Violins of Hope (8 page)

In the hopes of protecting his passengers, the German captain rerouted the
St. Louis
to Florida, only to be turned away by the U.S. Coast Guard. The United States had already filled its quota of German immigrants for the year, and refused to accept any more. The captain reluctantly set sail back to Europe, docking the
St. Louis
in Belgium instead of returning to Nazi Germany. Great Britain welcomed 287 refugees. One Hungarian businessman returned home. The remaining 620 passengers found refuge in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Being outside of Nazi Germany brought a reprieve from danger, but only briefly. As Germany occupied more and more of Europe, the 620 refugees on the continent found themselves in danger once more. By the end of the Holocaust, 254 of them would be dead, including Alex and Helmut Goldschmidt.

Erich and the other Jews in Germany and Austria were well aware of the difficulties with emigrating. With few options at their disposal, thousands of them decided to immigrate to Palestine illegally. Many of them had been fully assimilated into European culture and would have never otherwise considered moving to Palestine. Even some of the staunchest Zionists were reluctant to risk breaking the law in such tenuous times, especially if doing so would weaken the relationship between Jews and Great Britain. But they could not find any alternatives. There was simply nowhere else to go.

A number of Jews sought assistance from the Zionist organization Hechalutz (Pioneer), which prepared young Jews for immigration to Palestine. Erich was one of many hopeful colonists who lived on training farms sponsored by Hechalutz. These camps offered instruction in agriculture and other trades to give future settlers the skills they would need to successfully integrate themselves into the Jewish community of Palestine.

When the Hechalutz office in Vienna was unable to secure passage to Palestine, Erich and many others turned to Jewish financier Berthold Storfer, who had been named director of the Committee for the Transportation of Jews Overseas by Adolf Eichmann himself. For the Nazis, facilitating illegal immigration killed two birds with one stone: it would rid Europe of more Jews while also irritating the British government, which was struggling to maintain peace between the Arabs and the Jews who were already in Palestine. Viennese Jews would begin lining up at Storfer's office before midnight, hoping that the next day would bring the paperwork that would enable them to emigrate. Since some certificates expired quickly, the Jews would have to return every two months until their transports could be arranged.

While they waited for Storfer to orchestrate their emigration, the Jews continued to be terrorized. Nazi hooligans would grab them off the streets—sometimes while they stood in line in front of Storfer's office—and force them to wash their cars, polish their boots, or scrub the pavement to the delight of jeering onlookers. The Jews could not even feel safe in their own homes. The Gestapo could knock on the door at any minute. “They came at night, hauled us out of bed, beat me, the wife, and the children, broke up the furniture, and threw the pieces out the window,” recalled one victim.
²⁶
Others were taken into “protective custody,” which meant torture and sometimes death.

After several months of anxious anticipation, the first group of Austrian and German Jews aided by Storfer's committee left Vienna on December 15, 1939. The plan was to take the train to Bratislava, the capital of the newly formed Slovak Republic. After staying in Bratislava for a few days, the Jews would be transported down the Danube by the Nazi-owned Danube Steamboat Company, naturally in exchange for exorbitant fares. Once they reached the Black Sea, the Jews would board the Greek steamship
Astrea
, which Storfer had chartered to sail to Palestine.

Nothing went according to plan.

The Jews arrived in Bratislava at midnight. They were met by members of the Hlinka Guard, which served as the internal security force for the pro-Nazi Slovak government. They were taken to the Slobodárni, a cheap hotel near the train station that was already filled with Czech Jews who had arrived a few days earlier. Some of the new arrivals staked their claim to floor space in overcrowded hallways and lounges as the remainder of the Jews from Vienna began to arrive. Others were taken just outside of town to the Patrónka, a hodgepodge of derelict huts and barracks that had once been a bullet factory and was now the home to 190 Czechs.

