As you all know I was trying to get my medical degree in Italy and studied in Florence (1933/34), Bologna ( 1934/37) and Rome the next year which turned out to be my last because in autumn 1938 the Italian government snuggled up to the Nazis and promulgated racial laws which, among other provisions, eliminated Jewish students from Italian universities. There I was with one more year left to graduation and no place to go. There was distinct danger of expulsion from Italy--which actually decreed--but never enforced led to an irrational existence. The police of course knew that we were there - but ignored us as long as we did not make waves.[1] But it was sort of understood that we would make efforts to leave eventually - but where to? [2] After the outbreak of WWII in 1939 the atmosphere became somewhat more sticky - yet opportunities for departure shrank even more. In December 1939 a handful of acquaintances and I were fortunate enough to obtain visas for Portugal through the good offices of a friend, a Carmelite monk [3] who had connections in the Vatican foreign office (Cardinal Maglione- Segretario di Stato). Somehow the priests involved managed to persuade the Portuguese ambassador to issue visas to five of us. Simultaneously I was granted permission by the German Embassy to travel to Portugal. The German Ambassador, Von Hassel, was not a very faithful adherent of Hitler and actually paid with his life in July 1944 as participant in the famous Putsch of the Generals. By a strange coincidence, both entries in my passport were dated December 19, 1939 - my 25th birthday. The document is preserved among may diverse papers, - see page 13. The other travelers were a couple from Vienna and a single man, also Austrian and my good friend Dr. Alice Joseph from Berlin. I had met the three Viennese while doing some work for a refugee committee in Rome, named the Gildemeester committee, which attempted to settle Jewish refugees in Kenya. We planned to travel to Lisbon together - but how ? We had very little money, war raged in Europe and limited all means of transport. Somehow we managed to find accommodations on an Italian ship out of Trieste. But when we got to the port, the company refused us passage. In the meantime, my large trunk with most of my belongings had been loaded and stowed away on board. I could no longer redeem it and it proceeded to cross the ocean on its own. I don't know how many times it crossed before we were finally reunited in New York about five months later. Almost a miracle in wartime!
Being stranded in Trieste where we did not know anyone was a serious predicament. We had wasted precious resources on the trip, lost time and parted with some of our belongings. We made the rounds of shipping agents and talked with all sorts of persons in the port. I cannot remember precise details - but somehow we learned that Japanese freighters passed through Naples on their way from the Orient to England and that they might offer an escape route. The information seemed reliable enough to justify the trip by train to Naples where, sure enough, we ascertained that the "Hakone Maru, a Jap halffreighter, was scheduled for arrival from Singapore in early February with final destination Liverpool and intermediate stops at Marseilles, Gibraltar and Casablanca. The local agent sold us passage to Lisbon, the last port before England. We purchased three third class tickets for us men and two second class for the women who could not be accommodated in the lower category. On the appointed day we presented ourselves, were duly processed and embarked. But, lo and behold, a couple of hours later the ship's purser suddenly returned and informed us that we had to disembark. We could not be accepted as passengers since we were German nationals, presently at war with England and France whose ports the ship was going to touch and that we would undoubtedly be apprehended as enemy aliens, thus causing Japan to lose face. This really took the cake and, were it not for the seriousness of our position, we might have relished the irony of the purser's reasoning - after years of rejection by most countries as refugees we found ourselves suddenly in the position of trusted members of the Vaterland! We tried to reason with the guy and explain the situation. But he would not listen to any argument [4], became increasingly rabid and unpleasant shouting in three languages " Out! - Raus! -- Japanese ? " His face turned red, and his voice gained progressively in volume. Several passengers joined the fracas as spectators and expressed their opinion that we should be permitted to proceed. Many of them were English missionaries returning from the Orient because of the political situation and grasped the full meaning of the situation. They gave us support and encouraged our attempts at resistance. In the meantime we had prostrated ourselves on the deck and dared the Japanese to carry us ashore. Eventually the purser quit his ranting and shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of disgust. The missionaries shook hands with us, offered us even money and further good will. We established ourselves in our tight steerage quarters, the women in their slightly more comfortable cabin, and the ship set sail. [5] We three men soon got to know curry and rice which we were served three times daily. Occasionally the two women brought us some more appealing samples of their diet - but generally things were quite primitive. Our encounter with the "enemy" custom and passport officials in the three ports turned out to be quite pleasant. After some interrogation they appreciated our situation and let us proceed with the understanding that we could not go ashore. Only in Casablanca were we permitted to take a few steps on the dock by the ship. our charming Japanese friend was visibly relieved when his worst fears failed to materialize, But his day was still to come!
[1] I continued to sit in Rome--of course, without a work permit.
[2] I had applied for a United States immigrant visa--but that was in the distant future.
[3] Fr. Kastberger, the Carmelite monk, arranged for two visas ....
[4] Our attempts to explain to him the difference between Aryans and non-Aryans fell on deaf ears.
[5] ...lived for next ten or twelve days (I don't know how long we were on the way).
Notes:
From the book mentioning Dad (see Lisbon notes), I learned the name of the two Austrians: Herman Israel Furnberg, Walter Gottlieb. I found some references to Herman Furnberg, including this from a Jewish Telegraphic Agency article from February 28, 1940:
"Van Gildemeester has been in Rome for the past three months trying to sell a refugee colonization scheme for the Lake Tsana region in Ethiopia to the Italian Government. Despite an early statement by Van Gildemeester that his project had the support of the Italian Government, it now develops that the plan has met the vigorous disapproval of the authorities, who have already expelled his secretary, Herman Furnberg."
Dad says he didn't know what happened to Furnberg afterwards. The Leo Baeck Institute Archives state that: "Hermann Fuernberg immigrated to the US and continued to work on the Abessinia project, even after 1945." For book on Gildemeester Committee, see https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib105903
I also have no knowledge of what work Dad did for the Gildemeester Committee (the "International Committee to Aid Jewish Emigres"), which appears to have also have had Nazi connections at a time when German was still trying to force emigration rather than concentration camps.