(continued from last week)
The isolationist-leaning US State Department had given instructions to all US consulates in the world to slow down the issuance of visas in order to reduce overall immigration. As a consequence, the number of visas being issued was far less than the permitted quota.
After the invasion and occupation of France in May 1940, the only other way out of Germany, for those who had a visa, was by a train, which the Germans allowed to go through Vichy, France, into Spain once a month, from where Jewish relief organizations would redirect the refugees to their final destinations. The only problem was that the train was already booked for the next six months.
Everybody had a pretty good idea that in six months there probably would be no Jews left in Frankfurt, that all would be in concentration camps by then. This assumption eventually turned out to be pretty correct, since the last known transport from Frankfurt to the east was in late 1941. How could we assume that? Starting in October 1938, a total of about 17,000 Jews of Polish origin living in Germany had been shipped out to the Polish border and dumped there.
As I said earlier, all Jewish families had to report to the Gestapo (Geheime Staats Polizei—Secret State Police) every week, enabling them to always know where everyone was living, thereby making it is easier to find you when the time came for deportation.
One week, in late 1940, when Oma was reporting to the Gestapo, the officer she had to see told her that, if she had any money left, she could “purchase” airplane tickets through him to fly out of Germany.
Realizing the danger involved in any reply she might give, Oma thanked the officer without giving a reply and returned home. Our family and relatives (by that time we were already four families, all relatives, living in one apartment) discussed the pros and cons of doing what the officer had proposed.
If it was a trap, we, or at least Oma, would be jailed for trying to bribe a German Police officer and be sent to the concentration camp immediately. If, on the other hand, it was not a trap, it could be the only remaining way for us to get out of Germany. Everyone realized that if we did not leave now, sooner rather than later, we would all end up in a concentration camp anyhow. We really had little to lose, but everything to gain, by giving the officer the money.
The following week, we said goodbye to Oma, since there was the possibility that we would never see her again. Oma took the money, went to the Gestapo, and gave the officer the money. He only said that he would have the tickets for her by the next week. Oma left the officer expecting, now that he had her money, that she would be arrested as she went out. But nothing happened and to our joy, she returned home to the family.
Oma came home the following week with Lufthansa tickets for the three of us, to fly out of München (Munich) in mid-January, 1941.
While all this was going on, we had finally been summoned to the US Consulate in Stuttgart and had received our US visa on November 22, 1940.
It is interesting to note that the US visa refers to a “Quota number 11132.” Whether this is the same quota system for which Opa supposedly had number 16000 or so, I do not know. It might be an explanation why surprisingly he was able to receive his US Visa in Holland years earlier than had been expected. On the other hand, 11132 is still not in the range of 8000 to 9000.
We packed our few suitcases, with whatever personal belongings we were allowed to take with us, and said goodbye to uncles, aunts and cousins, all of whom (except uncle Issy, who survived) we would never see again.
We took the train to München on January 6, 1941, only to find out that the airport was closed due to heavy snow. We stood on the train platform, not knowing which way to turn. We could not go back to Frankfurt, and as Jews we could not go to a hotel overnight. Also as Jews we could not go into a restaurant to get something to eat. Nor were we even allowed to go to a park and sit on a bench. It all was “Juden unerwuensched” (Jews not wanted).
As we stood there, a uniformed railroad employee came over to us and asked what our problem was. After an explanation (and there was always the possibility of his calling the police and having us arrested since we had no permission to stand there) that we were Jews and did not know where to go, he told us that all planes that were supposed to leave from München were now leaving from Stuttgart instead. When Oma told the official that we had no more money to buy tickets to go to Stuttgart, he told us what platform the train was leaving from, and that we should just get on board and not ask any questions. How/why that was possible? We did not ask.
That is what we did and we got to the Stuttgart airport on January 7, 1941 without any further problems, although we were terribly hungry, thirsty and tired. We boarded a four-motored Lufthansa plane, finding three or four other Jewish families there, as well.
Most of the other passengers were uniformed officers of the various German military branches, as well as civilians who worked for the German spy network, whose headquarter was in Madrid.
Not knowing what would happen to us once the plane’s door closed, if we (as expressed to Oma by another passenger), the Jewish families, could have found a hole in the ground into which to crawl, that is what we would have liked to do. But the doors closed, nobody bothered us, nobody looked at us and nobody talked to us.
The first stop was Lyon, France, where food was brought onboard, since the Germans were not willing to put food on board a plane leaving Germany. But we could not eat the non-kosher cooked food, only ice-cold fruit, which made me very airsick. Next stop was Barcelona, Spain, where we arrived in a snowstorm on January 8. The American Jewish relief organization HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) picked us up at the airport, took us into town, brought us our first hot meal in days, and put us up in a hotel for the night.
The next morning, we were taken back to the airport, and on a two-motored Lufthansa plane flew to Madrid, which was supposed to be a “lunch” stop at the airport restaurant. Again, we could not eat anything except for boiled rice, which Oma considered to be safe enough to eat. Then back on the plane, we traveled to Lisbon, where Oma had distant relatives, who put us up for 10 days, until we could board a ship to New York.
By Norbert Strauss
(To be continued next week)
