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For the next two years, with brief respites, the family was on the move: to Innsbruck soon after their escape, then over the Czech border to Prague. Life was hard. Fear of betrayal remained real. By October 1938 Hitler had annexed Austria and the Sudetenland around Prague. The Koelz family fled to Holland, reaching Rotterdam early in 1939. Here they were billeted in the Holland-American Line Hotel with 400 Jewish refugees.
Amazingly, throughout this time Koelz continued to draw and paint, sometimes for much-needed funds but mostly because his urge to create art remained undimmed in spite of his desperate
circumstances. He produced several fine portraits during this period, but most exist only in photographic form - the originals have yet to be traced.
The threat of a German advance was real. The family obtained a visitors' visa for England, arriving at Gravesend in April 1939. They stayed briefly in London, then found a cottage in Oxted, Surrey. It seemed as though, at last, they had some security - a chance to put down roots in peace and safety. Koelz again began to paint, draw and sculpt; portraits, landscapes, still-life paintings, woodcarvings of his little daughter...
But their time together was to be short-lived. Hitler's inexorable march across Europe continued into Poland and, on September 3rd, less than five months after the Koelz family landed in Kent, Britain and France declared war on Germany. By the end of the following May, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg were occupied and the Germans were in France. In response to the threat of imminent invasion, the British Government intensified its internment of enemy aliens, which began in 1939. The potential dangers of hostile German nationals inside Britain at such a time could not be ignored. Internment camps were set up and Canada and Australia were asked to accept those judged to be a risk to security.
For Koelz, chaos descended again.
©
DACS 2001
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