Magic at War

This two-part blog is published on the first anniversary of Werner Reich’s death (8 Jul 22). An amateur magician, he discovered magic during a chance encounter with a professional magician in the Auschwitz concentration camp. In this remarkable story, we learn how Reich survived the Holocaust and developed a lifelong interest in magic... Werner Reich (c1941) (Source: Werner Reich) Early years and arrest   Werner Reich was a German Jew. Born on 1 October 1927, he grew up in a suburb of Berlin. In 1933, when Werner was six-years-old, Adolf Hitler came to power. Regulations restricting Jewish freedoms followed, including the infamous Nuremberg Laws. Persecution led to Werner’s father losing his job, so the family emigrated to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in southeast Europe. The family settled in Zagreb and Werner spent his early school years there, free from anti-Semitism.  Werner Reich and his sister in Yugoslavia (c1934) (Source: Werner Reich) As World War Two took hold from...

During World War Two, Lionel King (real name Lionel Klimsch) was one of hundreds of magicians employed by national governments to entertain sailors, soldiers and airmen.   When the war started, not all men and women were required to join the armed forces. Some were too young or too old, in reserved occupations, or failed the medical standards. King was too old to be conscripted. Instead, he served in a different capacity, as an entertainer-in-uniform. Lionel King - The King of Magic (c1945) (Source:  ‘Card   Tricks Without Skill, ’  edited by Paul Clive) Born just before the start of the Twentieth Century, Lionel King was an established act in the British music halls by the onset of World War Two. A professional magician he was a long standing member of The Magic Circle. Billing himself as ‘The King of Cards,’ or ‘Joker-Ace High,’ he earned a living with an act which used just a pack of playing cards and his personality to entertain the audience. His act was the epit...