A New Life in New York
Luzie and her cousin Herta Stein boarded the Manhattan, a steamer bound for New York, on November 16, 1938, just one week after the Kristallnacht pogroms. They were leaving in the wake of a nightmare, well described in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s wire:
An estimated 25,000 Jews were under arrest here today in the wake of the worst outbreak of anti-Jewish violence in modern German history, which left throughout the nation a trail of burned synagogues, smashed homes, wrecked and pillaged shops, and at least four known dead. Police seizures of Jews continued throughout the night and this morning. Three thousand were in custody in Berlin alone . . .
Throughout the city [Berlin] hardly a single Jewish shop or restaurant window was left intact as bands proceeded systematically from street to street, smashing panes with hammers and stoning those beyond reach.1
The violence and pillaging that occurred in Berlin was repeated in Jewish communities large and small throughout Germany.
Those fourteen hours of rioting and destruction were a bolt that struck the consciousness of German Jews, making it impossible to cling to any notion, any fantasy that they could somehow accommodate themselves to the Nazi regime, that it would eventually become more moderate, and that Germany could still be their home.
After nine days at sea, Luzie Hecht arrived at her new home on November 16. She would write of landing in New York on the afternoon of a very clear day, standing on the ship’s deck and looking out at the vast metropolis of New York City with its truly commanding skyscrapers. Like many newcomers, Luzie would be struck by the city’s vastness, quick pace, and energy.
Learning her way around Manhattan would be just one of many tasks she faced. There was much to do: find a job, improve her English, and most important, get her family out of Germany. Having witnessed those “terrible days,” Luzie knew they couldn’t stay in Berlin. She understood full well that emigration had become the only option.
In addition, there was the pressing issue of her cousin Herta’s father, her uncle Salomon, age fifty-three. Salomon Stein had been among the thousands of Jewish men rounded up during Kristallnacht and transported to concentration camps. Release from hellish camps such as Sachsenhausen was possible if the internee could provide proof of his plans to leave Germany. This evidence, of course, had to be gathered by relatives or friends on the outside.
As Arnold would often tell Luzie, she was the older one, the city girl, more experienced than her country cousin, and fluent in English. So it was not Herta, Salomon’s daughter, but Luzie who was assigned the responsibility for his fate. It was Luzie who wrote to Arnold asking him to fill out the necessary forms, on Salomon’s behalf, and to cable them to Germany. There were many letters to exchange.
To: Luzie Hecht, New York
From: Arnold Hatch, Albany, New York
Date: December 5, 1938
Dear Luzie:
I have your letter of December 3rd, and I shall prepare and sign the affidavits as quickly as possible and send them to you. There will be a little delay in this because it is necessary to accumulate from income tax auditors, banks, life insurance companies, etc., the necessary proofs, and this will take a few days . . .
Now, as regards the cables, I am sending these at once, and the only possible good that they can do is perhaps to release Salomon Stein from a concentration camp and to prevent your father from getting in one. Personally, I think these cables are a mistake at this stage of the proceedings. However, I am sending them anyway in the hope that they will do some good and at least give some comfort to the two families in question.
Regardless of all the foregoing, on which we are going ahead, I very much fear that it is going to be a terribly long-winded proposition to get your parents and Rolf, and also Herta’s parents, out of Germany. From everything that I can ascertain, the signing of the affidavits means that you simply start the ball rolling . . . Nevertheless, we shall do our best, and no one can do more than that.
I would suggest that as soon as possible that you call on Miss Celia Razovsky, c/o National Coordinating Committee for German Refugees, 165 West 46th Street, New York City, and have a talk with this lady. She is perhaps the best posted woman that I know of on the extremely complicated conditions that prevail today . . . Obviously, you can see that a great deal more can be done toward starting this by you in New York than by me in Cohoes.
