Safe Passage

by Mary Burchell

  We were stunned. And intrigued beyond measure. All those years ago, we’d been heroines, without the pain of knowing it!

  Walter went on. “Don’t you remember how careful I was about meeting you?”

  “I do remember, we thought you were fussy,” I recalled. “And you wouldn’t give us an address, would you?”

  “I couldn’t give you an address,” he assured us. “I changed it every few weeks. I changed my whole identity six times during those years. Don’t you remember how we arranged to meet?”

  With an effort, we did. We were to meet him in a crowded railway station in Berlin—I think it was the Anhalter—and we were to recognize him because he carried under his left arm an English newspaper. But what we did not know was that suddenly, that day, English newspapers were forbidden throughout Germany and he couldn’t get one. So he bought a Dutch one and walked about with that under his left arm. But the Cooks didn’t jump to that. We thought he hadn’t come, and very worried, we went back to our hotel.

  The awkward thing was that we had long ago discovered that if you were doing the sort of thing we were doing, much the best places to stay were the big luxury hotels where the Nazi chiefs stayed. Then if you stood and gazed at them admiringly as they went through the lobby, no one thought you were anything but another couple of admiring fools. That was why we knew them all by sight. We knew them all, Louise and I. Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Streicher, Ribbentrop—who once gave Louise what we used to call “the glad eye” across the breakfast room at the Vierjahszeiten in Munich. We even knew Hitler from the back—because we all stayed in the same hotels. And there we were in the Adlon—where I suppose Hitler was probably having lunch.

  We retired to our room in gloomy doubt. But finally Walter dared to telephone—though of course the phones were often tapped—and he said, “I’m going to get into a taxi and drive round a certain block”—he described the block—“until you stand on a certain corner. And I will pick you up.”

  It all seemed unnecessarily melodramatic to us at the time. After all, we’re not a bit the James Bond type. We come from a very respectable civil-service family. But when Walter explained the background to us, we saw why it all had to be that way. Only, we were thankful we had not known at the time. It’s amusing in retrospect—with everyone safe.

  I suppose the narrowest margin of escape in any of our cases occurred with a young Polish boy, the last of these stories I will tell. In October, 1938—before the big November drive against the Jews—the order had suddenly gone forth that all Polish Jews were to be expelled from Germany. Some were given twenty-four hours, some were given two hours, and some a quarter of an hour, depending on the merciful, or otherwise, disposition of the local official concerned.

  Curiously enough, I myself saw the departure of the Frankfurt contingent without knowing at the time what was happening. I saw a crowd of people being hustled like animals along the platform and, turning to my porter, managed to ask, in my inadequate German, “What on earth is happening over there?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, explained indifferently, “Only Jews,” and trotted on ahead with my luggage.

  Much later, I remember mentioning that incident to a friend of ours, and she exclaimed, “Oh, but, my dear, you didn’t see the end of their journey! I did. I was in a village near the Polish border, and the rumour went around that the Polish Jews were coming. For four days and nights, from all over Germany, trainloads of those unfortunate people were coming. Some were still in their nightclothes—they had simply been hauled from their beds—and some of the old people and children had been shot in the back because they hadn’t moved fast enough.”

  From all over Germany, they had been coming in their helpless, horrible misery. It was peacetime. People were going to the theatre, to the shops, on holidays, pursuing their normal lives, and that terrible procession threaded its way through their midst.

  I will not say that there was no protest, because I simply do not know. I will only say that I never heard of any protest being made on that occasion.

  And there they were, gathered together on the border. The Germans tried to thrust them out, and the Poles would not let them in. In justice, one must say that there was something to be said for the Polish attitude. Every country was having to refuse hordes of unidentified and unidentifiable refugees. In addition, many of these people were only technically Polish and could hardly speak a word of the language. There was obviously a war coming, and there were no means of checking the bona fides of this hastily assembled multitude.

  They were thrust into the improvised prison camp of Zbasyn. Great racing stables had once existed there, and where one horse had been, eight people were given space. And there they stayed all the winter.

  Some of the older people died, of course, but an astonishing number survived. In the spring, we received a letter from a boy there. To this day I don’t know how he got hold of our name and address, but news travelled quickly and by strange paths when there was any hope of safety involved.

  He wrote that he hardly knew why he was addressing us; he had no more claim than thousands of other people around him, but had heard that we were trying to help. His quota number for the United States meant about a three-year wait. It was foolish, he felt, even to ask—but could we do anything to save him and keep him alive during the intervening years?

  I wrote back as sympathetically as I could, hoping to give him the courage to go on. I told him quite frankly that we had several cases already waiting for the next guarantee we could raise. But I promised to put him on our list and not let his case out of mind until time and opportunity served us better.

  He replied that he could live for several months more on that alone.

