Restitution by Kathy Kacer

returned, Karl rushed to the door to greet her and hear the details of her call to his father. As expected, Victor had been frantic with worry over his family’s whereabouts. When news of Hitler’s invasion had reached him in Paris, he had called the house in Rakovník repeatedly but no one knew what had become of his wife and children. The family had left early in the morning and had told no one where they were going. For Victor, it was as if his family had disappeared into thin air, and he feared the worst. And, just as Marie had anticipated, Victor wanted to join them in Prague.
    â€œIt took everything in me to convince your father not to come back here,” Marie explained, rubbing her tired eyes. She pulled a lace hankie from her sleeve and wiped her brow.
    â€œHow is Father?” asked Karl.
    â€œA nervous wreck,” his mother replied. Marie looked so distraught that Karl could only imagine just how difficult it must have been for her to persuade her husband not to rush to his family’s side. “But now it’s up to him to find a way to get us out of here. And it’s up to us to stay out of the clutches of the Nazis.”
    It still felt somewhat unreal to Karl that the danger could be so imminent. But he was becoming increasingly impressed by the accuracy of his mother’s assessments. Karl barely recognized his mother these days. The woman who had quietly stood behind her husband’s authority all the time that Karl was growing up was emerging as a person in charge. Were it not for her, they would certainly never have left Rakovník so quickly.
    Three days after Karl and his family arrived in Prague, Victor traveled to Zurich to finish off the business that had taken him out of Czechoslovakia in the first place. While he was there, he met with a notary to have his power of attorney turned over to Marie in Prague. Thanks once again to his wife’s foresight, Victor had at his disposal a sizeable amount of family money that had already been transferred to the Crédit Lyonnais in Paris. Marie would now be in control of what was left of the family’s estate and fortune in Czechoslovakia.
    A few days later, Marie met with a notary in Prague and arranged to have her power of attorney assigned to Alois Jirák, the same colleague of their father’s whom Hana and Karl had met in their home weeks earlier. Not only was Jirák a trusted business associate of Victor’s, but, more importantly, he was Christian. Marie and Victor feared that the Nazis might freeze the bank accounts of all wealthy Jews, and hoped that placing their estate in the hands of a non-Jew would protect it from confiscation. In Germany it was already illegal for non-Jews to help Jews hide their holdings. But those laws had not yet arrived in Czechoslovakia.
    The discussions for how to proceed with these arrangements were all done by telephone. Marie had found a payphone at the Hotel Paris in the center of Prague. There, she could talk with her husband uninterrupted, and she spoke frequently with him, awaiting his calls at preappointed times, and then returning to relay information to Karl and Hana. Once these financial plans were in place, Marie arranged to meet with Jirák in Prague to seal the agreement.
    When she did, she had one more important request. “There are four paintings that we left behind in Rakovník,” Marie said, describing the artwork. “They are the largest paintings we own, wall-sized oil paintings that are hung in the salon. You can’t miss them. I would be devastated to see them destroyed, or worse, to think they had been taken by some Nazi thief. So I want you to take personal custody of them. Do whatever you must do to keep them safe.”
    Jirák nodded. “I understand,” he said. “And if the Nazis search your house, I don’t want them taken either. To be on the safe side, I will hide the paintings at my son-in-law’s estate. He