I think that you are entirely wrong that the signing of these affidavits will immediately release a man from a concentration camp. However, if you are right and I am wrong about this, I am perfectly willing not merely to sign the affidavits but to cable them if that will help.
So get busy, as we say in America, and see what you can do at your end.
Your devoted cousin,
Arnold
Right from the start, Luzie’s cousin Arnold made one thing clear. There was a difference between being charitable and being a pushover, and he certainly was not the latter.
To: Luzie Hatch, New York
From: Arnold Hatch, Albany, New York
Date: December 8, 1938
Dear Luzie:
I talked to my brother Stephen on the phone today and was somewhat surprised at several of the things he told me. Among these was your intimation that the money I gave you in New York was gone.
He also stated that you moved and simply abandoned the deposit left with Mrs. Rose. Now that original room was not too desirable, but it could have been made to do until the deposit left with the lady was used up. I must insist right at the beginning that when you do things of this kind that you consult with me and not simply go ahead on your own initiative and without regard to expense or what others may think.
It will be my responsibility to look after you until you are able to find a job and support yourself, but you will have to consult with me about things and not just do as you please, move where you please, and live as you please, without regard to expense. Money is as important here just the same as it is in Germany and is not to be squandered.
Now, as regards a job. It is true that finding a job is not easy, but perhaps it is still more difficult to find just the sort of a job that you think you are entitled to have. Right at this time of year with all the stores putting on Christmas help and with your selling experience, I should imagine that you could find something to do, unless you have arrived at the conclusion that only a certain type of dignified job will do for you.
If you have been unable to find anything by the time you get this letter, you will find enclosed a letter addressed to the man in charge of my sales office in New York, Mr. Horace M. Graff. I want you to take this letter down to him at 93 Worth Street, and he will help you as much as he can.
Now, it is not my intention to be mean or petty or miserly with you because that is not my way at all, but you must not get any false ideas about things right at the beginning of your life in America. I object very strenuously to your proceeding about a lot of things without consulting me, and when I feel strongly about anything I say so.
Now, get busy and see if you cannot place yourself, and instead of all this intimation about how you are broke, how you are planning to sell your fur coat, how you are blue and discouraged about finances, just write me the facts from time to time, and I will see that you do not want for anything as long as you live simply, economically, and wisely.
Yours, as ever,
Arnold
In all likelihood, Arnold’s letter sparked worry and perhaps even fear in Luzie’s mind. After all, she and her family were dependent on Arnold. What if he washed his hands of them? Who would bring Edwin, Helene, and Ralph Hecht to the United States? The thought that her family could perish, leaving Luzie a single woman in a new land, could not have been comforting.
Had Arnold been too harsh with Luzie? A refugee from Germany, she had been in the United States for all of thirteen days, twelve if one subtracts the Thanksgiving holiday, when no job efforts could be made, and he wanted to know why she was not yet working. Thousands of native-born Americans who had no language problems, could easily navigate their city, were familiar with local business customs, and had relatives and friends to assist them were also without work in 1938. If this argument crossed Luzie’s mind, she certainly knew enough not to raise it with Arnold.
It was not simply her unemployed status that was irritating Arnold. There were also her spending habits. As Arnold saw it, after having been careless with money, his cousin now needed to sell her precious possessions. But her fur coat and jewelry were, in fact, a portable bank account in disguise. Back in Berlin, facing Nazi restrictions on how much cash she could take out of Germany, Luzie had purchased expensive goods for the express purpose of converting them to cash in New York. Although the Nazis would eventually clamp down on such actions, when Luzie left this method of circumvention still worked. Selling these articles was not the result of careless spending—on the contrary, it was all part of Luzie’s plan. All of this needed to be explained in her reply.
To: Arnold Hatch, Albany, New York
From: Luzie Hatch, New York
Date: December 11, 1938
Dear Cousin Arnold:
I noted the contents of your letter of December 8th quite carefully and am so awfully sad that evidently when meeting your brother Stephen I didn’t use the right words so that a big misunderstanding occurred.
