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June 28, 2002
A Canadian survivor's tribute
New book by Steve Floris is a monument to his wife, love and freedom.
PAT JOHNSON REPORTER
Escape From Pannonia: A tale of two survivors
By Steve Floris
Creative Connections Publishing, Vancouver, 2002. 159 pages. $19.95
As Canada Day approaches, I am reminded that the most eloquent statements
of citizenship seem to come from Canadians-by-choice. One of the
most beautiful examples of this phenomenon I have encountered is
the new book Escape from Pannonia: A Tale of Two Survivors,
by Vancouverite Steve Floris.
Floris and his wife, Eva, were perhaps best known in Vancouver as
the proprietors for many years of the Ferguson Point Tea House in
Stanley Park, though both had successful (and longer) careers in
real estate.
The pair met before the war in their native Budapest and the book
is a testimony to their decades of shared love of each other and
of Canada.
But it is also an articulate firsthand history of modern Europe
extrapolated through the experiences of two unique individuals.
Even interesting lives could be rendered banal in the wrong hands.
Floris is an excellent writer and gifted raconteur. The details
he includes are evocative and, since he never mentions keeping a
journal, particularly remarkable.
Floris recounts his early years in Hungary, where he lived the proverbial
life of childish insouciance. Even as Hitler's shadow moved across
Europe, Floris was selected by the fascist-leaning government of
Hungary to join a cadre of students on a visit to Mussolini's Italy:
a strategic effort to forge greater ties between the two states.
When he graduated from high school in 1938, there were few prospects
for Jews in the professions. Parents were encouraging their children
to learn a trade and Floris found himself an apprentice in his uncle's
pastry shop and candy factory, learning skills he would later attribute
with saving his life.
Floris recounts many brushes with fate encountered by himself and
his wife. That the two lived a long and happy life together was
a thankful miracle, as the book depicts a series of horrific incidents
which they were both lucky to survive.
One of the first was Eva's seemingly miraculous escape from the
notorious 1941 massacre by Nazi-affiliated gendarmes in the Yugoslavian
town of Novi Sad, in which thousands of Jews, Gypsies, Serbs and
others were murdered on the frozen Danube River.
In 1943, Floris was forced to join a labor battalion where he was
intended to do gruelling work. But his talents in the kitchen were
soon recognized and, though he still had to work all his waking
hours, he was never short of food. This led him to be transferred
to another battalion and, fortuitous as the new job was, the story
gets more remarkable. The day after his transfer, his former battalion
was trapped by advancing Russian forces. Most were killed on the
spot. The survivors were sent to Siberia.
When Floris's luck finally appeared to run out and he found himself
in a work camp in Austria in 1944, he at least arrived in relatively
good health, which probably accounted for his ultimate survival.
As the Allies advanced, Floris's captors chose to move their prisoners
and Floris was boarded onto a cattle car. At Krems, in Austria,
the train was forced to stop because the track had been bombed.
At that late point in the war, much of the infrastructure in Nazi-controlled
Europe was in tatters. The transfer of prisoners often required
train travel, interspersed with marching to a place where the tracks
were intact.
Parallel to the railway tracks at Krems was a main east-west road,
which was crowded with refugees on foot, travelling from one part
of Europe to another as borders and occupying forces changed. Incredibly,
Floris was able to escape his Nazi guards and join the legions on
foot. Through a series of ingenious disguises and creative frauds,
he managed to make his way back to Budapest. One might think the
end of the war would have facilitated this return home, but the
fact that the Soviets were occupying Hungary made his return almost
impossible.
When he did arrive home just after the end of the war, he found
his mother and his beloved Eva had both survived.
Freed of Nazism, they now found themselves under the yoke of communism
which, as several incidents in the book brilliantly illuminate,
was hardly more sympathetic to Jewish citizens. The Florises managed
to make their way to Austria and got good jobs working for the American
Joint Distribution Committee – "The Joint" –
which was the primary North American agency helping Jewish survivors
in Europe.
Yet, like so many survivors, the couple wanted to escape the memories
of Europe and find a new life elsewhere. Eventually, they were admitted
to Canada and landed in Winnipeg. Astonished by the climate, but
astutely attuned to gossip, the Florises made a rash decision to
head for the West Coast on what appears to be a whim.
"One day, my wife told me of a conversation she overheard between
a hairdresser and a customer at the beauty parlor," Floris
writes. " 'I listed my house for sale a year ago because we
want to move to B.C. and not a bite yet!' said the customer. 'What
do you think,' replied the hairdresser, 'if I could sell this crummy
business wouldn't I be in Vancouver in an instant!' This conversation
convinced us that the right thing to do would be to leave Winnipeg
right way, before we acquired any worldly goods, business commitments
or real estate that we probably would not be able to unload in a
hurry. From then on we saved all our money for two bus tickets to
Vancouver."
The couple's lives in Vancouver seem to have been fairly idyllic.
They managed the iconic Ferguson Point Tea House through its hey-days
in the 1950s and '60s, then entered the booming Vancouver real estate
market. They travelled, including trips back to Europe and the old
neighborhood – trips which were occasionally marred by encounters
with still-vibrant anti-Semitism in eastern Europe.
The Floris love affair ended tragically, in a horrific accident
in 2000 on Granville Island, when the car they were driving plunged
into False Creek. Rescue workers were able to pull Steve Floris
from the water, but his beloved Eva was lost.
The book, though, is a monumental tribute to their love and to their
part in the cataclysmic history and enormous potential of the 20th
century. It is also a cri de coeur by a Canadian who admires the
country that provided him with refuge after an early life of horror.
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