How Curious George Escaped the Nazis

It was a manuscript called "The Adventures of Fifi" based on the life of a little monkey.  Not even a world war would stop its publication.  It had a long journey to America:  a 133-kilometre bike ride, a long train ride, and two long boat rides.  But it made it in one piece and now is available for everyone to enjoy as Curious George.

Hans Augusto Reyersbach, born and raised in Hamburg, Germany, loved to draw.  He would sketch the animals at the zoo and the horses in the park.  He fought in World War I and returned to his hometown.  In the mid-1920's, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he donned a large yellow hat and sailed up and down the Amazon River, sketching and photographing monkeys and other wildlife.

Margarete Waldstein courtesy http://www.holocaustmuseumswfl.org/education/teachers/teachers-portal/elementary-school-ideas-curriculum/curious-george-escaped-holocaust/.

An acquaintance of Hans' named Margarete Waldstein also grew up in Hamburg.  She, too, dreamed of being an artist, attending Germany's famous Bauhaus School.  In 1935, she followed Hans to Rio de Janeiro where the two spent months sketching and photographing.  Later that year, they married.

In 1936, the young couple moved back to Europe, this time to Paris, France.  They were both Jewish and wanted to avoid Germany due to Hitler's anti-Semetic laws.  They set up a cozy home in an apartment at the Terrass Hotel.  The couple would sketch the fishermen on the River Seine, the booksellers on the quay and the animals at the zoo.

Hotel Terrass courtesy http://www.terrass-hotel.com/l-hotel/un-peu-d-histoire.

Paris is where the Reyersbach's started writing their children's books.  The late 1930's was a difficult time to get a book published:  typesetters had joined the army, paper was scarce and the laws were strict (propaganda).  Nevertheless, the artists-turned-authors managed to get an advance from a Paris Publisher for three manuscripts including "The Adventures of Fifi".

However, while their manuscript was being typed, World War II was brewing.  News spread quickly that the Nazis were "goosestepping" their way across France.  Paris filled with refugees from the north:  Belgian farm carts and horses passed Dutch cars with mattresses tied to the roofs; taxis, trucks and green city busses whizzed by the Reyersbach's window.  It was time for the couple to join the ranks of the two million refugees.

Family flees Paris circa 1940 courtesy http://cdn.theatlantic.com.

Hans made several trips to government agencies to get their passports in order.  THUMP!  THUMP!  He also tried to purchase train tickets out of the French capital but the trains were no longer running.  Hans purchased a tandem bicycle, but he and Margarete tried to pedal it on Paris' cobblestone streets but "sans succes".  He returned the bike, bought spare bicycle parts for 1600 francs, and assembled two separate bikes.  He also bought four large baskets, two to hold bread, cheese and meat, and two to hold clothes and their precious manuscripts.


Finally, the Reyersbach's were ready for their journey.  Under the drone of the German scout planes, they left the Terrass Hotel and pedalled through the streets of Paris, part of the largest motorized evacuation in history.  As rain pattered their bicycles, Hans was relieved that their manuscript was clean and dry under his winter coat inside one of the baskets.  The first day, they rode 48 kilometres.  A gracious farmer's wife offered them shelter in her house on that first night.  On the second day, they rode 26 kilometres and were offered a spot to rest their weary limbs in a farmer's stable.  On the third day, they pedalled 32 kilometres.  They reached Etampes, France not a moment too soon for it was bombed only two days later.

The map outlining the Reyersbach's flight from Nazi-occupied France courtesy https://www.amazon.com/Journey-That-Saved-Curious-George/dp/0547417462.

At Orleans, they boarded a train with their bicycles which steamed south to Bayonne as they stretched their weary limbs.  They disembarked at Bayonne and remounted their bikes bound for Hendaye.  There, they caught a second train, this one headed through Spain to Portugal.  Hans sold their "bicyclettes" for 650 francs at the train station, money that would come in handy soon.

At Lisbon, they bought tickets for a trans-Atlantic passage to South America.  One official thought Hans might be a spy, given his attire and his briefcase.  However, all was well once he opened the case and revealed his "livre pour les enfants".  The Reyersbach's boarded a ship named "Angola" which safely took them across the Atlantic to Brazil.  They waited two months for their papers to be in order.  THUMP!  THUMP!

Finally, in October of 1940, four months after they pedalled out of wartime Paris, they sailed into peacetime New York, with the Statue of Liberty in full view.  Only a year later, the former Fifi landed on American bookshelves as Curious George.  And the Reyersbach's became the Rey's.  What a journey for the little monkey and the man with the yellow hat!