First of all I want you to be assured that until now I had always to live simply, economically and wisely and that I never intended to live here in another manner. On the contrary I never spend a cent if it is not necessary.
I took this room only with the intention to stay about two weeks until I get accustomed to the life of New York, as a married girlfriend from Berlin lives in the next house and could help me to overcome the first difficulties. My cousin Edith, you met her at the steamer, has now her own apartment and is willing to give me a very nice and clean room with breakfast for $5.—a week. I already intended to change today to the 162nd street, but as I really don’t want to do anything without consulting you, I should like you to let me know whether you think this all right and agree to it.
Stephen asked me whether I need money, and I answered that I already spent a lot, but that I have enough. So he said I should write to you if I am low in funds, and I told him before writing I would prefer to sell my jewelry and my fur coat as for this special purpose I bought these things in Germany.
I am not at all discouraged, but as now I am accustomed a little more to all those things I didn’t know before, I feel quite happy and hope quite confidentially that I find a job within the next time.
I thank you very much for your letter to Mr. Horace M. Graff but, if you don’t mind, I would prefer to try to place myself before I go to him. I had the intention to visit some people on Friday, but the whole day I was occupied with sending the affidavits abroad. Tomorrow after having visited the Committee, I shall go to different places and hope that there will be a chance for me. Also on Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll try to find work and let you know the results at once.
Dear Cousin Arnold, please be convinced that I really don’t live without regard to expense, and please be so kind to show your brother Stephen this letter, so that any other misunderstanding will be avoided.
Yours, as ever,
Luzie
To: Luzie Hecht, New York
From: Arnold Hatch, Albany, New York
Date: December 12, 1938
Dear Luzie:
I haven’t much time to write you at length today as I have to go to a bank meeting in Albany. The room that you mention with your cousin, Edith Friedmann, sounds attractive, and I would recommend that you take that as soon as possible.
In the meanwhile, I do not want you to sell any jewelry or furs. When your money is gone or low, let me know definitely, and I shall send you some more and maintain you suitably until you are able to find a job.
You should make every effort to place yourself in a job as quickly as possible, and I do not mind if you postpone going to see Mr. Graff until you have tried elsewhere. However, the matter should not be delayed longer than necessary.
With much love to you and Herta and our two aunts, I am
Yours, as ever,
Arnold
Luzie’s most pressing task was to secure the essential affidavits of financial support for both her family and Herta’s parents. With hundreds of thousands unemployed, the last thing the US government wanted was additional people in need of assistance. Those with meager funds thus needed an affidavit of financial support to secure their visas.
By the beginning of December, after having been in New York for just twelve days, Luzie was successful. The papers documenting Arnold’s sponsorship of both families were sent to Berlin through the office of the National Coordinating Committee for German Refugees. Getting the paperwork through was an exhausting ordeal, accomplished only after overcoming a number of obstacles.
To: Arnold Hatch, Albany, New York
From: Luzie Hatch, New York
Date: December 10, 1938
Dear Cousin Arnold:
Please accept Herta’s and my best thanks for sending the affidavits for our families.
When I received your letter of December 8th, I went at once to the Committee. The employees were very busy, and I was sent from one room to the other. At last I got a girl who informed me that she had to go right away and that I had to come again.
You can imagine that I was very anxious to send the affidavits abroad with the Aquitania sailing today and therefore offered her to write the necessary letters myself at home, if she gives me their letter-paper. After long hesitation, as she is not allowed to do so, she agreed, and I hurried home.
In the afternoon, when I was ordered again she told me that she has to disappoint me as I got the wrong letter-paper, and then again I was sent to different rooms. Nobody had time to help me as it was already very late, and as the office is closed on Saturday and Sunday, I had to find a way out of this trouble.
After having waited a long time, I informed the secretary that I would be able to write the letters myself right there (the other girl had forbidden that I say anything about my writing at home), so at last they gave me the right letter-paper and in a big typewriter-room I wrote the letters.
