Stymied in Antwerp – October 1939

Elfriede Höber and Susanne Höber on the balcony of their apartment at Pempelforterstrasse 42, Düsseldorf, December 1938.

 World War II began with Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939.  My mother, Elfriede, and my 9 year old sister, Susanne, were living in Dusseldorf and getting stuck in Nazi Germany became an all-too-real possibility for them. It was imperative that they get away and join my father, who had fled to Philadelphia the previous year.  The war had started just a few weeks after the American consul had granted Elfriede and Susanne immigration visas after months of struggling.  Then, getting the household packed up, wrapping up their business, and saying farewell to family and friends took weeks — and suddenly it was almost too late.

German Passport issued to Elfriede Fischer Höber and Susanne Höber, Düsseldorf, June 22, 1939.

The start of the war only increased the flood of emigrants racing to escape Europe.  The stamps in Elfriede’s passport show that on September 14 she paid the German government 8 Reichsmarks for an exit permit.  On September 19 she obtained a bank certification for the 20 Reichsmarks (about $10), the total that she was allowed to take out of Germany. Thankfully, on September 22 at 8:50 P.M. she and Susanne crossed the border at Aachen out of Germany and into Belgium.  They arrived in Antwerp the same day, where they were supposed to board a ship for America. But it wasn’t that simple.

Stamps in Elfriede and Susanne’s passport show their exit permit, fiscal authorization and crossing of the border into Belgium, September 1939.

The first days of the war saw numerous naval battles between Germany and Great Britain, including the sinking a British warship with a loss of 700 lives.  The fighting at sea completely disrupted civilian shipping in the English Channel and the North Atlantic.  As a result, Elfriede and Susanne’s ship was delayed again and again.  Day after day they trekked to the shipping office of the Holland America Line, which was besieged by hundreds of refugees desperate to escape Europe. Seventy-five years later, Susanne still remembers the grimy hotel, the chaos at the shipping office, the fear and the grinding boredom of the wait.  Finally, however, after weeks of waiting, Elfriede was able to confirm their passage on the S.S. Westernland that ultimately left on October 28. She sent off a letter to her husband, Johannes, in Philadelphia, with the news.  After explaining the complicated arrangements with finances and ships, she added,

How have these things been with you all these weeks?  At this point I’ve heard almost nothing about you for two months, but now it seems like we’ll actually get out of here and get to you. I hope we don’t run into any disaster other than seasickness on the way, because as [my brother] Paul aptly noted, you can take Vasano for seasickness but for torpedoes you can only take a lifeboat.  To tell the truth, I’m not really very worried about the torpedoes.  When cautious people at home asked me whether I was really going to risk the transatlantic trip at this time, I just answered that it was pretty much the same to me whether a bomb fell on my head in Düsseldorf or a torpedo hit some other part of my body on the ocean.  On the other hand, a bomb shelter is warmer than the North Atlantic in October. …

If heaven and assorted Führers don’t spit in our soup again, we’ll be with you in a couple of weeks.

Alles liebe Deine Friedel

Letter from Elfriede Höber in Antwerp to Johannes Höber in Philadelphia, October 16, 1939.

The story of what happened next, and more about Elfriede and Johannes’ flight from Germany to the United States, is contained the book from which this story is taken:  Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, available by clicking here.