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Jan. 14th, 2003 05:44 pmI found out last night that Roy Kraty had died. I don't expect anyone to know the name. I have two pictures by him in my living/dining room area. He was my father's boss in the late 1960s in London, and the few times I met him he struck me as a good man of good humor. He was in his 90s, too, so I can't say that he was taken too soon.
But I can honestly say that he contributed deeply to my life. He and his wife, Dorothy, who died nearly ten years ago, were among the people who taught me about war and deprivation and strength.
One of the odd fringe benefits of spending my late teens in Belgium was getting to talk to older people about World War II (some even remembered WWI). The perspective is so different for Europeans than it is for us.
The Baroness who lived downstairs told us a little bit about their experiences. Her husband had been the Belgian ambassador to Germany when Hitler invaded and spent most of the war in a prison camp. Because he'd been so outspoken, her life and those of her children were in danger. So she walked from Brussels to Madrid with nine children in tow. My mother was shocked. She thought class would be a protection from privation.
I also remember translating a conversation between our concierge and her husband and my parents. Mom had asked about rationing during the war. The list seemed endless -- most types of cloth, so many types of food, coffee and tea being nearly impossible to find, make-up (the component chemicals could be used in the war machine for other things), yet my mother noticed something missing. In the US shoes were rationed. They laughed. Shoes had never been rationed in Belgium and they were dumbfounded that America -- the land of plenty -- had felt the need to do it.
No matter how long their list seemed though, it was nothing compared to the British rationing. Roy Kraty was in the military (I believe army, but won't swear to it); Dorothy was alone with a small child. And one night, as we were on our way to Belgium, we listened to them talk about the war.
In some ways Dorothy's story was the more interesting. Little things were brought up, like how she taught their daughter to hide under the dining table when the air-raid sirens sounded, or the fact that her daughter didn't know what butter tasted like when they went to the country. The long days and longer nights during the battle of Britain were etched with words.
Roy spoke of the chaps with him who lost family on the home front and the fear that pervaded the troops that they might be the ones to survive while their families died from the bombings.
For the first time, I really grasped what Churchill had done. Both of them talked about him. He was a topic of many of their letters. Churchill instilled a hope that carried the British through until the Americans came.
And the coming of the Americans, for both the British and the Belgians was a miraculous thing. Not quite the miracle it had been in World War I, where diarists talk about the shock they felt at seeing healthy men, but a miracle nonetheless.
Mr. Kraty's death is reminding me of so many people and so many stories -- like Mrs. Weatherhead, who'd been born in Vienna and came to Britain in 1934 and worked with refugees during the war. She had to check in with the police monthly because her links to Austria made her prime spy material. Most of the stories she told me were from before the war.
My favorite was her high school graduation gift from her parents. It was a trip to Paris with her best friend (and her family -- properly brought up young ladies had to be chaperoned); she laughed about seeing Maurice Chevalier live and being shocked at the song he did. (For those who are interested, the verse was about the long taxi ride that he and a young lady had taken to get her home from a date. The chorus was his returning a little something that she'd accidentally left behind. The shock, from the two properly brought up Viennese young ladies, was the fact that the item to be returned was her panties.)
Her husband told me about working in photographic intelligence in North Africa during the battles against Rommel.
In some ways the most poignant was Herr Friess. He'd left Germany in the early 30s. During a brief visit to his parents, a law was passed that any man who'd been born in Germany was still German and still required to serve the Fatherland. It took him six months and many bribes to find his way to Holland and a ship that would return him to the US. When war came, he was a major in the US army. Now, in his old age, he was once again living in Germany. He couldn't talk to his peers about the war; they'd been on different sides. I was lucky. He talked to me.
Mr. Kraty spent most of the years after his retirement as a painter. Our family owns two of his works, and I'm the one who has them on display. The older of the two is an oil painting of Waterloo bridge. One of the spectacular sunsets that London used to get before the clean air laws did their job illuminates the sky. Every time he saw it, he asked us to burn it. He was ashamed of the riot of color he'd used during his earliest period. Ours is the only piece from that era that he wasn't able to destroy. The other is a watercolor of the Cenotaph. It's beautiful and timeless. He did so few watercolors. I feel blessed to have this one.
nota bene:
For anyone who's interested in seeing World War II through other eyes, let me recommend two books by H.V. Morton. Both Atlantic Meeting and I Saw Two Englands were written during the war. It's important to remember that he didn't know how it would end.
Atlantic Meeting is about the secret trip Churchill made to meet Roosevelt to negotiate Lend-Lease. Roosevelt presented every man aboard the British ship with a small package that included an orange and a banana. It had been nearly a year since any of them had seen fresh fruit.