The affidavits were sent to the American Consul in Berlin, and our parents got a letter from the Committee with copy of the letter to the Consul.
I hope now to receive good news from our parents and thank you again for giving them the possibility of building a new life.
Your cousin
Luzie
Luzie still faced the pressing challenge of finding employment.
To: Arnold Hatch, Albany, New York
From: Luzie Hecht, New York
Date: December 12, 1938
Dear Cousin Arnold:
Today I visited several firms. I had luck in meeting the President of Messrs. Edward P. Paul & Co., Inc. I know him already from his trips to Germany, and he was very nice to me.
They don’t need any employee at all, but as he wants very much to help me, he is ready to create an additional position for me. He told me that I could come and he would pay me for the beginning $12.00 dollars a week. I had to write two letters after dictation, and he was satisfied with my work.
Now $12.00 is very little, but if I don’t find another job I’ll take this if you find it alright. If I don’t earn so much at the beginning, I have at least the occasion to learn American business methods, and this is very important for me. Please let me know your opinion.
Just now Herta informs me that she got a telegram from home that her father came out of the concentration camp, and of course she is now very happy.
With best regards to you and Stephen, also to your wife,
I am,
Luzie
Luzie accepted the office job at Messrs. Edward P. Paul and Company for twelve dollars a week. Unfortunately, her employment there was short-lived—just the two remaining weeks of the Christmas season. She was probably apprehensive about telling Arnold that she was once again among the unemployed. However, Arnold responded with a pleasant surprise: a check for twenty-five dollars along with consoling words: “Now, do not feel blue or discouraged. These things happen to everyone, and the position that you lost was not too marvelous an opportunity anyway.”
She had learned an important lesson about her American-born cousin. As long as he received the proper respect and thought that she, on her side, was making every effort to adjust and work hard, he would be not only generous but warm.
Luzie was clearly someone who liked to be in charge, get things done, and have matters under control. After all, in a matter of days, she had acquired and sent the affidavits of support to Germany. But neither she nor her successful American cousin had any power over the insufficient German immigration quota.
In 1939, the US Immigration Service set the German quota at just slightly over twenty-seven thousand. Given the desperation of German Jews to flee Nazi rule, that number was painfully inadequate.
Luzie’s father, Edwin, was among the thousands of anxious Jews who had applied for immigration at the US consulate in Berlin. He may even have applied before Kristallnacht. The Hechts had been assigned a number so high it would not be called for years. Yet given the terror that now enveloped the Jewish community, the waiting period could not be spent in Germany.
Edwin Hecht was fortunate enough to be able to buy passenger tickets for the one place in the world open to Jewish refugees. He, Helene, and Ralph would head for Shanghai. Here in this bustling port city, they would wait for their turn to come to America.
For many years, Luzie and her cousin Arnold had gone through life knowing next to nothing about each other. In dealing with this crisis, however, even though their communication was rarely face-to-face, usually by letters, and only occasionally by phone, they were quickly getting to know each other. Luzie must have known from the start, even before discussing her father’s decision with Arnold, that he would be irate. His first question would surely be, “How will they ever survive in Shanghai?” Arnold was not alone in his concern about the Hechts’ future in Shanghai. Luzie also had her worries.
Seeking a different solution, she wrote to a dear family friend, Arnold Godschalk, who had owned a toy business in Germany and had had the good fortune of relocating his family to London. Perhaps somehow he could help her family get to England and spare them the dangers and hardships of Shanghai.
To: Arnold Godschalk, London
From: Luzie Hatch, New York
Date: January 18, 1939
Translated from the German
Dear Arnold,
We haven’t heard from each other in a long time, and I hope that you and your dear family are doing well.