Original cover courtesy http://upload.wikimedia.org.

Source:  The Journey that Saved Curious George by Louise Borden.

Ukrainian Immigrant Esther Rosenbaum

"We both cried -- cried like never before to see each other, and that he was released.  It was a joy..."(Esther Rosenbaum)

Jewish wedding photo in Poland courtesy http://www.bh.org.il/jewish-community-zelechow-poland/.

Esther Rosenbaum, one of eight children, was born and raised in a small railroad town in the Ukraine. One of Esther's earliest memories is of a pogrom in her village.  Her brother, Yasha, was getting married when a train of bandits raided the town.  Esther's mom had the presence of mind to tell the bride to change out of her wedding dress.  She hid her in the basement.  The bandits, demanding to know the whereabouts of the bride, threw eggs at Esther's mother.  They turned their wrath on three musicians present at the wedding whom they hanged.  

Esther's mother put the rest of the family members in a wagon and covered them with straw.  They escaped the village and travelled 200 kilometres to Esther's grandparents house.  About a week later, the grandparents town was also raided by a pogrom.  Esther remembers her aunt being raped by Polish bandits.  

The family got back into the wagon and headed for the Russian border.  "We had to pay someone, what you would call a contraband to take us across the border.  We crossed and we all landed on the Romanian side  I remember walking up to our knees in mud.  I remember my father carry my brother, he was five, six years old...on his back."

Esther and her family lived in Romania for two years until they secured American visas.  Esther's mother was forced to stay behind to nurse her sister Tanya who had tuberculosis.  In 1923, they sailed across the Atlantic on the Byron.  Staying in the hold of the ship, Esther recalls everyone being sick.  They ate nothing but sardines for three weeks.  

Esther's aunt and uncle met them at Ellis Island.  The family settle din an apartment in the Bronx.  Esther's father followed her uncle into the banana business.  Esther and her siblings enrolled in school.  Being one of the older girls, it fell to Esther to cook and clean for her six siblings.  When Esther was 18, her father remarried.  "I was delighted.  I liked her.  She took a burden off my hands."

"The day I met my husband, I was taking a walk [with] a friend of mine.  It was the Fourth of July, and the two of us took a walk to Katonah Park, and there was my husband sitting there on the grass in the park..." Esther considered him to be handsome and ambitious.  It was the start of a marriage that would last 36 years.

Esther returned to Russia in 1958 to visit her brother Yasha, the one whose wedding had been interrupted by the pogrom.  However, when she arrived she was disappointed to hear that she couldn't see him:  he was in jail.  Yasha, who had fallen on hard times in his secondhand merchant business, was accepting help from his workers.  Someone squealed on him and he was arrested.

Finally, eight years later, released from prison, Yasha was reunited with "his little sister".  Esther pointed out however that she was no longer his little sister, she was a grandma.  Yasha maintained however that she would always be his little sister.  Esther recalled:  "We both cried -- cried like never before to see each other, and that he was released.  It was a joy..."

Banana docks circa 1906 courtesy https://www.pinterest.com/pin/248120260693484161/.

Note:  All of my September posts are taken from Ellis Island Interviews:  In Their Own Words by Peter Morton Coan.

Elie Wiesel's The Perils of Indifference

The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. (Elie Wiesel)

Elie Wiesel was a Romanian Jew who survived imprisonment in Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the Second World War, documented in his book Night.  Like many imprisoned Jews, Elie assumed that the powers that be did not know about the Nazi death camps.  After all, if they did, they would do something to stop the mass killings.

However, Elie eventually discovered that the United States State Department knew about the Nazi death camps; the Pentagon knew, as did President Roosevelt.  In fact, in 1939, when the ship the S.S. St. Louis arrived on the shores of the United States filled with 1000 Jewish refugees requesting asylum, President Roosevelt said no (see http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2015/09/ss-st-louis-ship-of-jewish-refugees.html).

Why did the Americans (and Canadians in the case of the SS St. Louis) show such indifference to the Jewish condition.  Elie said that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.  Such an attitude is dangerous.  "In a way, to be indifferent to suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred.  Anger can at times be creative.  One writes a great poem, a great symphony.  One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses.  But indifference is never creative."

