_Page. Six

.

Friday; April 14; _1943

THE JEWISH. NEWS

Katie Stieglitz

By SHOLEM ASCH

(Copyright, 1943, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)

I

SAW HER FOR THE FIRST
time in the Cafe de la Paix in Paris.
A friend of mine pointed her out to
me. She was Katie Stieglitz. It was a
week or two after Hitler had occupi-
ed Venna.

Katie Stieglitz was a couturiere.
She created her own styles which were,
extremely popular among the artistic
elements of Middle Europe. She be-
came famous not only through the
original lines of her fashions, but
through the colors and patterns of her
textiles which were after her own
designs. She never created a general
style. What she tried to do was to
bring out, through color and line, the
personality of the individual who was
"fortunate" enough to be accepted
into the clientele of Katie Stieglitz.

Katie Stieglitz carefully selected
her clientele, as any worthy maestro
does his orchestral players. It was not
enough to be wealthy, smart, or of
high social rank to be dressed by her.
To be accepted by her was a kind of
graduation to the artistic set. But
Katie would dress only those who
had something to offer. She consider-
ed her art a contribution toward the
develepment of their creative per-
sonalities in her gowns through color,
line, draping, and even through the
pattern of the fabric. Supple little
bodies of young dancers she dressed
in Greek robes making them look as
if they had stepped from the bas-
relief of some ancient Greek vase.

It made no difference as' to a
woman's station in life, or what her
sum of worldy goods might be; it
was personality in body and figure
that she wanted. At the same time,
Katie rejected those who could pay
lavishly, when otherwise they had
nothing more to offer. By closing her
doors to the general public and keep-
ing it ajar only for the select, her
art became extremely sought after,
and the more Katie restricted her
clientele, the more women wanted to
come to her. She grew famous. You
could recognize women who were
dressed by her not only in the smart
circles of Vienna, but in every metro-
polis of Europe.

Even as Katie sat at dusk in the
overcrowded cafe among so many
fashionable women who frequented
this popular rendezvous of Paris, I
could not fail to recognize the origin-
ality of her dress which distinguished
her from so many other women. She
was not beautiful; neither was she
young. She did not try to hide either
fact. Her loose, red silk Persian cape
helped to bring out the warmth of
her brownish skin and large dark
shining eyes. One or two pieces of
jewelry—her golden earrings and a
heavy old-fashioned chain—helped to
accentuate her feminine personality.

Her external appearance, however,
which was meant to bring out the
dignity of womanhood, did not har-
monize at the moment. The nervous-
ness of her face created restlessness
around her. In her hand she held a
short umbrella; she grasped the
creamy bone handle in a manner that
suggested it may well have been a
last reminder of a wealth and position
from which she had suddenly been
evicted.

Not for one second did she release
it from her grasp. She drank her
aperitif nervously, with the umbrella
clutched in one bony hand. Once,
when she tried to open her purse, she
was forced to lay the umbrella in her
lap; and she did so with an anxiety,
as if the thing were a child, seizing'
it again at her • first free moment.

From the way she held it, I could
imagine the suddenness with which
she must have had to leave her home.
Probably she had been warned of her
danger as she remained in all the
dangers through which she had pass-
ed—in fleeing the Gestapo agents,
wandering through the woods at
night, crossing the mountains through
snow storms until eventually she stole
across the frontier.

The second time I saw Katie was
in Lisbon, in the ante-chamber of the
high-windowed, whitewashed hall of
the Spanish-Moroccan building that
was the American consulate. Squeezed
in among hundreds of men and
women, old and young, who overflow-
ed the consulate seeking visas for pas-
sage to the United States, Katie Stieg-
litz waited patiently. She wore the
same loose, Persian silk cape, which
had lost the freshness of its fabric
though not the smartness of its lines.
It had become shabby and worn even
as her face.

I saw her every hour of the day.
I met her at every step in Lisbon, as
one cannot help but meet persons in
Katie's position nearly everywhere in
that city.

To me she seemed a typical example
of the misery of our times, bereft of
her possessions and cast into the
street by the cruelty of a regime. I
saw how she sank into lower depths
from one day to the next; and I was
interested to see the result of the
struggle with which she so bravely
tried to maintain her dignity and save
herself and her talents from utter
destruction not only at the cruel hands
of her persecutors, but also from the
indifference of onlookers whom mis-
ery had made uninterested in human
destiny.

It took Katie many months of run-
ning around to try to get passage to
America. Each day I could notice how
she had lost a portion of her person-
ality, not only in her appearance but
in her very spirit, until she
became a part of that
murky sea of universal
EDITOR'S NOTE: Sholem Asch, the well-
misery. I saw in her the
known author of "Three Cities," "Salvation,"
symbol of the times in
and other classics, was moved to write the at-
which we live. She became
tached story after el visit to the National Refu-
as a part of myself. I could
gee Service. In a note to William Rosenwald,
easily transfer myself to
her position, just as I could
president of the NRS, he wrote, "I have taken
have transferred the whole
Katie Stieglitz as a symbol of the emigre im-
of human existence to her
migration. Certainly, if it were not for the
position, if destiny had not
National Refugee Service we would hear of
provided me with an Am-
many spiritual casualties among the refugees.
erican. passport.
But here is an organization, quietly and effect-
ively incorporating newcomers into America's
I couldn't wait in Lisbon
economic system, in such a manner that they
long enough to know the
are no burden upon the land to which they have
result of Katie's struggles.
come. Instead, through its work, they represent
I had to leave, and I had
an actual 'and potential source of strength for
to leave Katie behind me
America, the land of their haven."
—lost perhaps on the very
The story is reprinted by permission from
shore of freedom. I wond-
Common Ground Magazine, where it first ap-
ered what would become
peared.
of her.