I have been in the “country of unlimited opportunities” since November 27, 1938, and of course very glad to be able to breathe again and be a free person. But along with being here other problems have arisen. While I had succeeded in finding temporary employment, at the moment I am again out of work and have been unable to find a new job. The competition here is terribly high.
New immigrants arrive every day, all of whom get stuck here and naturally also want to find work. I would very much like to go elsewhere in the country, but haven’t received the right offers yet, and then I have so much here that I need to take care of for my parents that I cannot leave yet.
As you can imagine, they [parents and brother] cannot possibly remain in Germany. What I experienced there is indescribable. After much persuasion, I succeeded at arranging for my relatives to file the affidavit for all three, father, mother, and Rolf, which was already sent to Berlin in early December. As you know, it will take a certain amount of time before they can immigrate to the United States.
But since it is just impossible to spend this waiting period in Berlin, they have now made plans to go to Shanghai. The local committee that I approached for advice strongly discourages going to Shanghai, as the conditions there are said to be appalling. I wrote this to my parents immediately and begged them to seek out another route.
One hears generally that under certain circumstances, immigrants who are in possession of an American affidavit can spend the waiting period in England. And I would be exceedingly grateful if you could inquire about this and report back to me, should your schedule permit.
I certainly wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t such a serious problem and if I myself wasn’t so perplexed. My parents think that because I am here, I can do everything for them, but they forget that I myself haven’t quite warmed up here, and can’t even feed myself.
I have urgently advised my parents to send Rolf to England or Holland via student transportation. He will then have to remain in one of those countries until he can come here. I know that it will be very difficult for my parents to give the boy away, but at the moment, one must take advantage of every opportunity.
It is a horrible situation.
I would be very thankful to you if you could answer me soon.
Have you settled in well in the meantime? And are you satisfied with business?
Please remember me to your wife and greetings to you too, from
Yours,
Luzie
To: Luzie Hatch, New York
From: Arnold Godschalk, London
Date: February 7, 1939
Dear Luzie,
I am in receipt of your letter of the 18th January, and have been surprised and at the same time glad, to hear from you in New York.
No doubt it is not so easy to find the job you are looking for but, on the other hand, I think it is far better making even a small living and being in a free country.
I have had heaps of letters from Germany, asking me for help. Unfortunately, I have had to set a limit to these things. The most important part in helping people from Germany is financial, but besides that, even if one is able to put down the necessary deposit, it still takes a very long time and lots of trouble to be successful.
As for your parents, if they want to come to England, they need a guarantor who gives the Government the necessary guarantee that he is going to be responsible for them during their stay in England. If your family in New York is in the financial position to make a deposit (about £200.0.0 is needed). They should get in touch with one of the Refugee Committees here, but without any financial security, it is absolutely out of the question.
I like the country, but business is still very difficult. I am still more or less starting, but hope for the best.
It seems a long while ago since we met in “Preussen Park” on a Sunday morning.
With best regards,
Yours,
Arnold Godschalk
Although Luzie’s immediate family was still struggling to escape Germany, some in her extended family had already fled. Cousins Werner, Ilse, and Kate had left for the Netherlands. Thousands of Germans resettled in the Netherlands and France, believing they had escaped the Nazis. In fact, they had found only a temporary breathing space. When Hitler’s armies marched into these countries in May 1940, they would once again be under the Nazi boot. However, in the winter of 1939, when Luzie sat down to write her cousins, she mistakenly believed that they, too, had found safety.
To: Luzie’s cousins, the Netherlands
From: Luzie Hecht, New York
Date: February 9, 1939
Translated from the German
Dear all!
Father wrote me you were surprised that you have not yet heard from me—you would not wonder any longer if you had seen the bustle here. Regardless of my silence, I have certainly not forgotten you. I have now settled in a little bit and have gotten used to the new, so that I find the time to speak to you at length again.
