When the German military marched into deeply Catholic Austria on
March 12, 1938, Austrians overwhelmingly welcomed them. The two governments became one a day later in an action called Anschluss. Richard Kapella, a member of Austria’s Catholic majority, was born to landed gentry at the end of the 19th century. A physician and full colonel in the Austrian Army, Kapella commanded all the military hospitals in the Vienna District. On March 13, he found himself a colonel of the Third Reich.
My father’s cousin, Litzi Kobler, was a financially comfortable middle-class woman whose Jewish parents converted to Catholicism long before her 1916 birth. She attended exclusive Catholic schools, where she became a concert pianist and fluent in five languages. By 1938, she was also Colonel Kapella’s pretty young wife. Rosa, her widowed mother, lived with them.
Nov. 9–10, 1938, was “Kristallnacht,” a government-orchestrated event encouraging people to terrorize Jews while stealing and vandalizing their property. About 91 Jews died that night, and over 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Hundreds of them died within weeks from their brutal treatment. Some women, including Litzi and Rosa, were also arrested. The Nazis didn’t consider them Catholic and took them to the local police station. As the Colonel’s family, they were jailed but not brutalized, and their home was spared the worst damage.
When Kapella learned what was happening, he rushed home, donned his best uniform, pinned on every epaulet, decoration, and medal he could find, and filled his pockets with money and fine cigars. Then he went to the police station and came home with Litzi and Rosa in his custody. Within weeks they were in neutral Ireland with the few belongings they had salvaged. It seems a person does not always have to stand for the same things as their uniform.
Yaz Flores was 27 when she and Rafa came to the United States, using easy-to-get Border Crossing Cards. They’d come before, for vacations, family visits, shopping and occasional temporary work. But this time they didn’t go back. Yaz was pregnant, and they wanted their children to be U.S. citizens educated in U.S. schools. They’d been waiting 7 years to immigrate, but without employer sponsorship it could easily be another 15 before they were admitted.
Undocumented was not something Yaz and Rafa thought much about. Their families had followed work around the Southwest since Comanches were the dominant power. Their ancestors fought with and against Sam Houston. Meaningful border enforcement didn’t exist until after WWI, Social Security cards were first issued in 1936 and agricultural workers couldn’t get them until 1951. In 2003, being undocumented was an inconvenient, often necessary, and mostly unremarkable way of life for Yaz, Rafa and 10 million other ordinary people. The Flores drove across the border at San Diego and visited Disneyland on their way to Carbondale, Colo., where Yaz’s U.S.-born cousins lived.
Rafa died from a sudden heart attack in mid-2023, just before Donald Trump’s reelection. Yaz was suddenly widowed, with her oldest daughter starting Colorado Mountain College, another attending high school and a third daughter in the fourth grade. Thanks to extended family, her education, limited savings and her eldest’s part-time job, things were tight, but they weren’t destitute.
Litzi lived with growing fear for years, and after Anschluss, in pure terror. When Austria abandoned her altogether, she survived because a decent man with guts, a uniform and a few cigars risked his life and gave up his career to do the right thing. For two years now, Yaz has also endured growing fear, laced with moments of terror. It’s about being separated from her girls, held in a concentration camp and being deported.
Litzi had a Colonel’s uniform with a chest full of medals and pockets full of cigars to protect her. Yaz has monthly rent, three children and whatever mercy happens to be in the room if and when it happens. The neighbor she knew, a distant cousin, the stranger she heard about, was put on a plane to a place in Africa where he’d never been; it’s very real to Yaz. With no Colonel in sight, she’s hoping for the famously immigrant-friendly town of Carbondale to do the right thing, but it still belongs to SPEAR — Special Problems Enforcement and Response. So do U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and HSI (Homeland Security Investigations).
Police Chief Kirk Wilson assured Carbondale’s Board of Trustees (BOT) that federal agencies are not illegally getting information from local law enforcement, but what about legally, via SPEAR? Police chiefs in Carbondale and Glenwood Springs told elected officials that their agencies will not share personal information with SPEAR, but outside advocates remained unconvinced. Glenwood Springs, after advice from their City Attorney, withdrew from SPEAR. Carbondale’s BOT is set to have a public heart-to-heart with Chief Wilson on Aug. 25. Yaz is waiting and hoping. If there’s an afterlife, so is Litzi.
The Austrian anecdote is true to memory. Contemporary characters and events are based on real people with some names and details changed to protect the innocent. Mature Content is a monthly feature from Age-Friendly Carbondale.