The German and Austrian Jews in the Slobodárni and Patrónka quickly learned from their Czech counterparts that the Danube had frozen over, leaving no possibility of sailing to the Black Sea. Any hopes of finding another method to continue their trip were dashed several days later, when they learned that the
Astrea
had sunk during a storm. For at least the foreseeable future, the Jews would have no choice but to remain in Bratislava in conditions that could hardly be considered ideal. Their Slovak transit visas were only valid for limited periods of time, forcing them to continually renew their paperwork by bribing corrupt officials. Until they could find a way to leave, the sojourners would be confined to the Slobodárni and the Patrónka by the Hlinka Guard. To add insult to injury, the Jews were forced to pay for the substandard lodgings in which they were being detained.

The Slobodárni was an ugly five-story building that the city had built as a boardinghouse for single men. It was never designed to hold hundreds of refugees. In one overcrowded lounge, 120 men shared sixty soiled and worn-out mattresses. There were only two toilets and one sink, and no place to wash clothes or dishes. The several hundred occupants of the Slobodárni were taken outside twice a day, when they were allowed to slowly amble around a small courtyard for fifteen minutes.

Life in the Patrónka was even worse. The 190 Czechs, 200 Austrians, and 400 Germans detained there slept on wooden bunks covered in straw. The roof of the abandoned factory often leaked, soaking the straw beds. The windows were either broken or missing altogether, giving the tiny iron stoves in each hall no chance to protect the building from the freezing winter. Sanitation was also a problem. There was only one water tap, and the toilets were outdoors.

By the spring, the conditions had improved somewhat. The Hlinka Guard relaxed their oversight, and the Jews were allowed to venture into Bratislava, where they went shopping, read newspapers, made friends, and even found work. Some took walks in the nearby hills and woods, picking flowers. Others stayed inside, playing cards and chess or engaging in classes, discussion groups, and debates. One refugee later recalled a number of recitals in which Dr. Hans Neumann and another gentleman played the piano and violin. It is possible that the unnamed violinist was Erich.

Over the summer, the situation worsened yet again. As the Slovak Republic was increasingly consumed by Nazism, the Hlinka Guard reinstituted stricter security measures. The Slovak authorities grew frustrated that the Jews who had been issued temporary transit visas remained in their borders, and threatened to send them back. On June 17, 1940—the day that France announced that it would surrender—the Jews were ordered to pack their bags for deportation to Germany, where they would surely have been sent to concentration camps. The expulsion was averted with more bribes, but the need to leave Bratislava was becoming increasingly urgent.

Back in Vienna, Storfer had been working hard to get the Jews out of Europe. He had secured a large amount of funds from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to pay for the trip. He had also contracted the same company that had owned the
Astrea
to charter larger ships for the growing numbers of Jewish refugees gathering not only in Bratislava, but also in Berlin, Vienna, Danzig, Prague, and Brno. The Greek shipping company had started looking for new vessels as well as for a neutral country that would allow them to sail under its maritime flag. But delays in the funding and difficulties with securing passage to the Black Sea threatened to cancel the voyage yet again.

It was not until the afternoon of August 28, 1940, that the Jews finally began boarding the ships that would take them to the Black Sea. The Nazi vessels were already traveling down the Danube to pick up ethnic Germans from Russian-occupied Bessarabia and bring them back to the fatherland, so why not make some money off Jews along the way? A group of around two hundred refugees from the Patrónka joined five hundred from Danzig aboard the
Helios
, a pleasure ship that was designed to hold three hundred passengers. The
Helios
was later packed even further with the addition of three hundred Jews from the Slobodárni. Its sister ship the
Uranus
, which was also built for three hundred, was just as overcrowded, with four hundred refugees from Berlin and six hundred from the Slobodárni and the Patrónka. The
Helios
and the
Uranus
were joined a week later by two tour boats from Vienna, both built for only 100–150 passengers: the
Melk
, carrying 220 Jews from Brno and six hundred from Prague, and the
Schönbrunn
, carrying eight hundred Viennese refugees.

On the morning of September 4, the four Danube Steamboat Company boats left Bratislava, flying swastika flags and overloaded with more than 3,600 Jews. As the convoy departed, the Jews joined together to sing “Hatikvah.”