With my parents it is difficult, unfortunately. They have come to the decision to go to Shanghai on the 21st of this month. Arnold is absolutely against this enterprise, just as the committees strongly discourage it, since Shanghai is located in the middle of a battle zone and suffers from an excessive number of all kinds of refugees anyhow, and besides it provides no opportunity to earn money. In other words, it would mean jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. At Arnold’s instigation, I have therefore cabled my parents again this week, saying they should make up a different plan and hope strongly that yet another way can be found.
It is an awful condition, all countries shut down, and in Germany they cannot feel confident about their lives. I have also tried to get help from friends in England and the Netherlands, so that they can at least stay in these countries temporarily, but everything still is very uncertain. My hands are tied as well. I am without work for weeks now and cannot even feed myself.
Not wanting merely to send a short note but pressed for time, she put this letter aside, picking it up again two months later.
April 20th, 1939
Although most of what I have written on the prior page about two months ago is vastly outdated now, I do want to attach it in order to assure you of the good “intentions,” i.e., giving you a detailed report.
You should be very happy that all of you are together. All of you can breathe a sigh of relief. Do you, dear Herta, have employment, or is it not allowed to work without a permit in the Netherlands?
That is what is so nice here. One can start to work from day one after immigrating legally—even though it is very tough to find a position. The situation here is dreadful at the moment. I really thought only millionaires would be running around, and I was greatly disillusioned. Just when I began to be desperate, I found a position at a committee [American Jewish Committee] seven weeks ago. I get paid relatively well and work only five days a week, so that I can relax and recover nicely over the weekend.
You, dear Werner, know I enjoy working and that I am used to doing it for 10 years now, but for the time being everything is more exhausting to me than it was in Germany, since I am not quite adjusted to the climate. None of us is accustomed to such changes in temperature and climate, as they appear here between the mornings and evenings, and it does take a while until the body changes over to it.
I worry only about the heat that is to come soon. The most unpleasant aspect is supposedly not the heat itself, but the air that has such a high percentage of humidity that one is constantly wet. Well, what millions can bear I should be able to endure, too—and regardless of the many differences and the many adjustments I have to go through, I am happy and content to be here, day after day.
However, one is very worried about the fate of the others who were left back, and besides, the constant war psychosis is annoying. One does not know what to wish for, better an end with horror, while all of us want to wish and hope that horror will befall the other side, than this constant horror without an end.
I often eat at Edith’s. First of all she charges me little, and also I’d rather eat the old familiar food. I am not quite used to the American type, which is different (just like the people are much more diverse and different than I have ever imagined).
I have not yet seen too much of New York, unfortunately, because I do not have much time on my hands. When I did not work, I ran around looking for a position from dusk till dawn and came home dead tired and exhausted, and now I am strained from work again, and then I also have many acquaintances. So every day and evening there is something else to do, even if it is only laundry and ironing, so that I do not lack occupation; just to the contrary, I effectively do not have the time to take care of everything I want to do.
For instance, it is very important that I attend an evening school at night, in order to improve my English. I did indeed understand almost everybody and everything from the first day I arrived and am able to chat fluently, but one notices daily how far away one is from being perfect. Well, for my own comfort I tell myself that I am here only for a short time now and that therefore I should not be in a rush.
I hear little from our cousins here. We were welcomed warmly and I was in Albany over Christmas, but other than that I see them every two months at the most. Both of them are very fine and nice, but real Americans. You do not notice that they have had a German father at all.
What other interesting things do you know? Please write me in such detail as I did tonight, I am interested in everything, also in how relatives, friends, and acquaintances are doing who are not yet out [of Germany] and whom you know about.
Well, now I really have to close. “Queen Mary” should receive more mail from me, which yet needs to be produced.
I ask for a notice from all the family members whether this letter was detailed enough and if you were pleased with my report.
To all of you, all the best and sincere regards and kisses.
