This article is adapted from Fault Lines, a memoir to be published by Criterion Books in October. David Pryce-Jones is a novelist and historian, whose most recent book is Treason of the Heart: From Thomas Paine to Kim Philby. He is a senior editor of National Review.
The belief that their primary identity was French had put their lives at risk for no purpose. They couldn’t imagine that the Germans and a good many French made no such distinctions about Jews and were determined to kill off the lot.
On December 1, 1939, an official with the title of Head of State Collections wrote to the Gestapo to draw attention to what he called the “rich inventory” and “outstanding things” to be found at Meidling, my grandmother Mitzi’s house in Vienna. In his opening paragraph he made the all-important point that she was a “Jewess with English citizenship”. The sheet of paper bore the stamp of the Nazi eagle. Below the typewritten greeting “Heil Hitler” was an illegible signature.
Six weeks later, on January 14, 1940, the Gestapo duly drove up to Meidling and expropriated everything in it, all the furniture, linen, silver. The full list of stolen pictures comes to fifty-seven, carefully inventoried by the Gestapo. A further selection of twenty-two was made on behalf of the State Collections. One of the paintings listed is a Van Dyck of Saint John, a favourite subject of that artist. The Head of State Collections had his eye on this picture, and he was particularly disappointed that it had gone missing. Within twenty-four hours of moving into Meidling, he was already recommending an investigation into its whereabouts. To this day, it is still unaccounted for, and the only plausible explanation is that one of these Nazis had been quick enough to lay hands on it for himself.
