an inkling of happiness, the town that signifies harmony for me.

I did not have a happy home life. My mother, who went through hell, gave me love, and taught me to be decent in a world where perniciousness reigns supreme. Emigration broke my father’s spirit, and his immediate family was at hand for the venting of his frustration.

But there was St. Paul’s and my classmates Buddy and Albert. And I had the best dog a boy could wish for. And there was Princeton with its English atmosphere and the University Campus with its Tudor buildings.

I could never forget the colonial style Princeton Playhouse the home of the A-films and the Garden Theater where the B-films were shown. The Playhouse had a Technicolor aura and a black-and-white one belied the Garden’s name. The Playhouse has gone the way of most of the old-fashioned movie theaters. Its ghost hovers over a parking lot, but the Garden still stands. And next it on Nassau Street, there is the genuine colonial building that housed the children’s library but now serves other purposes. I read about Camelot in some of the books I borrowed there. Princeton, which has not changed for the better, was my Camelot and it still is.

Just before the war ended, we moved to Locust Valley on the Island. Arriving there from Glen Cove, one of the bus drivers would announce “Lonesome Valley.” And that it was. It was a God-forsaken place, at least as far as I was concerned. I did have friends, but none like Buddy and Albert. My dog was my best friend there.

After five years of the Valley, we moved to Trenton and I attended Lawrenceville School, which meant that Princeton would again play a part in my life.

I knew that I could never attend Princeton University since I was a mediocre student. Once I bought a pink, button-down shirt at University Store. The old Scottie who sold it to me said that I had better come to the University or else. I told him that was exactly my intention, although I knew that I could never be admitted. It was tough enough making the grade at Lawrenceville. I made it by a hair’s breadth, and later, I managed to squeak through Columbia.

I loved spending time in Princeton. The English atmosphere was magic to me. There were the Nassau Street clothing shops that catered to students, Langrock, Douglas MacDaid, Saks Fifth Avenue and Harry Ballot. I love the sound of those names, and I liked the fact that those shops and other elegant shops were there. I liked the Balt Cafeteria and Renwick’s Restaurant, and there was also Luttman’s Luggage, Brophy’s Shoes and Clayton’s Textile Shop. Mr. Clayton, the owner, was wall-eyed. I noticed that since I’m a bit wall-eyed myself. I bought my clothes at Harry Ballot, which was the most moderately-priced haberdashery shop. Later the English Shop opened, and then one by one they closed. Ballot held out until fairly recently, but he’s gone now too. Clothing trends changed and Ivy League suits were no longer in demand.

I often think of what my life would have been like if I had chosen to live in Princeton.

I had gotten off to a promising start as a writer in the States, but the edifice that was built turned out to be a house of cards, and when that collapsed, there was nothing going for me. At the time, coming to Austria seemed to be the thing to do. I wanted to return to the city where I had been born. I worked toward that aim and I achieved it.

When I returned to Austria, I had naively I assumed that using my bicultural background as a translator and editor to promulgate Austrian literature would bring some kind of reciprocity.

At this writing my computer is full of unpublished translation collections, which I foolishly put together. I have translated and published many fine poets, but they are not the ones calling the shots. My collections brought me nothing but punishment. I usually had to foot the bill, and when royalties were forthcoming, they were peanuts that didn’t even cover a fraction of the costs.

My collections received critical acclaim beyond abroad, but were more or less ignored locally. Austrian Poetry Today went without a presentation I Austria.

In 1985 there was a presentation Austrian Poetry Today, Hawks and Nightingales: Current Burgenland Croatian Poetry und Carinthian Slovenian Poetry at the Cultural Institute in New York. I had to pay for my flight ticket. While I was in New York, ten state-promoted authors were given red carport treatment with all costs taken care of. I had had the honor of publishing half of them in translation. At the time there was a book exhibit at the American PEN-Club. I was the only author represented by three books.

Now I daydream and see myself living in Princeton. But I would be leading a contented life, a life free of the strife that has taken its toll on my health and on my emotional make-up. My old friends, Buddy and Albert, from St. Paul’s days are there, and I would have a circle of new friends. We would take excursions to New York for cultural events, and then we would sit in a Princeton living room discussing the state of art and literature in the world.

I see myself in this insulated world, more or less content, and of course, I would regret not having come to Europe. I would daydream about what my life there would have been like. I could never have been able to envision the reality of it. How on earth could I have ever dreamt of what it has been like and what it is like?

I know I that as a resident of Princeton I would not be the writer I am. I could not have been able to deal with one of my major themes, the aftermath of the Holocaust. And I could never have collected the magnificent translation material that I have published. But I paid a heavy price for my accomplishments, and I have very little to show for them.

I want to be honest. I am world-weary. I am glad that I have most of it behind me, and I would never go through it again. If I could have said adieu without too much sweat and effort, I might have taken leave long ago. But then, did I want to hang on to do what had to be done. I felt that I couldn’t let my mother down, as well as those who had invested in me and helped me along the way. And of course, I didn’t want my adversaries to experience the triumph that destruction of a foe brings. And I am not exaggerating. The methods of the present are just more subtle than those of the past. In Memoirs of a 39er, I put it this way: “My encounter has been with assassins of the spirit. They have proven to be worthy heirs to their predecessors.”

Why did I come back? All my years in Austria have been like one endless day, a day of trying to break out of the confines delineated for me by the cultural-political powers-that-be. If I’d known what I was in for, I’d have stayed where I was.

But now it is too late. I regret having come back to the place of my birth, which defies description. And I look back to my days in Princeton with nostalgia, and I have nostalgia for the life I could have led in Princeton.
Coda
As for the protagonists, I do not wish them ill - not that I wish them well. I just want them to be exposed for what they are. Only the mediocre can behave in such a manner.

I do not hate these people. Hatred is a blinding force and always that invariably damages the source of the hatred. I must admit I feel most emotional about the editors of Braumüller and Atelier - the perpetrator and the puppet.

The SA-marauders of my grandmother’s apartment are long dead. If I could have sent them into the next world, I would have done it and walked away whistling.

As far as winning and losing is concerned, I mostly ended up with the dirty end of the stick.

As for the pension, I had to struggle for - and buy the pittance I now receive.

It’s all the breaks of the game. I don’t have a sentimental view of things. The main thing is that you survive, more or less intact.