Luzie
During the war years, Luzie would receive many pleas for assistance. Most would come from relatives, but not all. In the winter of 1939, there was a desperate appeal from the Friedländer family, the Hecht family’s former upstairs neighbors. The Friedländers, Hechts, and Simons had been a tight-knit group at 12 Zähringerstrasse, gathering each week to play a card game called skat. The rise of Nazism had cast these families in three very different directions. With close relatives in the United States, the Simons were the first to leave, settling in New York. For the Friedländers, too, as for most German Jews, America was the preferred destination. Lacking any close American contacts, however, they were compelled to look elsewhere on the map.
In the days after Kristallnacht, Herbert Friedländer gathered his money and passport and boarded the train for Hamburg, the location of many foreign consulates and embassies. “The Jewish people,” his daughter, Inge, recalls, “always talked to each other. There is something here. A possibility here. So he went to the Uruguayan consulate and he bought visas. Ok, he bought visas. That’s what you did at the time.”2 As soon as he returned to Berlin, he purchased ship tickets. The Friedländers now had their lifeline: visas and a passage to Montevideo.
Yet even with these precious documents, they faced the dangers of everyday life in Nazi Germany. Answering a knock on the door one evening, Herbert’s wife, Paula, was shocked to face members of the Gestapo. They had come for Herbert, who fortunately was not in. Aiming to prevent future visits, Paula pointed to the packed suitcases and explained that they were leaving Germany. For safety, Herbert spent the next few nights in the home of non-Jewish friends.
Amid the hurried packing, selling what they could, saying their good-byes, and avoiding the Gestapo, the family never stopped to imagine their new life in far-off South America. “It was just a way out,” remarks Inge Friedländer. “There was no thinking how it would be. It was out, out of Germany. That was all that mattered.”3
Once on the ship and bound for Uruguay, the family finally had a chance, if not to relax a bit, at least to shake off some nervousness and fear. For the teenaged Inge, the ship passage was a “good time.” There were people of her age, particularly young, attractive men, a whole mix of people with whom she could socialize. But as Herbert Friedländer wrote in this letter to Luzie, their plans to settle in Uruguay went terribly wrong.
To: All
From: Herbert and Inge Friedländer, Bahia, Brazil
Date: March 3, 1939
Translated from the German
Dear all!
You might have heard of our fate; we are in great despair; we are unable to land in Montevideo; the visas have been denied. We then had to go to Buenos Aires, where we were held in custody and could not leave the ship for 10 days, and later had to go back. They strung us along with promises from day to day. There were negotiations with Chile and Bolivia, but nothing worked out. Now we are facing the worst: going back.
We now ask you to try everything, so that we can at least get a temporary asylum in the U.S. or someplace else, because we are despairing. We are on the ship General San Martin and will arrive in Madeira on the 29th, in Lisbon on the 31st. Please do everything in your power, otherwise we are lost. Paulchen [Paula] is in a dreadful mental state; please excuse her not writing, she says hello.
How are you? Hopefully you are always well! Could one have expected such a thing when leaving Berlin!
We hope you can achieve something for us, and warm regards.
Your Herbert
Unfortunately, nothing in Luzie’s correspondence or papers suggests that she was able to help the Friedländers. Most likely they were simply added to her growing list of worries. But in another case, that of a business contact named Stefan Pauson, who with his brother ran a basket business in Bamberg, Germany, the outcome would be different.
As an L. S. Mayer staffer, Luzie probably met Stefan Pauson at the biannual Leipzig Trade Fair. For seven to ten days every March and August, Leipzig hummed with the bustle of thousands of merchants and businesspeople from all over Europe as they eagerly reestablished contact with regular customers, secured new clients, and took stock of the business climate.
Luzie’s correspondence makes it clear that she knew not only Pauson but also his teenage daughter Hella, who had joined her father on his final trip to the trade fair. “My sister,” Eva Emmerich recalls, “was at the age where she wanted to see the world and meet people, so he took her along to Leipzig.”4 In all likelihood, this last trip to the trade show had been in August 1938; three months later, the Kristallnacht pogroms and the accompanying anti-Jewish legislation would have made it nearly impossible for a German Jew to attend the fair.