I Saw Two Englands has vivid descriptions of a peacetime nation getting ready for war.
RIP -- Roy Kraty
But I can honestly say that he contributed deeply to my life. He and his wife, Dorothy, who died nearly ten years ago, were among the people who taught me about war and deprivation and strength.
One of the odd fringe benefits of spending my late teens in Belgium was getting to talk to older people about World War II (some even remembered WWI). The perspective is so different for Europeans than it is for us.
The Baroness who lived downstairs told us a little bit about their experiences. Her husband had been the Belgian ambassador to Germany when Hitler invaded and spent most of the war in a prison camp. Because he'd been so outspoken, her life and those of her children were in danger. So she walked from Brussels to Madrid with nine children in tow. My mother was shocked. She thought class would be a protection from privation.
I also remember translating a conversation between our concierge and her husband and my parents. Mom had asked about rationing during the war. The list seemed endless -- most types of cloth, so many types of food, coffee and tea being nearly impossible to find, make-up (the component chemicals could be used in the war machine for other things), yet my mother noticed something missing. In the US shoes were rationed. They laughed. Shoes had never been rationed in Belgium and they were dumbfounded that America -- the land of plenty -- had felt the need to do it.
No matter how long their list seemed though, it was nothing compared to the British rationing. Roy Kraty was in the military (I believe army, but won't swear to it); Dorothy was alone with a small child. And one night, as we were on our way to Belgium, we listened to them talk about the war.
In some ways Dorothy's story was the more interesting. Little things were brought up, like how she taught their daughter to hide under the dining table when the air-raid sirens sounded, or the fact that her daughter didn't know what butter tasted like when they went to the country. The long days and longer nights during the battle of Britain were etched with words.
Roy spoke of the chaps with him who lost family on the home front and the fear that pervaded the troops that they might be the ones to survive while their families died from the bombings.
For the first time, I really grasped what Churchill had done. Both of them talked about him. He was a topic of many of their letters. Churchill instilled a hope that carried the British through until the Americans came.
And the coming of the Americans, for both the British and the Belgians was a miraculous thing. Not quite the miracle it had been in World War I, where diarists talk about the shock they felt at seeing healthy men, but a miracle nonetheless.
Mr. Kraty's death is reminding me of so many people and so many stories -- like Mrs. Weatherhead, who'd been born in Vienna and came to Britain in 1934 and worked with refugees during the war. She had to check in with the police monthly because her links to Austria made her prime spy material. Most of the stories she told me were from before the war.
My favorite was her high school graduation gift from her parents. It was a trip to Paris with her best friend (and her family -- properly brought up young ladies had to be chaperoned); she laughed about seeing Maurice Chevalier live and being shocked at the song he did. (For those who are interested, the verse was about the long taxi ride that he and a young lady had taken to get her home from a date. The chorus was his returning a little something that she'd accidentally left behind. The shock, from the two properly brought up Viennese young ladies, was the fact that the item to be returned was her panties.)
Her husband told me about working in photographic intelligence in North Africa during the battles against Rommel.
In some ways the most poignant was Herr Friess. He'd left Germany in the early 30s. During a brief visit to his parents, a law was passed that any man who'd been born in Germany was still German and still required to serve the Fatherland. It took him six months and many bribes to find his way to Holland and a ship that would return him to the US. When war came, he was a major in the US army. Now, in his old age, he was once again living in Germany. He couldn't talk to his peers about the war; they'd been on different sides. I was lucky. He talked to me.
Mr. Kraty spent most of the years after his retirement as a painter. Our family owns two of his works, and I'm the one who has them on display. The older of the two is an oil painting of Waterloo bridge. One of the spectacular sunsets that London used to get before the clean air laws did their job illuminates the sky. Every time he saw it, he asked us to burn it. He was ashamed of the riot of color he'd used during his earliest period. Ours is the only piece from that era that he wasn't able to destroy. The other is a watercolor of the Cenotaph. It's beautiful and timeless. He did so few watercolors. I feel blessed to have this one.
nota bene:
For anyone who's interested in seeing World War II through other eyes, let me recommend two books by H.V. Morton. Both Atlantic Meeting and I Saw Two Englands were written during the war. It's important to remember that he didn't know how it would end.
Atlantic Meeting is about the secret trip Churchill made to meet Roosevelt to negotiate Lend-Lease. Roosevelt presented every man aboard the British ship with a small package that included an orange and a banana. It had been nearly a year since any of them had seen fresh fruit.
I Saw Two Englands has vivid descriptions of a peacetime nation getting ready for war.
RIP -- Roy Kraty
