Fred Kushner
Part 1
Frederick Kushner is among those in the Sheldon Hall of Fame.
Fred was born Oct. 26, 1914, in Vienna, the son of Nathan and Molly Berger Kushner. His father was a lawyer.
In 1938, Fred was in his third year as a medical student in the University of Vienna when Austria was surrounded by the German Army. The Austrian Army was useless. Vienna was in political, social and economic disaster.
One evening in March 1938, a radio speech was given by Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg as a signal for Vienna’s police and key officials to slip on swastika armbands and the German Army to march over the border without any resistance, which resulted into their takeover.
Fred went to class the next morning and was told to go home and not come back. He immediately went to the American Embassy and registered a transcript of his medical degree from the University of Vienna, which was a bachelor of science degree in medicine. At this time his father was in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and his mother and sister were at home. A Nazi neighbor warned his mother and sister that all Jewish people should not try to leave Austria.
Fred’s sister and her physician husband had American visas, so they were scheduled to leave Austria, but Fred had no way to escape from Austria. Fred’s mother was a native-born Hungarian and her name was in an emigration quota from Hungary, and she was waiting to be emigrated.
Fred went to his mother’s house. A man knocked at the door, and Fred’s mother answered the door. A man dressed like a plumber whispered to her to let him in. He told Fred he should take a good look at him. Then the next day Fred should meet him on the corner without any luggage. Fred was supposed to act like he did not know the plumber-looking man. Fred was to follow the plumber-looking man on the bus. Fred was told to wait for three stops, and then get off, but the plumber-looking man would stay on the bus. A man would greet Fred when he got off the bus by saying, “Hello. Fred.” Fred was supposed to follow him. Fred’s father had arranged the plan using the underground as a way for Fred to escape from Austria.
When Fred followed the plan and got off at the third stop, two storm troopers wearing black shirts grabbed Fred and asked where he was going. The man who was supposed to greet Fred remained silent. The men took Fred and put him in jail. The underground escape failed. Fred and some other prisoners were taken that night to a border detention camp.
Somehow Fred was able to escape. Fred wandered and hid for several days until a farm couple picked him up and hid him under a blanket in the back of their truck. This couple were Christians who were working in the Czechoslovakian underground. They hid him, but they told him that it was too dangerous to stay with them for an extended time. They gave him a razor and work clothing. After he had a bath, they gave him food. After a good night’s sleep, they gave him a railroad ticket to the city of Prague where his father was staying.
The young farmer took him to the railroad station and told Fred when he made a sudden turn, Fred was to jump out and quickly run to get on the train because the train only stopped for a short time. The farmer told Fred that he should not talk to anyone, and he should pretend to be a deaf mute.
Fred found out many years later that the Germans took over Czechoslovakia and exterminated the people where he stayed, plus all the other people who helped the refugees escape.
Fred knew his father’s address in Prague, but he did not phone him. He walked to the apartment house where he knew his father was staying. He did not knock on the door when he found it was locked. Then he saw the corner of a curtain in a window move. He whistled their family signal, and the door opened, and his father was there. Fred was so thrilled to see his father.
Fred went to work as a technician in a dental laboratory, a job that his father found for him. Fred worked there for seven years until the Germans took over Czechoslovakia. European leaders met with Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Germany dictator, and Hitler promised that he would not take over any more countries, but Hitler was well known for lying.
Millie Vos is the secretary/treasurer of the Sheldon Historical Society and the director and a board member of the Sheldon Prairie Museum.