Escape Hatch

How did they know it was time?

Where the Story Starts

It’s hardly a state secret that the Austrians weren’t very nice during WWII. Yes, there was a resistance movement, there’s always a resistance movement. But we all know what happened. The Nazis robbed and murdered millions of people. After the war, Austria quietly integrated stolen art into its museum collections and returned to their genteel …


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The Man with the Yellow Star

He was wearing a battered leather coat, the kind with pockets with flaps and a belt and wide lapels. Buttons, not zippers. It was brown. 1940s city, not 1950s biker. He had a Groucho Marx ‘stache, still dark, and Einstein hair reaching out in all directions like static. Maybe he was 60, maybe a well …


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Flea Market, Vienna

The guy behind the card table is turning a watch over in his hands. “It’s broken,” he says, to the guy that insists that it’s not, that it’s a good watch, that it’s just the watch band that needs replacement. “No,” says the guy behind the card table, this pin on the side needs fixing, …


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La Luna

There’s a certain way I look at the big mountain that marks the end of the valley when we’re driving the long side of it. If I can get the right perspective on it, I trick myself into thinking it’s the moon, hanging in space, just beyond the horizon. It’s too far to touch, but …


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