On their slow and cramped voyage down the Danube, the Jews were constantly reminded of how precarious their situation was. On September 6, they passed several hundred Jewish refugees from Danzig and Austria who were stranded on the banks of the Danube in Yugoslavia. Unable to secure further passage to the Black Sea, the Jews were later imprisoned and ultimately massacred after the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia. On the very next day, the
Helios
,
Melk
,
Schönbrunn
, and
Uranus
encountered the
Pentcho
, a paddle-wheel steamship that had left Bratislava four months earlier with six hundred Jews. The
Pentcho
had been detained for seven weeks in Yugoslavia after being deemed unseaworthy, and was now quarantined in neutral waters between Romania and Bulgaria for lacking proper paperwork. After several other delays, the
Pentcho
would make it to the Black Sea before wrecking in the Greek islands. Its haggard and emaciated passengers would be interned in Italy, but would immigrate to Palestine after being liberated by the Allies. The
Helios
,
Melk
,
Schönbrunn
, and
Uranus
were also delayed for three days in Bulgaria. They were released only so the Nazi ships could continue on their official missions to Bessarabia.

On September 12, the transport reached the Romanian port of Tulcea, where the Jews discovered three decrepit tramp steamers undergoing renovations. On the next morning, the refugees were surprised to find that the ramshackle freighters would be their transport to Palestine. The listing ships now bore Panamanian flags and the newly painted names
Atlantic
,
Pacific
, and
Milos
. “It was like naming a Pekinese ‘Nero' or a Chihuahua ‘Caesar,'” one refugee later explained. “Except that these ships had never been thoroughbreds.”
²⁷

The 820 passengers from the
Melk
boarded the
Milos
and the one thousand Jews from the
Uranus
boarded the
Pacific
on September 14. The largest and oldest of the ships, the
Atlantic
, had been retrofitted to accommodate 1,200 passengers, but ended up quartering all 1,800 refugees from the
Helios
and
Schönbrunn
. It was on this cramped behemoth that Erich would continue his odyssey.

Erich and the other passengers were shocked to find that the
Atlantic
was even more crowded than the
Helios
and
Schönbrunn
had been. There were five toilets inside the ship to serve 1,800 refugees, but they would not even flush unless one brought a bucket of seawater. Most of the passengers ended up using the six makeshift lavatories on the deck, which had been so hastily constructed that they hung over the side of the ship. Since the Panamanian flag was painted on the roof of those lavatories, making a visit there became known as taking “a trip to Panama.”
²⁸

The tiny cabins and cramped bunks that had been constructed in the
Atlantic
's holds were packed far beyond capacity, forcing many passengers to carve out whatever space they could in the hallways, decks, stairs, and the insufficient lifeboats. Even with these measures, the Jews had to take turns standing to ensure that others had enough space to sleep. They had to improvise makeshift kitchens in various corners of the ship. The quarrels that naturally ensued in such cramped quarters were policed by the Haganah (Defense), a band of refugees from Prague who took their name from the paramilitary organization that protected the Jews in Palestine.

After three weeks of frustrating bureaucratic delays, which were eventually resolved through more bribes, the
Atlantic
raised anchor at 10:45 a.m. on October 7 and started to follow the
Pacific
toward the Black Sea. The beginning of the journey was hardly auspicious. Lacking a radio and navigation instruments, the
Atlantic
traveled about two hundred yards before running aground on the muddy shore. The captain ordered the passengers to the back of the boat in an attempt to shift its weight from the front. After an hour of grinding its engines, the
Atlantic
freed itself of the mud, only to break down. The crew restarted the engines before once again running the
Atlantic
aground, damaging the rudder in the process. The
Atlantic
was slowly towed to the Black Sea port of Sulina for repairs, a process that delayed its departure for two days. The
Pacific
and the
Milos
sailed ahead.

The
Atlantic
finally got under way on October 9. As with everything else on the journey, the trip to Palestine took much longer than anyone could ever have anticipated. Rightfully worried that the
Atlantic
could be attacked by the German or Italian navy during its voyage through the Mediterranean Sea, the Greek captain would moor the
Atlantic
in various island coves during the day and sail only at night. When they were at sea, the captain would run the engines at full throttle to waste coal. The more often he could stop to refuel, the more often he could increase his profit margin by overcharging the desperate refugees.