Martin Spitzer

Title: Storm Over Tatra
Author: Martin Spitzer
Publisher: Self Published
Place of publication: Adelaide
Year of Publication: 1989
Location of Book: Lamm Jewish Library, Melbourne Holocaust Museum, Sydney Jewish Museum, University of South Australia and other public libraries
Cities/town/camps: Czechoslovakia: Domaniža, Žilina, Šášovské Podhradie, Bratislava, Prague; Switzerland: Witzwil prison; France: Annecy, Marseille, Normandy; Spain: Miranda De Ebro concentration camp, Madrid, Gibraltar; Portugal: Lisbon; England: London; Israel: Haifa; Australia: Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne
Note: those cities/towns/camps underlined are those which are most central to the narrative
Genre: Memoir
Key events/experiences: refugee; resistance; internment camp; Allied soldier

Storm over Tatra is the extraordinary story of Martin Spitzer’s escape from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1942 and subsequent internment in various jails and camps across Western Europe as an illegal refugee and member of the Czech resistance. In September 1944, Martin fought in Normandy where his time as a soldier abruptly ended after he was wounded by a mine, causing the loss of his leg.

The memoir is 247 pages in length with 12 unpaginated pages containing photos of the author’s family, scanned letters and documents. Pages 1-59 describe the author’s upbringing in various Slovakian towns. Pages 60-100 recount his University studies in Prague from 1936-1940 and the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Pages 101-34 describe his escape from Slovakia to Switzerland in 1942, where he was interned in a Swiss prison before being recruited into the Czechoslovakian army, travelling to Marseille in Vichy France, where he lived with the Czech Resistance until November 1943. Pages 135-165 recount Martin’s flight to Spain where he was captured and interned as an illegal refugee in the Miranda de Ebro concentration camp until the spring of 1943. Pages 166-200 describe his release and subsequent journey to England where he enlisted in the Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade which fought in Normandy in 1944, where Martin was wounded and lost his leg. Pages 201-247 recount his return to Czechoslovakia after the war, his life in Israel from 1949-1954 after fleeing communist Czechoslovakia, and his eventual emigration to Australia in 1954.

Martin Spitzer was born 9 April 1919 in the small Slovakian village of Domaniža to a secular, middle-class Jewish family. He was the first child of Desider and Roza Spitzer. He had a younger brother, Jozef and an older, half-brother Frederick. When Martin was four, the family moved to Žilina where, despite his happy childhood, Martin faced antisemitic discrimination. From 1928-1933 the family lived in Šášovské Podhradie, a German-speaking village before moving back to Žilina. Although they celebrated Jewish holidays, Martin also participated in Christian traditions, and Judaism played a minor role in his daily life.

Martin matriculated in 1936, enrolling in the Technological University of Prague to study surveying and engineering, where he witnessed the annexation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany in 1938. On 17 November 1939, Martin friend’s Marek Frauwirth was one of nine students and professors executed by the Gestapo after anti-Nazi demonstrations. Fearing for his safety, Martin applied for an exit permit to return to his hometown Žilina in January 1940, where he obtained work as an assistant surveyor. Designated “an economically needed Jew”, Martin was temporarily exempt from many antisemitic restrictions and was able to avoid the initial round of deportations. However, antisemitic measures intensified and in early 1942, deportations to the camps began in earnest.

Luckily, Martin was able to use his position and access to official seals to forge documents for his brother, who worked in a sawmill in Tvrdosin, 100 km from Zilina, supplying timber to Switzerland. In May, rumours circulated that those hitherto exempted would be deported. With the help of his brother, Martin crept into a small space between two piles of timber on a freight train bound for Switzerland, carrying a month’s worth of provisions. After eight long days Martin reached Switzerland where he was discovered and jailed for a month in St Gallen prison, before being transported to the Witzwil prison in Bern, a work camp for refugees.

After three months, a representative of the Czechoslovakian government-in-exile visited the camp and recruited Martin and two others into the Czechoslovakian army unit in England. Armed with false documents, in September 1942, Martin and the other two inmates escaped to Vichy France and were taken to a demobilisation camp in Annecy where they were interrogated and released. The group then travelled to Marseille where they joined the Czech Resistance.

After the landing of the Allies in North Africa on 8 November, and the consequent military occupation of Vichy-France by Nazi Germany, Martin and the other resistance members fled to Spain, crossing the Pyrenees on foot. Whilst trying to reach Barcelona, they were caught by Spanish authorities and sent to the Miranda de Ebro concentration camp established by the Franco government for the internment of communists and illegal refugees. After a visit from the Red Cross in the spring of 1943, Martin was released and made his way to Madrid where he lived for a month until he was expelled by the Spanish authorities. He then made his way to Gibraltar where he boarded a ship to Scotland, eventually arriving in London by train.

In June 1943, after interrogation by the British Military, Martin joined the Czechoslovak army unit and in September 1944, Martin fought in Normandy, during which he was wounded by a mine explosion and tragically lost his leg. After recovering in hospital, he was flown back to England and lived in London for the duration of the war. After the war, he was repatriated to Czechoslovakia, where he was reunited with his only surviving family member, his brother Jozef. He completed his studies in June 1946 and moved to Bratislava where he worked for a restitution organisation for Jewish victims of Nazism.

After the rise of communism, in 1949 Martin left Czechoslovakia for Israel, where he worked for five years as a surveyor in a kibbutz. There, he met and married an Australian, from whom he obtained a landing permit to emigrate to Sydney in 1954. After being awarded a scholarship to complete his postgraduate studies in Holland, he accepted a position as lecturer in cartography at the University of South Australia in Adelaide in 1965. Later in life he moved to Melbourne.

Storm over Tatra is a comprehensive account that describes the author’s pre-war and wartime experiences in great detail. The memoir ends with his arrival in Sydney. Some details such as his birth-date and city of birth are missing but can be found in Shoah Foundation and USHMM oral testimonies. Researchers can also consult his diaries archived in the State Library of South Australia. Martin Spitzer wrote his memoir to combat the myth that Jews did not fight back but “went like lambs to the slaughter”; as such, it is a work infused with both Jewish and Slovakian nationalism – the title is drawn from the first line of the Slovak national anthem. The author also paints a rich portrait of his upbringing, and Jewish life more broadly, in Slovakia, describing his sexual and emotional development as well as the political, religious and sociocultural influences which shaped his experiences and outlook.