Leaving Europe (1928–38)

Zurich (1928–34)

My father, Marcel, was born the younger son of the local banker in the small town of Trstena, Czechoslovakia, in the Tatra Mountains in 1902. As a boy, I met my father's older brother, Nicholas, or "Uncle Mickey"; his beautiful wife, Maja; and my grandmother, but I never met my grandfather. I have no recollection of when he died, and I have never determined how the German-speaking Jewish Schein family ended up in what is today Slovakia, nor how my father ended up being Hungarian in looks and temperament.

When my daughter Louisa and her family visited Trstena in 2002, she could not find any trace of the Schein family, suggesting that during the Hitler era, towns systematically expunged any evidence of Jews living there. The name is clearly German, but both my father and his brother Nicholas had dark complexions and spoke Hungarian fluently.

My father had a bent for science. In order to avoid being drafted into the German Army toward the end of World War I, he was sent off to Heidelberg to learn about physics. In 1925, he went on to pursue a PhD at the University of Zurich, and he established himself there as a Dozent, the equivalent of an assistant professor at the time.

Like so many of his peers in Central Europe, my father learned early on that being Jewish was a problem. Anti-Semitism was everywhere, resulting in many of his friends in that part of the world converting to Catholicism or, like Marcel, becoming agnostic and trying their best to deny their own Jewishness. While in Zurich at the university, he fell in love with and married Hilde Schoenbeck. It came as no great surprise that he fell for a blonde, blue-eyed Lutheran engineering student from Saxony.

Hilde was the only child of Selma and Max Schoenbeck, a German civil engineer who had spent his career in northern Germany and then retired to Bad Schandau, a resort town on the Elbe in the mountainous part of Saxony that was often called "Little Switzerland." He had been in the German Army and looked resplendent in his Prussian uniform complete with spike-topped helmet in many early photographs. Hilde was sent to the University of Zurich to study engineering, which was most unusual for a woman in those days.

By the time they were married in 1927, Marcel had finished his degree and had taken a job at the University of Zurich. He was well liked by his university mentors and was beginning a comfortable life in Switzerland. Hilde, however, had not finished her degree when they married. I learned many years later that, after they became engaged, Marcel told Hilde, "Go home, and learn to cook. One physicist in the family is enough." And so she did, conforming to what was in those years the proper thing to do. I was born in March of the following year.

By the time I was one and a half, we were already on the move. Marcel and Hilde went off to the University of Chicago, where he got a yearlong fellowship, and I was parked with Grandmother Selma back in Bad Schandau. The contacts my parents built in Chicago proved to be important for our later emigration. Grandfather Max was still alive, but his Parkinson's disease made him virtually an invalid. Grandmother Selma, on the other hand, was a bundle of energy. I got to know her better in later years and admired the energy she displayed right up to her death at age ninety-five. I don't remember much from this time, but the photos taken of me playing happily on the shore of the Elbe suggest that this period with my grandmother was pleasant, even if being taken away from my parents for a year was, I would assume, somewhat distressing.

When my parents returned, we settled into a comfortable routine in Zurich. We took many trips to the Alps because of my father's hobby of mountain climbing. After climbing in Saxony and Slovakia as a youth, he then ambitiously moved on to the many Swiss peaks. Hilde went along with him on many of his simpler climbs. I inherited their aesthetic appreciation for the mountains but had not the slightest inclination to scale them. Hilde often showed me her broken finger acquired during a rock-climbing expedition with Marcel, serving as a warning not to get interested in this dangerous sport.

My own enchantment with mountains grew from hiking among the spring flowers, which was both physically and aesthetically invigorating. Grassy meadows that drop precipitously into valleys studded with stone-roofed farmhouses and cows that grazed contentedly on hillsides, their bells creating a rural symphony, were imprinted on me. All of this was backdropped by a twelve-thousand-foot massif of snowcapped rock giants seeming to leap raggedly into the sky.

The landscape was defined by its contrasts: the sheer fortress of the Eiger towering over the valley floor separated from the neighboring Jungfrau and Monch by massive glaciers from which mountain streams fed alpine lakes; a colorful riot of wildflowers alongside manicured boxes of geraniums that adorned every balcony and windowsill; the raw gray of the rock face slashed by the shimmering white of the glacier and the snowy upper sides of the peaks that formed the entire horizon. Exposed frequently to such spectacular vistas at a young age, I continue to be stimulated by color and by contrasts, impelled to seek out that which visually arrests.

Zurich itself was a feast for the eyes, with its lake and the surrounding hills and woods. Up one of these hills was the Grand Hotel Dolder, which one reached by means of a funicular. Next to the hotel were tennis courts nestled into the woods, which I still remember because I was asked to play in the clearing next to the courts while my parents played tennis. By age five, I was allowed a few minutes on the court with my own tennis racket, an early start to what was to become my life sport.

