Jac Olten: A magical escape and a chance encounter
An incredible true story of how the brotherhood of magic saved a life in the midst of world war...
Jac Olten died in c.1995, aged 82.
Related article: 'Exit stage right...and quickly! Allied magicians rush to escape Germany as war is declared', about the exodus of foreign magicians Eastern Europe as World War Two started. Blog link.
Magician Jac Olten (1913-c.1995) was born as Alfred Mihiel in Marseilles, France. Performing as a faux 'Count,' he developed a silent cabaret act which featured manipulation and other magic. Wearing white gloves, he worked with billiard balls, cards, silks and cigarettes in an act styled on those performed by Cardini and Jose Frakson. By his twenties, Olten had turned professional. He toured throughout Europe, achieving success, particularly in Germany. Alongside magic, he was a professional gambler.
Jac Olten (Alfred Mihiel)
(Source: Author's collection)
Near the start of the war, Olten was performing in Weimar in central Germany. Unlike other foreign performers who had left Germany as war-clouds loomed, Olten chose to stay - gambling that war would be averted - or else he didn't leave fast enough after the war started. It was the wrong bet. One evening, during the middle of his act, Olten was dragged from the stage, beaten, held in a cell and denied food for three days.
Most likely the Nazis arrested Olten because he was an 'enemy alien.' But, they may have thought he was a Jew (evidence suggests he wasn't), a homosexual, or some other Untermenschen (sub-humans: Nazi term).
Jac Olten ended up in a Stalag (German abbreviated term for a prisoner-of-war camp) in Military District XIII. He was probably held in Stalag XIII-D Nuremberg-Langwasser, built on what had been the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg in northern Bavaria. Started in September 1939, Stalag XIII-D was an internment camp for enemy civilians. It later became one of Germany's largest P.O.W. camps.
Like many internees and P.O.W.s, Olten did not stay in the main camp for the duration. Instead, he was shipped out to a work party and housed in an Arbeitskommando (German term: labour camp). Given a brush, he was ordered to sweep the streets of nearby towns and cities for months on end.
Stalag XIII-D
(Source: www.b24.net)
Fast forward to the other end of the war, another magician enters the story. This was Alton 'Al' Sharpe. An American, Sharpe was contracted to join famous comedian and movie star Mickey Rooney in a touring show to entertain U.S. forces personnel. After the Allies had cleared their way from Normandy to Paris in August 1944, the U.S.O. show crossed the English Channel and headed for France's capital. After performances there, the show followed U.S. troops as they pushed north towards Germany.
Mickey Rooney (left) and Al Sharpe (right)
(Source: Magicol - A Journal of the Magic Collectors' Association)
With the war continuing, the show's cast and tech team would often stay in the homes of civilians in the resistance network, who could provide for their safety. Sharpe recalled a night in the home of an 'undergrounder,' in The Netherlands. The head of the family kept him in conversation until everyone else had gone to bed.
"Then, speaking softly, this fellow explained that he wanted to show me a secret room where he kept hidden his shortwave radio. He took me upstairs and opened a hidden panel of wall which led into the room. I had no idea what I was walking into, but I followed unquestionably. The room was dark when we entered. He motioned that I should wait, then beckoned to someone else to join us. Looking tired, near-starved and frail, this second man, nevertheless, stood straight, Teutonic, proud. He was about five-nine, with a heavy frame, rib bones outlines under his grey knit shirt. His pants [trousers], much too large, were held up by a rope, and frayed straps barely kept the worn sandals on his feet. He could have been an artist's model of a refugee. I learned that he had outlasted many bouts of near starvation, each time being rescued by the underground. With great effort and many tears, he told me his story."
The hidden man was Jac Olten.
"[While a prisoner in Germany] Olten remembered that Helmut Schreiber had become the head of all entertainers in Germany. Although knowing that hundreds had been purged by orders of Schreiber, Olten decided to try to contact him. The S.S. guards kept a close watch on Olten and he knew he had to be very careful in his attempt to contact Schreiber. While on his knees sweeping, he would 'steal' cigarette butts and remove and hide the small pieces of paper wrapped around the tobacco. Finally, he'd had enough to write a note to beg Schrieber's help and make an envelope for it. During the many days it took him to do this, he worried that he would be caught and executed. At last he found the courage and opportunity to drop the homemade letter into a postal box.
Helmut Schreiber was president of the Magischer Zirkel von Deutschland (The Magic Circle of Germany) in the years leading up to and during World War Two. He was closely associated with the Nazi regime and even performed for Adolf Hitler and other senior Nazis.
Helmut Schreiber (aka Kalanag) (standing, right) performing magic for Adolf Hitler (seated, left)
(Source: Unknown)
Military units normally guarded internment and P.O.W. camps in Germany, not the S.S. (as recalled by Sharpe) which was the Nazi regime's internal security force. And, European P.O.W. camps typically had access to writing materials and were allowed to write letters home, under the auspices of the Red Cross system. This supports a view that Olten may have been held in a concentration camp, rather than an internment camp for 'enemy aliens'. In any case, he pinned his only chance of survival, on help from Schreiber.