  Just about that time, I was asked to speak to a church congregation. The church members were proposing to adopt a refugee child among them. They needed both sympathy and a sense of urgency aroused in the congregation. I went very willingly, but was somewhat disconcerted to find that I had to address my audience from the pulpit. However, by now I was not easily put off. Money was running out fast, and my tongue—which had never served me badly!—was my best remaining asset. I said what had come to be known disrespectfully in the family as “Ida’s little piece” and went away again, hoping that I had done some good.

  Three weeks later, I received a telephone call from the clergyman of the church. Had I, he wanted to know, a case that required a guarantee and about three years’ hospitality? Some other congregation had taken their refugee child; now they had lots of sympathy and no refugee. He left the choice to me, but suggested that, as they certainly had enough money and hospitality to cover three years, the chance should go to someone who needed the full amount.

  It was such a chance—such an unexpected offer out of nowhere—that I felt it should go to our poor Polish boy, who did just exactly what was being offered. But first he had to get his papers in order. These were, as will be imagined, many and complicated. Indeed, some people died because they sent the wrong papers, and no one had time to straighten out the case and send them detailed instructions.

  Back came all the completed papers, accompanied by one of the most heartfelt letters of incredulous joy I have ever received. And, nearly as pleased myself, I rushed off to Bloomsbury House where the next stage of proceedings would have to be undergone.

  I interviewed the girl who usually dealt with my cases, and she congratulated me wholeheartedly on the sudden stroke of good fortune. Then she took one look at the papers and exclaimed, “Oh, my dear, how terrible! We have just had an order today that we must not accept anyone with a higher quota number than 16,000. He is 16,500 and—”

  We stared at each other in dismay.

  “I can’t write back and tell him that,” I pleaded. “I can’t. He’s nearly mad with joy at the thought of release. Think of something! You must think of something to get us out of this.”

  She was a most resourceful girl. After several moments’ thought, she handed me back one o
f the papers and said, “Go home and take this with you. I will write an official letter, dated three days ago, asking for the missing paper, and the case will date from the time of the first letter in the file. That will qualify it before the new rule came into operation.”

  And on such details people’s lives hung.

  I did as she suggested, and the case began to take the accustomed course. There were the usual delays and hold-ups that one could not always foresee, and it was August before the coveted British visa was granted.

  By that time, Louise and I were in Germany on the last visit we were to make there before war broke out. I received verbal information, via a network of mutual friends, that the visa had been granted, but that the boy was in further difficulty because every boat out of Poland was fully booked up to the end of the year. Most people knew that a war was coming now, and every available escape route was jammed. He could not, of course, travel by train through Germany. But there was just one chance left. It might be possible for him to get passage as one of the people in charge of a children’s transport, if I could send him money for his fare.

  From Germany, this was impossible, of course. But we sent word that, if he could let us know in England what he needed, we would send it.

  Louise and I reached home less than a fortnight before war broke out. By the time we knew what money was necessary, the few days left were cruelly short. I telegraphed the amount. Almost at the same time, the Germans marched over the Polish frontier.

  I telephoned the shipping office concerned to ask if the boat had left in time. They had no news then, but told me the next day that the boat had got away, although no one knew who was on board. They suggested I had better come down to the London Docks when it came in, and see for myself.

  On one of those cloudless, brilliant afternoons when all of us knew at last that war was upon us, I waited anxiously at the harbour. I shall never forget the arrival of that boat, the last children’s transport from Poland. There were 200 children ranging from four-year-olds to youths of about fifteen and sixteen. Every one of them had had to leave his or her parents behind. All the parents were later murdered, I suppose.

  I see them now, in melancholy recollection, coming slowly down the gangway, carrying their little bundles and gazing around on a strange world. None of them spoke English. None of them had a hope in the world, except to live, instead of being killed. I had nothing but a passport photograph by which to identify my Polish boy. But, when he finally came off, he was unmistakable.

  He told me that, at the last minute, there was some final hitch in connection with his Polish papers, and he had had to wait, sweating with anxiety, while the matter was argued out afresh. Then, at the very last possible moment, he was allowed to go, and he rushed on board almost as they were removing the gangway. The last man to board the last boat that left Gydnia. Then civilian shipping had ceased, and the war had begun.

  He was also the last of our successful cases. I remember very vividly all the people we interviewed on our own last journey to the continent. In every instance, we were too late to do anything. Perhaps that is why one remembers them so well.

  For many heart-rending years, we both used to recall a particular family. The father was a Jew and the mother was an Aryan. He had been rounded up with all the others the previous November and sent to Dachau. Although he had gone in as a fine, strapping man in the prime of life, he was discharged to hospital six months later, half dead from heart trouble brought on by being forced to carry weights beyond any human capacity. In addition, he had lost a foot from frostbite.

