LIFE WRITING SERIES
In the Life Writing Series, Wilfrid Laurier University Press publishes life writing and new life-writing criticism and theory in order to promote autobiographical accounts, diaries, letters, and testimonials written and/or told by women and men whose political, literary, or philosophical purposes are central to their lives. The Series features accounts written in English, or translated into English from French or the languages of the First Nations, or any of the languages of immigration to Canada.
From its inception, Life Writing has aimed to foreground the stories of those who may never have imagined themselves as writers or as people with lives worthy of being (re) told. Its readership has expanded to include scholars, youth, and avid general readers both in Canada and abroad. The Series hopes to continue its work as a leading publisher of life writing of all kinds, as an imprint that aims for both broad representation and scholarly excellence, and as a tool for both historical and autobiographical research.
As its mandate stipulates, the Series privileges those individuals and communities whose stories may not, under normal circumstances, find a welcoming home with a publisher. Life Writing also publishes original theoretical investigations about life writing, as long as they are not limited to one author or text.
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Marlene Kadar
Humanities Division, York University
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Rochlitz, Imre, 1925
Accident of fate: a personal account, 19381945 / Imre Rochlitz with Joseph Rochlitz.
(Life writing)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Also issued in electronic format.
ISBN 978-1-55458-267-9
1. Rochlitz, Imre, 1925. 2. World War, 19391945Personal narratives, Jewish. 3. World War, 19391945Personal narratives, Hungarian. 4. World War, 19391945 Underground movementsYugoslaviaBiography. 5. JewsYugoslaviaBiography. 6. World War, 19391945Prisoners and prisons, Italian. 7. Holocaust, Jewish (19391945). I. Rochlitz, Joseph, 1956 II. Title. III. Series: Life writing series
DS135. H93R632011 940.5318092 C2010-907866-7
Electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-55458-317-1 (PDF), ISBN 978-1-55458-355-2 (EPUB)
1. Rochlitz, Imre, 1925. 2. World War, 19391945Personal narratives, Jewish. 3. World War, 19391945Personal narratives, Hungarian. 4. World War, 19391945 Underground movementsYugoslaviaBiography. 5. JewsYugoslaviaBiography. 6. World War, 19391945Prisoners and prisons, Italian. 7. Holocaust, Jewish (19391945). I. Rochlitz, Joseph, 1956 II. Title. III. Series: Life writing series (Online)
DS135. H93R632011B 940.5318092 C2010-907867-5
BOOK DESIGN, COVER DESIGN & MAPS: Ornan Rotem. COVER IMAGE: Order from headquarters of Partisan 4th Corps, dated 27 August 1944, dispatching expert Comrade Mirko Rohli (Partisan alias of Imre Rochlitz) to the Turopolje region of Croatia, where an equine scabies epidemic had broken out (see page 137).
2011 Imre Rochlitz and Joseph Rochlitz
Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publishers attention will be corrected in future printings.
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Published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
www.wlupress.wlu.ca
To Tamara, Naomi, and Matan
... it is even less defensible to refrain from writing
than to go on with it, however senseless it may seem.
W. G. Sebald
Against the Irreversible: On Jean Amry
Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Map of Europe before the Anschluss
My parents and my brother Max, 1924
My mother, Max, and me, c. 1935
Uncle Ferdinand Dnes, c. 1908
Uncle Robert on the Italian front during W W I
Family gathering on the eve of W W I
Max and me, 1933
My class photo, 1936
Rudolf Beer, who killed himself after the Anschluss
Map of my escape route from Vienna, 1938
Uncle Robert and Aunt Camilla
The boxer Jimmy Lyggett, in a Pabst ilmstill
The yellow Star of David
Dr. Mirko Rechnitzer
Map showing the partition of Yugoslavia after the 1941 invasion
Ustashe police headquarters, where I was imprisoned
Jasenovac death camp
Mass grave at Jasenovac, 1942
Uncle Oskar on list of deported Jews, Jasenovac, 1942
My release form from Jasenovac, 1942
General von Glaise-Horstenau with the dictator Paveli
Ustashe document: Rochlitz [has] not been traced
Map showing my planned escape route from Zagreb to the Italian zone
Irene Rochlitz, my mother
Map showing route from Split to Novi Vinodolski
Mussolinis authorization of our deportation
Italian camp near Kraljevica Castle
Ceremony marking Croatian adherence to the Axis, Venice, 1941
Dispatch from the Italian ambassador to the Vatican, 1942
Kraljevica inmates in Italian uniforms, 194243
Release of inmates from Rab, 1943
A trabakula
Map of the Lika and Kordun regions of central Croatia
Major H. A. Dude Hanes, 1943
Village of Drenov Klanac
Staf of the animal hospital at Kordunsko Zagorje, 1944
Serbian villagers recognize themselves in 1944 photo, 1981
Treating a horse at the Kordunsko Zagorje animal hospital
An 8th Partisan Division pass, 1944
With Eva Deutsch
Well-clad partisan
Partisan women combatants of the 8th Division
Partisans dancing the kolo
My Hungarian passport, with names of rescued airmen and POW escapees
Junius Scales under arrest, 1954
Lockheed P-38 and Focke-Wulf 189
Crew of American B-24 bomber
My Hungarian passport, with names of rescued aircrew
With Mili Hajdin, political commissar of my unit
With Communist Party oicials in Yugoslavia, 1981
Vlados signature on my Partisan pass
At the entrance to the underground installations of the Partisans Petrova Gora hospital, 1981
Publicity poster for the ilm The Last Bridge
A German Fieseler Storch
Allied Forces HQ document showing Randolph Churchills appeal on behalf of Jewish refugees
With Sir Fitzroy Maclean in Scotland, 1995
In Bari, Italy, with brother Max and two uncles, 1945
PREFACE
BY THE TIME I TURNED TWENTY in January 1945, my father was long dead of tuberculosis, my mother had been murdered in Auschwitz, and my aunt Camilla and uncles Ferdinand and Oskar had been shot by the SS. I had been on the run for almost seven years, dug mass graves as a prisoner in the Jasenovac death camp, escaped deportation to Auschwitz thanks to the protection of the army of Fascist Italy, and was now a second lieutenant in Titos Communist Partisans.