Many years later, summering with my wife and three young children in Bryant Pond, Maine, I was reminded of my childhood days in the Swiss mountains. Our cottage looked out across a lake to five-hundred-foot-tall Mount Christopher, up which we could climb easy trails to view magnificent vistas of the surrounding hills and woods. No huge rock faces here, but I was in heaven nevertheless, feeling comfortable in the woods and on the lake. I was astounded to discover that Mary, who grew up in Carmel — with the California coast's crashing breakers and vast, bright beaches — found the darkness and silence of the woods and lake unsettling, just as I found the Pacific exciting but also unsettling in its raw power.

Mary and I were raised in different families on different continents, and I realized how much our early life experiences determine in what milieus we feel basic comfort. Mary was an ocean person, and I a mountain person. Though she could enjoy wandering the woods to pick berries and mushrooms with me, she preferred combing tidal pools and beaches for unique shells. I could appreciate the coast and came to love it, but I am still struck by how comfortable and stimulated I feel when I am in the woods.

Seeing how deeply a sense of familiarity or security can be tied to early experiences of habitat is eye-opening. Perhaps my childhood home then was not one of the many apartments we rented in various European cities but the stillness of a pine-enshrouded lake — the mountain hulking among the tree gaps, the fragrances of flowers shifting by season. My mother knew mushrooms and taught me how to spot them and how to distinguish the best edible ones from poisonous or ill-tasting ones. To this day, not much can replace the thrill of finding a Pfifferling (chanterelle) or Steinpilz (porcini) in the woods when the season is right.

Back in the city, the life of a spoiled only child included many trips to Cafe Spruengli for hot chocolate with whipped cream, which had to be consumed in a particular way. The cup of chocolate was heaped with rich and nonaerated whipped cream to be eaten one spoonful at a time, dipped into the chocolate beneath it. An extra dish of whipped cream kept this spooning going until most of the liquid was gone.

Trips downtown also included shopping at Weber, the fabulous toy store. By age six, I had acquired from there a complete Maerklin electric train set, a perfect replica of the real Swiss trains. When I ran it in a darkened room, I loved seeing the cars illuminated by tiny lights inside them and marveled at the perfect reproductions of the real trains that I often traveled in. I also acquired an erector set and a functioning small steam engine, which was quite frightening because it built up enough pressure to drive tiny lathes. The German toys were quite extraordinary in their precision and perfect functioning. Their accuracy of miniaturization captured my imagination and undoubtedly later launched my hobby of collecting netsuke, Japanese miniatures that were used as decorative fobs for tobacco pouches.

Winters were exciting because we all skated on Lake Zurich when it froze over. On holidays, we went into the mountains, where I learned to ski. I especially remember the wonder of Christmas because the tree in our apartment had natural candles clipped onto its branches instead of electric lights. Receiving gifts in candlelight on Christmas Eve was special. This German way of celebrating required me to take a nap in the late afternoon, during which time, I was told, the Christ Child would come by the house and set up presents under the Christmas tree. When I was awakened in the early evening, I was invited to come into the living room, where I would find the lit-up tree on top of a large table. Under the tree sat my train set and other gifts. It was quite spectacular and mysterious.

No one spoke about how the Christ Child managed all this, nor was any rationale given for why the presents came from the Christ Child. When, in later years, I learned about Santa Claus, I also learned that the German equivalent was to celebrate Saint Nicholas Day on December 6 with gifts of candy and marzipan. This celebration had nothing to do with Christmas but laid a greater foundation for my love of marzipan and other fancy candies. Whatever else those early years in Switzerland were, they were rich fare for the eyes and the stomach.

The First Emigration: Odessa or Nanking (1934–36)

Sometime in 1934, Marcel came home with the news that we had to leave Switzerland. He was not sure of the cause, but the Swiss and the Czechs had had a falling out and he, a Czech citizen, would lose his job at the university. I never found out what the conflict was about, but the consequences were severe. Not only would Marcel have to restart his career, but we had to leave the good life in Zurich and our many close friends. Among them was Professor Edgar Meyer, my father's mentor, after whom I was named. At that time, where was a young, ambitious, Jewish experimental cosmic ray physicist to go? Europe was in turmoil, and the United States had not yet launched its programs to provide safe havens for refugee physicists.

There were basically two options for a scientist in the new field of cosmic rays — China and the Soviet Union — because these countries were hungrily building their own science establishments. Marcel had job offers from both Nanking and Odessa. I can only imagine the difficult conversation my parents must have had to decide between these alternatives.