I met Katie again in the
States. She had won the great
victory against evil forces and
the devilish inventions of red
tape and obstacles of every
kind. At last she had gained
permission to come to this
country. At last she had gain-
ed passage.

I found her at the Office of
the National Refugee Service
in New York. I hardly recog-
nized her, for she had be-
come a weary old woman,
gray-haired and wrinkled;
she was dressed in shabby drapes
which I recognized as her old Persian
cape. Regardless of the fact that it
was threadbare, it had many of the
same lines it had when first it made
its appearance in Katie's great fashion
shows in the salons of Vienna. In spite
of all the transformations through
which it had passed, time could not
take from Katie's robe the originality
of its cut.

I recognized Katie by that cape,
her black eyes, and even more by the
bony handle of her umbrella which
she still grasped.

It was no longer an umbrella; it
had been torn to ribbons. But from
the way she held it, I recognized it
even before I did the woman herself.

She rose from her chair in the wait-
ing room at a signal given her by a
receptionist, and entered a small cubi-
cle where a smiling dark - haired
woman waited behind a desk to in-
terview her. In Katie's own words to
me later, she . dreaded that interview
as much as anything that had happen-
ed to 'her.'

"Tell me about yourself," the
woman said.

A faint tint of red came into Katie's
cheeks. "I-I only want work," she
stammered. "Something I can do with
my hands; Anything. Please can you
help me get work—housework—tend-
ing babies—anything!"

"Of course we'll help you,' the
worker said reassuringly, "but is this
the kind of work you did abroad?"
Katie seemed confused. She looked
at the floor. "I must find something!
I must!" she murmered without answ-
ering the question.

"Don't be afraid. I'm sure we can
help you," the worker said again.
"But what is your experience? What
did you do in your old home?"

"Home . . ." Katie said half under
her breath. "I-Tome! That life was so
very long ago. No—at home in Vienna
that was not my work. I had my own
establishment. I was there what one
would call in the Old World a coutu.
riere."

"That's a good profession. Why
don't you continue in it here? Per-
haps we can place you."

Katie sat quite still. Then a shadow
of a smile touched her dry lips as
she shook her head. "All that must
perish with the Old World. I don't
think there is work like this here. I
created by own styles. I made my
women dolls of fashion. They needed
to think of nothing except how to
dress for the envy of the world. I
don't want to do that here, nor do
I think I could do it again.'

The little spark of eagerness died,
and her voice rose with increasing
shrillness. "No-no, I want to do some-
thing useful—simple housework, floor
scrubbing, dishwashing, do any-
thing! Please, please give me work."

She grew hysterical. Her hands
trembled Es they clutched the um-
brella handle.

SHOLEM ASCH

"Don't be afraid," the woman said.
"We'll help you. This is your new
country, you know. Here you can live
again and work again and no one
will molest you. You need not be
hungry and cold. You can build a
new life—a useful one—in America.
We will help you every step of the
way.

Katie's eyes expressed disbelief.
"But—but this is no time for luxury
women."

"Dressing women like dolls in lux-
ury, yes, but designing dresses for
many women is a worthwhile occupa-
tion. Helping to make them more at-
tractive is good work. Come. Let me
try to place you where you can bring
your art to the many."

Katie's eyes brimmed over. She
took a long, deep breath. She stood
up suddenly and leaned forward, her
face alight. She put down her um-
brella on the desk. Then she walked
out of the office leaving the umbrella
behind. The worker did not notice.

As Katie told it to me later, she
said, "How it happened I do not
know. But this I firmly believe, I did
not just forget that poor umbrella.
Something in my subconscious mind
must have told me that I no longer had
need of it—that one pitiful object
which linked me with my past. There
was something else to cling to now-
hope—hope in the shape of a friendly
person who wanted to help me."

Months later, as I was strolling
down Fifth Avenue, something struck
my eye. It was familiar and yet new.
For a moment I could not recall where
I had seen it; then suddenly it came
to me. Katie.

A woman was approaching, coming
down the Avenue in a Katie Stieglitz
creation. It was unmistakable. She
was a young woman—one of our
American beauties. An American
beauty, in a dress bright with flowers
of field and forest. It was smart in
cut. It flattered the lines of her body.
It had personality and freshness. A
Katie Stieglitz dress.

"So she is working again," I said
to myself, "or does this mean some-
thing else?"

I went to the National Refugee
Service office to learn what had be-
come of Katie.

"It's a story Katie herself loves to
tell," the worker told me. "We placed
her as an ordinary dressmaker, which
is what she wanted. But her real tal-
ents were quickly recognized. A spec-
ial department was established for her
where she is teaching her art to num-
erous young American girls. It took
a long time to persuade her employers
—but Katie was determined—that her
fashions were not for the select but
that even the average girl of shop and
office and home might wear styles
with no less dignity than the women
of Europe's exclusive resorts. Katie is

no longer dressing dolls."