Reminiscences

Franz Leichter

Description

Franz Leichter recalls how he escaped Nazi-occupied Austria and became a successful lawyer and the conscience of the New York State Legislature.
Franz Leichter’s Reminiscences: An Autobiography begins when he is smuggled out of Nazi-occupied Austria as his caretaker's son. Escaping the Holocaust, he arrived in the United States as a refugee at age ten with his father and older brother. His mother was murdered by the Nazis. The family had no means of support and spoke no English. Embracing his new country, Franz worked his way through Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School. He became politically active and was elected to the New York State Legislature with the backing of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Governor Herbert Lehman. As a Senator, Franz exposed the reemergence of sweatshops and sought their closure. He disclosed real estate moguls’ large contributions to New York City’s elected officials who voted on their projects. He sponsored New York’s groundbreaking abortion rights law in 1969 and fought for its passage in 1970, which was followed three years later by the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Roe v. Wade. Franz earned a reputation as a maverick and the conscience of the Legislature. During this time, he maintained an active law practice that took him to Europe, Asia, and South America. Later he was chosen by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to be a Director of the Federal Housing Finance Board. Franz has lived in New York City since 1940. He has two children and four grandchildren.

Sujets

• Political
• Lettres et linguistique
• Nueva York
• Viena
• Segunda Guerra Mundial
• Franz Leichter
• Biography
• New York City
• State Senator
• Memoir
• Harvard Law School
• World War II
• Politics
• New Yorker
• Lawyer
• Swarthmore College
• Autobiography
• Vienna
• Faculté de droit de Harvard
• The New Yorker
• Seconde Guerre mondiale
• New York

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 27 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781663213273
• Langue: English

Extrait

REMINISCENCES
 
 
 
 
 
 
FRANZ LEICHTER
 
 

 
REMINISCENCES
 
 
Copyright © 2023 Franz Leichter.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
 
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6632-1328-0 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-1327-3 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021920861
 