The offer from Odessa stated my father would run a fairly large and prestigious laboratory with access to the Caucasus Mountains, where a high-altitude lab could be set up. Cosmic rays were studied by exposing silver-based photographic plates at high altitudes, where the rays were more frequent and would leave tracks on the silver plates. Scientists then analyzed the tracks to discover new nuclear particles. I think the prospect of having a lab of his own in the mountains appealed to my father, so off we went to Odessa in November 1934. I was six years old.

The Soviet Union tried to impress foreign scientists and treated them like dignitaries. We were given a nice apartment in a new development and privileges at special "Intourist" stores, which were always well stocked with groceries that the locals could not get. My father got a good salary and excellent facilities in which he could pursue his research. He was eager to set up his work on eighteen-thousand-foot-high Mount Elbrus, resulting in many trips to the Caucasus. Incidentally, I learned then that Europe's highest peak was not Mont Blanc in the Alps but Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus.

For me, life in Odessa was not too different from life in Zurich. We had a spacious apartment into which we were able to move most of our good furniture and Oriental rugs acquired in Zurich. We spoke German at home, and instead of being sent to a Russian school, I was individually tutored by German-speaking teachers. We had two cats, Kotlik and Suslik, who would sit on my bed and take care of me if I had a fever. The apartment complex had undeveloped play areas where I quickly developed friendships with a couple of local kids and learned enough Russian to get along easily with them. Unfortunately, I never learned to read or write it. I had brought along all my German toys, including the Maerklin electric train and the steam engine. My friends stood in awe of such toys and spent many hours in our apartment playing with them and learning what life outside the Soviet Union could be.

I learned much from my friends as well. They were clever about what to do outdoors in a newly constructed apartment complex whose grounds had not yet been landscaped. We spent many an hour burning insects with our magnifying glass and catching tarantulas. We caught them by dropping a ball of wax into their holes in the ground, pulling them up, and admiring their big, hairy bodies as they stuck to the wax. We then left them alone to free themselves from the wax and return to their holes.

What stands out for me about these years was, again, the travel, except now our destinations were Crimea, the Caucasus, and the resorts on the Black Sea in Georgia. We would board well-appointed passenger liners for weeklong voyages from Odessa to the ports of Sochi, Sukhumi, and Batumi. We sometimes came across the Crimean Peninsula by car, which involved many hours of driving through extreme desert, followed by a tortuous climb up to the rim of an old crater where, all at once, we would burst into the lushest and most colorful mountainside, which led down to the deep blue of the Black Sea.

The long hikes in the Caucasus revealed alpine dimensions that exceeded those of Switzerland. Instead of quaint valleys and cow-dotted slopes, I found a wilder and more primitive land populated by people in unusual-looking outfits and uniforms. In the Caucasus, my parents often undertook challenging hikes well beyond my capacity. On one such trip, they arranged for a locaI Cossack to take me on his horse while they hiked from one overnight hut to the next. I was petrified. He wore what I took to be his military uniform and hat, a very colorful ensemble full of ethnic regalia, and as he hoisted me up into his arms, I was convinced that I would never see my parents again. But the ride turned out to be quite exhilarating, and after I was reunited with my parents two hours later, my fear quickly turned into pride and bravado. I couldn't wait to brag to my friends back in Odessa.

On our way to the mountains, we would often go through undeveloped regions. For example, in Svonetsia, people dragged stuff around on sleds because they were not using the wheel for transportation. For years afterward, I made the classic mistake of attributing this to their "primitive culture" until I recently saw films of this area and found that it is both very hilly and very rocky. For all I know, their uneven terrain lent itself better to sleds than wheeled vehicles for hauling heavy items like lumber and rocks.

Deep in the woods of Svonetsia, I had one of the greatest taste experiences of all time — tasting a full glass of wild strawberries bathed in thick local cream. In my later youth, I often wondered whether this undeveloped region was just a fantasy of mine until, many years later, I met a fellow member of the Harvard Travellers Club who had traveled through the same region and confirmed that Svonetsia really existed and it wasn't merely the manufactured memory of an eight-year-old who loved wild strawberries and caviar.

The caviar story resulted from our ship travel on the Black Sea. On these voyages, the ship's dining rooms often had good caviar available, and it became family gossip how amused and generous the waiters were when they learned how much caviar a scrawny eight-year-old could put away. I rapidly got a reputation for being a young gourmand. On one of these trips, local inefficiency led to an especially epicurean time. We were in Sukhumi on a holiday, awaiting the departure of our regular Black Sea liner. The Soviets had orchestrated a special scientific congress for Sukhumi and planned to flaunt their success by chartering a small luxury liner, no doubt leftover from czarist days, and stock it with all the very best in food and wine.