"A fortnight later an official open sedan with three S.S. officers came by and picked him up. He had no idea where they were taking him, to an execution perhaps. He was surprised when they drove all afternoon and into the early evening, then stopped for the night in a provincial country house. He was treated to a meal and a room for the night. Early the next morning they drove on to Berlin. He was now feeling the effect of his audacity in writing the letter and just knew the worst was going to happen.
"He was taken to meet with Schrieber, who explained that he was releasing Olten, but that he had to promise to remain in Germany as a performer for Hitler's troops and not to speak to anyone concerning his release."
On 13 November 1940, after over a year in captivity, Jac Olten was free from the camp. But, he was not free from Nazi Germany. With little money and without travel documents, Olten was forced to entertain the Nazis while the war went on. Schreiber obtained magic props and bookings for him.
Little is known about Olten's time in Germany under Schreiber's control. Eventually though, probably in mid-1944, Olten made his escape. He hid in Germany for a while before crossing the border illegally into The Netherlands. There he got in touch with the Dutch resistance movement. They moved him from safe house to safe house, as he tried to make his way back to France. In September 1944, Olten was in Maastricht in The Netherlands, as Allied forces arrived to liberate the city.
"He had finally made it to the 'underground' house where I was now staying and had informed the owner of the house that he was a magician. The amazed owner explained that there was an American magician in the house and 'would you like to met him?'.
Sharpe helped Olten out with a little money and food, until the U.S.O. tour moved on. But with Maastricht liberated Olten was now properly a free man. He travelled back to his home country of France and settled initially in Paris. When the war ended a year later, Al Sharpe stayed in Europe and the pair met up again.
Promotional shots of Jac Olten performing Horace Goldin's sympathetic silks
(Source: Unknown)
Post-war, Olten resumed his magic career. He based himself in Nice, France, where he married a lawyer and had two children.
Over time, Olten incorporated speech into his act and larger props, such as the Zombie floating ball and vanishing lamp. He became a strong performer of 'box' magic and was known among magicians for his silk tricks. He also worked a marionette act.
In the 1940s, Olten often worked in circus shows. By the 1950s he was mostly performing in cabarets in hotels and nightclubs. Magician Jerry Lukins saw Olten's act in Nice in 1956:
"I was so impressed I came back the second night to see his two shows again. He worked beautifully with silks - sympathetic silks, cigarettes, very novel card effects and in one show he works with puppets. They were stunningly beautiful and were all made by him."
"Everything was extraordinary neat and elegant," said another magician who saw Olten perform in 1958.
Promotional material for Jac Olten
(Source: 'European Jewish Magicians 1933-1945', by Hannes Höller)
Olten even returned to Germany and on at least one occasion shared a billing with Schreiber, who performed internationally as Kalanag. When Schreiber was accused of collaboration with the enemy, Olten wrote to confirm that Schreiber helped him escape captivity and probably saved his life doing so.
Jac Olten on the front cover of The Gen, September 1959
(Source: The Gen)
Olten tuned into the growing public interest in psychic research and developed several mentalism routines. These were scientifically challenged in March 1960, when he was tested - on air - on Radio Bremen:
"Introduced as a French count, Olten supposedly had as teachers ‘African magicians and an Indian guru’. When asked to guess the question prepared for him by the radio crew – who wanted to learn more about the future prospects of a monorail traffic project – he employed ‘magic operations’ of geomancy – ‘an ancient method of oracle and divination’ – and came up with a satisfying response. Hans Bender, Germany’s first and only professor of parapsychology, explained the result to the listeners in the framework of telepathy and suggested the possibility that Olten’s geomantic procedure ‘was 'magically' directed by telepathic information.’"
On this occasion, magic tricks presented as psychic skills befuddled the scientists.
Olten also appeared on B.B.C. Television, featuring in David Nixon's It's Magic programme.
Radio Times listing for 7 November 1958 featuring Jac Olten
(Source: B.B.C.)
In the 1960s, Olten worked as a cruise ship magician on the Holland America Line until 1966, when he emigrated to the U.S.A. Once settled in his new country, he worked as a performer for an America hotel chain.
Another post-war promotional shot of Jac Olten
(Source: Author's collection)
With special thanks to 'Magicol - A Journal of the Magic Collectors' Association' for sharing a biographical article by Al Sharpe (Magical, No. 151, May 2004) which included the story of Sharpe's encounter with Olten during the war.
The popular post-war T.V. series, 'Hogan's Heroes' was set in a fictional Stalag XIII (or Stalag 13). The 168-episode show featured a character called Corporal Peter Newkirk, who was the group's conman, magician, pick-pocket, card sharp, and safe cracker, along with other miscellaneous skills.
Related article: Louis Van Dyck joins the Belgium resistance, a blog about Louis Van Dyck who tried to free his country by joining the armed resistance group the White Brigade. Blog link.
Related article: 'Hungarian magician, Dr. Laszlo Rothbart survives Nazi concentration camp'. Blog link.
Research supported by The Good Magic Award 2021 from The Good Thinking Society
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