Unlike Luzie’s father, Edwin, who had escaped the Nazis’ noose during Kristallnacht, Stefan Pauson was at home when the troopers rapped on his door. Sent to Dachau, for four to five weeks he struggled to fend off cold, hunger, and constant degradation and fear. “They had to go out in the cold and exercise and if they couldn’t handle it, if they collapsed or complained they just beat them to death and that was the end of them,” explains his daughter Eva. “So he learned very soon, you do the best you can and you put up with it and you don’t make a sound complaining because then you’ll never go home.”5
Newspapers, if an internee could get a hold of them, served a new purpose in Dachau; tucked under one’s clothes as insulation, they could provide extra warmth. But there was nothing Pauson could do about the woefully inadequate diet. Like so many Jewish men imprisoned during Kristallnacht, he returned home emaciated, a piercing shock to the family member who opened the door. “My mother,” Eva remembers, “was desperately trying to feed him but he couldn’t eat the food. He had to eat a real [special] diet to get his stomach and system working again.”6
With time, Pauson regained his health, and in March 1939, he and his wife and older daughter Hella were able to leave Germany for England to join their younger children, Eva and Peter, who had emigrated about five weeks earlier. In this letter to Luzie, Pauson expressed his appreciation for her help in his efforts to leave Germany.
From: Stefan Pauson, Leicester, England
To: Luzie Hatch, New York
Date: March 24, 1939
Dear Miss “Hatch”
Gratitude certainly isn’t one of the most pervasive virtues. Hence, as I can see, until now no one has thanked you yet for your tremendous efforts on my behalf. And therefore I would like to do so myself, even though it was already back on December 10th I managed to crawl out of Dachau, but only since March 13th that I am out of the accursed German Reich.
In any case, you might be interested to know that, although it is not certain whether it actually helped to expedite the permit, your letter lies in the files of the British Home Office as a historic document on the perfidy of the Germans.
That your parents and most likely also your brother are safely out of that country of thugs must surely be a relief to you, although I’m afraid that Shanghai is not quite the ideal.
I requested your address, also for Hella [daughter], received it and then misplaced it again. My brother, who spent a long time looking for a job, is now busier than he would like to be and is a sort of manager at a wicker furniture company. He asked me to write to you and sends his regards as well.
I myself live at the Grand Hotel here, not quite as glorious as it sounds. Together with local company, I intend to weave baskets here in order to try to provide food for my family and myself.
How did you like Mr. Otto? Did he do anything for you? And have you found a good job?
Mail reaches me best via my brother’s address: 46 Regent Road, Leicester.
Please send my best to your parents in this circuitous manner.
And to you my warmest regards,
Stefan Pauson
In England, Pauson had hoped to establish himself in Wiggan’s basket-making trade. It had all been carefully planned. When seeking a way out of Germany, he had asked a fellow basket merchant in Wiggan for assistance. The British merchant complied, writing a letter stating that Pauson, due to his expertise and experience, would join his business as a partner. “The British were not willing to take Jews who would take employment away from their own people,” explains Pauson’s daughter. “Consequently, you had to be able to state that you were going to manufacture and create employment and not take it away.”7 Eva believes that the merchant’s letter was crucial to her parents’ emigration.
When he arrived at the Wiggan plant, eager to start work, Pauson was stunned to learn that the business was suffering a downturn. There were no plans to expand, to add a new partner, or even to have Pauson enter the business as an employee. The British manufacturer explained that his letter had merely been a ruse to help Pauson escape Nazi Germany. “My father went frantic,” Eva remembers. “He was beside himself. And as young as I was, I said, ‘But Dad he helped to get us out, be glad.’”8
In time, Stefan Pauson would regain his resolve and manage to beat back the problems that arose, as would his friend in America, Luzie Hatch.