  Like all Aryan women married to Jewish husbands, the wife had been advised to divorce her husband. Her refusal to do so meant she could not officially be employed. She scraped along as best she could, doing cleaning for the few kindly or courageous people who dared to employ her. In this precarious way, she tried to support her three boys and one little girl.

  Someone who had known the family well in better days told us that they had been the happiest family imaginable. They never had a great deal of money, but enough. They had always said they would not part with any one of their children for a million marks.

  When we came into the case, we were simply asked to see the woman, hear her story and find out what could be done, if anything. We asked her to come and meet us at the apartment of some Jewish friends of ours. She came in, clutching her little girl by the hand. She said no word of greeting. She simply broke into desperate, economical speech.

  “I can’t part with my little girl,” she said almost fiercely. “She is too young. But my little boys you may take, for they are absolutely starving.”

  We spoke to her as gently as possible and asked her to sit down and tell us something of the circumstances. We really knew most of the sad story already, but she went over it again, while Louise and I considered what we could do.

  At the end, I told her quite frankly it was unlikely that we should be able to get the children together in one home, but I promised to try to get all the boys in one village or town. I was already turning over in my mind the possibility of interesting one of the Northumbrian villages near our own old home.

  “When your husband is better,” I continued—though I’m afraid I really meant when he is dead—“we will try to get you over on a domestic permit, some place where you can bring the little girl, too. It isn’t much to offer immediately, but we will try to reunite you somewhere, some day.”

  She was faintly comforted, poor soul. But it was all rather long-term planning. Most immediately important, we were able to leave her a fair amount of money, because a friend who was emigrating had a little left that he could not take with him. In the course of the conversation, we mentioned that we were going to the hospital in the Gagernstrasse that afternoon, and her face brightened at once.

  “My husband is there,” she said. “Would you go and see him?”

  We said that, if she thought it would comfort him to hear that we were going to try to help, we would certainly go. And she arranged to meet us there.

  It was a strange and terrible experience—unshared, I think, by any other, or by very few other British people.

  Every case in that hospital was a concentration-camp case; that is to say, every patient had been made ill deliberately. Only two surgeons had been allowed to remain to look after the unfortunates. Of these, one had a septic thumb at the time and could not operate.

  The other was quite a young man who took us into his private office and said, “I want you to give me your advice about something.”

  We promised to do our best.

  “I have a chance to escape,” he explained quietly. “All my papers are in order for me to go to America. Have I the right to take this chance, or should I stay here with these people?”

  Louise and I looked at each other in horrified silence. Then at last I replied, “I’m terribly sorry, but we couldn’t possibly undertake to decide such a thing for anyone. It is for you to make your own decision.”

  We heard afterwards that he had stayed.

  We were taken upstairs to the poor fellow we were to visit. At the top of the staircase, the wife and three thin, bright little boys were waiting. They beamed silently upon us and seemed unnaturally good. Presently, we and the woman went into the small ward her husband shared with two or three others.

  It seemed to us that he was obviously dying, and though fairly interested in our assurances that we would do what we could for his children, he appeared to have passed beyond any expression of deep emotion.

  The friend who had brought us in—he had once been the chairman of the hospital—spoke to him kindly and asked if he had been in Dachau.

  The patient nodded, and our friend remarked, “I was in Buchenwald. They said it was even worse there.”

  “Yes.” The sick man nodded slightly again. “It was worse in Buchenwald. The man in the opposite bed was in Buchenwald. They took him out of the room while they brought you in.”

  There seemed to be little e
lse one could say. We repeated our promises to do what we could, and then we left.

  If anyone had told me when I was a girl at school that one day I should know what it was like to want to murder, I should, of course, have dismissed the idea as melodramatic and absurd. But as we stepped out once more into the August sunshine of the Gagernstrasse, I felt a fervent and personal desire to have a hand in killing those responsible for what we had left behind us. Naturally, the feeling fades gradually if one has no terrible and personal stake in the game. That is inevitable with civilized people. But I do know, though I cannot recapture the feeling now, that I did once think enthusiastically in terms of murder.

  We returned to England the next day. The war came about a fortnight later. During the war, we often wondered what happened to the little boys and the sister who was too young even to try to escape. We asked ourselves—did they die on the way to Poland? Were they stifled in the gas chambers of Auschwitz? Or did they die of hunger when our money gave out?

  It seemed quite beyond the realm of possibility that we should ever know the answer. And yet, some time after the war, when I first began to write and lecture about our experiences, someone wrote to us, saying: “I think you might like to know what happened to the family you contacted on your last visit and whom you obviously mourned as dead. Contrary to all possible expectation, they survived. The war came so quickly that able-bodied workers were immediately in demand. So the woman was able to get work. To a certain extent, her husband grew somewhat better. And somehow, throughout the war, she managed to support them all.”