 
iUniverse rev. date: 03/20/2023
CONTENTS
Pre face
Chapter 11938–1943: Early Childhood, Smuggled Out of Austria and to the Us
Chapter 21943–1948: Adjusting to My New Country
Chapter 31948–1952: College Years
Chapter 41953–1955: The Army Years
Chapter 51955–1956: Becoming A Lawyer
Chapter 61957: Out Of Academia and Finding My Way
Chapter 71957–Early 1960s: Becoming Politically Active and Getting Married
Chapter 81960–1967: The Political Bug
Chapter 9The Family: The Children Arrive, Buying a Farm, My Father Dies
Chapter 101968–1974: In the Legislature
Chapter 111974: An Annum Terribilis with a Good Ending
Chapter 121975–1986: All is Well (Almost)
Chapter 131987–1994: Busy Legislating and Lawyering
Chapter 141994–1997: Nina’s Tragic End and a New Life
Chapter 151997–2000: End of My Legislative Service
Chapter 162000–2006: The Washington Gig
Chapter 172006–2010: A Good Life But Some Sad Losses
Chapter 182011–2020: Continuing to Enjoy Life
Adde ndum
PREFACE
In these reminiscences, I seek to recount my life not just for my children and grandchildren, who know me and lived through some of the events I describe, but also for descendants I will never know and for friends and acquaintances. I have not covered every aspect of my life but focused on those events that I consider significant. As I went along, I added episodes just because I got pleasure remembering them or felt for honesty’s sake they should be disclosed. I went off on some tangents as one memory led to another.
One of my reasons for setting down my reminiscences is that as I became older, I so regretted not having asked my father about his life, particularly with my mother, of whom I know so little. Once he was gone and as I became older, there were so many questions I wished I had asked. I was too involved in my life and the future to look back and ask these questions while he was still alive. I hope this stab at an autobiography will answer questions about my life.
CHAPTER 1 1938–1943: EARLY CHILDHOOD, SMUGGLED OUT OF AUSTRIA AND TO THE US
EARLY YEARS TO THE ANSCHLUSS IN 1938
It pains me that I have so few memories before I reached seven and a half years old. Of course, one remembers little of one’s baby and toddler years, but I think many people have more remembrances of when they were five, six, and seven than I possess. I clearly have repressed many childhood recollections. What I do remember is sort of episodic—my mother singing my favorite song (Brahms’s “Lullaby”) as I fell asleep, being in the large garden behind our apartment in Mauer, on the outskirts of Vienna, where we moved in 1935.
My earliest years were in an apartment in the heart of Vienna. It was near the Donaukanal, which traverses Vienna and near the apartment of my grandparents, where my mother grew up. Theirs was a large apartment looking onto a park and playground, where I surely went to play. My family’s life then was what may be considered upper-middle class. My father, Otto, was an editor of the socialist daily, the Arbeiter-Zeitung , and my mother, Käthe, founded and led the women’s division of the Arbeiterkammer, an official agency that represented the interests of workers. It had features of an unemployment office and government labor department. My brother, Henry, was six and a half years older and rounded out the family. Both my parents were very active in the social-democratic political party, the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Austria (after 1945, it was called the Socialist Party of Austria. Today it is called the Social Democratic Party of Austria). During the 1920s and early 30s, the socialists ran Vienna and created a social program of housing, day care, parks, and more, which gave this period the name Rotes Wien (Red Vienna). It was an exciting time.
Our lives were upended when in February 1934 there was a fascist coup that took over the Austrian government and Vienna. My parents had to flee to Zürich. In 1935, they returned to Vienna and, to be less visible, moved to Mauer. Both being out a job, I don’t know how they supported themselves. Many meetings of the underground opposition were held there. My father was then a member of the executive committee of the Revolutionary Socialists, one of the main opposition groups.
One of my earliest recollections is being kept out of a room (there were only two in our Mauer apartment, which was on the first floor of a two-story building) where my mother, father, and Henry played chamber music. I very much resented being kept out and in the supervision of my grandfather, Samuel Leichter, (Papa’s father—my mother’s father, Josef Pick, died years before I was born and shortly after Henry’s birth in 1924). Even then, it showed my aim to be in the center of the action.
Once my grandfather took me shopping for a suit (in Vienna at this time, it meant short pants), and my grandmother, Regine Leichter (Müller) ended up berating him for not using family connections to get a lower price. Whether I realized it at the time or not, my grandmother ran the family. Her devotion to my father and ambition for him are what I believe gave him his drive to succeed as well as great self-confidence. Tragically, both my father’s parents perished in the Holocaust. Like many Viennese Jews, they were sent to Theresienstadt Ghetto, a concentration camp outside of Prague. Records show my grandfather died there, maybe in 1940 or 1941. My grandmother, who was far stronger, survived only to be shipped to Auschwitz in 1943 and murdered there.
The memory of my other grandmother (Mama’s mother), Lotte Pick (Rubinstein), is even less specific. If I remember her at all, it is as a grandmother who was indulgent and provided me with lots of sweets. Actually, as my mother’s memoir shows, she was an accomplished linguist and led an active life. She also met a tragic end. Unable to carry on with my mother in jail and the Nazis having forced her out of her apartment, she committed suicide, I believe in 1939.
I have only two memories of my father from when I was five or six—neither happy. In one, he chased me around the dining room table in anger over something I had done (he had the Leichters’ anger). The other is some argument with him when I said, “I wish you were back in the hospital.” Actually, my father had not been hospitalized. The fascist government had jailed him for his underground activities and opposition. This was kept from me by telling me he was in a hospital. Of course, I learned the truth. By referring to the hospital, I was either going along with the myth or using it to annoy him. In view of the loving and close relationship we built later, it is disconcerting that I have only these two distinct memories of him from my early childhood. This may also be due to my father’s work as an editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung. He must have worked into the night. Also, his political activities required many meetings away from home.
I don’t know what I knew about my parents’ political activities. Although I have no specific memories and to avoid building “recollections” out of later acquired information, I believe I was aware then and remember feeling that they were important people who had many friends and acquaintances since there were many meetings in our apartment.
I have some remembrances of being in Zürich, where my parents had fled in 1934 after a fascist coup took over all of Austria. The Social Democratic Workers’ Party was banned. I believe I was taken there after my parents had fled. My only actual remembrance there is chasing girls about my age on the street, not for romance but in male animosity, calling them blöde mädchen (dumb girls).
When the family returned to Vienna in 1935, we moved to Mauer on the city’s outskirts. I started school there in what was the first grade.
I do have some recollections of the Anschluss in March 1938. Shortly afterward, there was a prominent Nazi parade in the neighborhood. It may have had to do with the burial of a Nazi leader. The back of the garden of our house was across from a cemetery, and I seem to remember watching the cortege and marchers arriving at the cemetery. My most vivid memory is going back to school, probably a couple of days after the Anschluss. We used to start each school day with some national song or maybe a pledge of allegiance to Austria. Now, on the first day back, the school started with a “Heil, Hitler” and some pledge to the German nation, of which we were now a part. This struck me as hypocritical.