BOOKS OF THE DAY
A True Story
The Darkest Hour. By Leo Lania. (Gollancz. 8s. 6d.)
LEO LANIA, Austrian playwright, scenario writer and author, fled from Vienna at the time of the anschluss and went to Paris, where so many Central Europeans helped to found the French motion-picture industry. At the offices of Maya Pictures, in the Champs Elysees, a new film was being planned when war broke cut in 1939. Leo Lania, fully conscious of the debt he owed to France, went to the Ministry of War to offer his services in the fighting forces. He found many other Austrians all certain that they would be allowed to fight for freedom, but while waiting for their call-up papers, posters appeared in the streets of Paris ordering all men of German origin (including Austrians, Saarlanders and Czechs) to report immediately at the sports stadium at Colombes with blankets and food for two days.
These days dragged into weeks, and no effort was made to instal any sanitation in the camp or to divide the avowedly anti- Nazis from those of doubtful politics. Meanwhile, their bank accounts were stopped and their wives literally starved. From the stadium these men were sent to Meslay-du-Maine, where in the height of winter they slept like animals in an open field. When spring came some of them were released, but when the Low Countries were invaded all the Germans, Austrians and Czechs were arrested again, and this time were sent to a camp in Brittany. Unfortunately, the French police in Paris relied for their informa- tion about refugees on Nazi agents.
Paris fell and Nazi troops flooded every French province. Lania tells how all masks fell in the camp when it became known that the Germans were in Brittany. Several Germans and a few Austrians openly expressed their sympathies for the Nazis. But about 20 men, including M. Lania, had earned Hitler's special hatred. They went to find the commandant of the camp begging him to let them escape while there was still time. M. Lania pointed out that in the autumn of 1933 he went to Hitler's head- quarters at Munich representing himself as an Italian Fascist sent by Mussolini. He spent more than a week with Hitler. The camp commander refused to take the responsibility of re- leasing them, but the guards did not fire when they clambered over the camp walls. They had no sooner jumped down on the other side than German troops broke into the camp. The, French guards were shut up in the barracks while " our Nazis stepped forward with a Heil Hitler! ' There go the dangerous ones!
Leo Lania and a few companions now felt like hunted animals. Unable to find a fishing boat to cross the Channel, they decided to make for the unoccupied zone. French peasants and villagers showed great devotion in helping them to escape. When tired and footsore they decided to take a country bus, a stranger whispered : " If you take this bus, the Gestapo will get you! " Lania jumped down from the running board. A workman passed and beckoned them to follow him. He said he had a farmer friend who would put them up and that,he himself had a car and enough petrol to take them there, adding : " You don't have to pay me."
The most dangerous part of the journey was when they had to cross the Loire. A stranger on the banks of the river to whom they appealed for guidance said: " When you come out of the woods keep to the right through the vineyards. When you get to the village, ask for the fisherman.' He'll take you across in his boat." " What's the fisherman's name? " The man smiled: " His name has nothing to do with it ; ask for the fisherman. That's all." The fine rain hung over the Loire like a grey curtain. The bark lay hidden in the bushes. They huddled together in the bottom and crossing on a bias up stream let the current carry them in behind the island. " How much do we owe you? " " Whatever you think." " Thirty francs? " " If you don't think that's too much." Another 20 kilometres and they would be at Loches in unoccupied terri- tory. That had been their dream for days. They asked a peasant to guide them across the trail, and when the man hesitated his wife put in angrily : " Go with the gentlemen."
They found the Germans just evacuating the Château de Loches, but though one might have expected, them to be flushed with pride, the caretaker said to Lania " You should have heard
them talk two weeks ago. What enthusiasm! What optimism! ' The war is over. Next month we will be back home.' But in the last few days they have become disillusioned, and if I talk about their victory and our defeat, they shrug their shoulders and say : ' What good is victory if it does not bring peace? '"
" That is the German character," said Frank. " To the heavens rejoicing . . . gloOmy as death."
M. Lania met his wife again by a miracle near Marseilles, and they escaped to America, where he wrote this book.
ROBERT HENREY.
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