The Americans, and the rest of the Allies, finally acted when they invaded the Nazi occupied countries and started liberating the Nazi death camps.  There was no indifference in their eyes when they saw the skeletons piled high.  Elie remembers the soldiers rage at what they saw.  He remembers the gratitude that he felt upon his liberation.  Here is an excerpt from the speech he delivered to President Clinton and some dignitaries in Washington DC in 1999:

Fifty four years ago to the day, a young Jewish boy from a small town in the Carpathian Mountains woke up, not far from Goethes beloved Weimar, in a place of eternal infamy called Buchenwald.  He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart.  He thought there never would be again.  Liberated a day earlier by American soldiers, he remembers their rage at what they saw.  And even if he lives to be a very old man, he will always be grateful to them for that rage, and also for their compassion. Though he did not understand their language, their eyes told him what he needed to know -- that they too would remember and bear witness.

Elie Wiesel and his family courtesy http://pamelagellercom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/wiesel-family.jpg.

SS St. Louis: The Ship of Jewish Refugees Nobody Wanted

"Steaming back toward Europe, he promised his passengers he wouldn't return them to Nazi Germany and hatched a desperate plan to run his ship aground on the English coast if no safe port could be found." (http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1174272-canada-turned-away-jewish-refugees)



Canada has a history of receiving refugees from around the world.  However, our record has always been pristine.  In 1939, the SS St. Louis, with a boatload of Jewish refugees, was denied entrance into Canada and forced to return to Europe, on the brink of World War II.

It had only been less than a year since Kristallnacht, the night the Nazis descended on Jewish synagogues, shops and homes in Germany and Austria, smashing windows and seizing property. Ninety one Jews were murdered and 30,000 arrested.  Kristallnacht marked the beginning of Hitler's Final Solution.  Many Jewish families took flight.  

Captain Schroder, the commander of the SS St. Louis, felt personally responsible for the 907 Jewish refugees who boarded his ship in June of 1939.  In stark contrast to the treatment of Jews in Germany at the time, the captain ordered his crew to treat all of his passengers politely.  During the two-week trans-Atlantic crossing, the passengers ate hearty meals and listened to a dance band nightly.  The children played on the deck or swam in the swimming pool.  On Friday nights, families were permitted to hold their nightly prayers in the dining room, where Hitler's portrait was temporarily removed.

The passengers started to breath a sigh of relief, the further they travelled from Germany.  Adults told their children:  "We're going away.  We don't have to look over our shoulders anymore."  The relief, however, turned to trepidation once the SS St. Louis reached its destination.  In Cuba, authorities came aboard the ship to speak to the captain.  Passengers kept hearing the word "Manana" which means "Tomorrow".  But when tomorrow came, the response was the same.  Captain Schroder pleaded his passengers' case for seven days, but to no avail.

The SS St. Louis headed to the Florida coastline hoping America would grant asylum to the refugees. However, despite direct appeals to President Roosevelt, U.S. officials also denied the Jewish refugees entrance.

The refugees last hope was Canada.  When the SS St. Louis came within a two day steam of Halifax, Captain Schroder sent a plea to Canadian authorities to grant sanctuary to the Jewish refugees. University of Toronto history professor, along with other academics and clergy, personally petitioned Prime Minister McKenzie King.  "Much to our shame, King, who had many Jewish friends, didn't force the matter," said Lunn.

Steaming back to Europe, the refugees had lost all hope.  One passenger even slit his wrists and threw himself overboard.  "If I close my eyes, I can still hear the shrieks and see the blood," said a then six- year-old refugee who saw it happen.

While some gave up hope, Captain Schroder had another plan in mind.  Returning to Nazi Germany was out of the question.  "Steaming back toward Europe, he promised his passengers he wouldn't return them to Nazi Germany and hatched a desperate plan to run his ship aground on the English coast if no safe port could be found."

In the end, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee came to their aid.  The SS St. Louis docked in Antwerp, Belgium where the refugees were unloaded.  Some stayed in Belgium while others resettled in France, the Netherlands and England.  While the majority survived the Second World War, 254 were murdered by the Nazis who occupied three out of the four countries.

Captain Schroder wrote to the Committee on June 18, 1939, saying:  "Before I leave Antwerp, I take the opportunity to thank you once more sincerely for the cooperation we have received from you personally and the different Committees in organizing so efficiently the distribution of my passengers..." (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27373131)  Sadly, for his humane treatment of the Jewish refugees, Captain Schroder was relieved of his command of the SS St. Louis and banished to a desk job.

Jewish refugees on board the SS St. Louis circa 1939 courtesy

 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27373131.

The Journey That Saved Curious George

It was a manuscript called "The Adventures of Fifi" based on the life of a little monkey.  Not even a world war would stop its publication.  It had a long journey to America:  a 133-kilometre bike ride, a long train ride, and two long boat rides.  But it made it in one piece and now is available for everyone to enjoy as Curious George.

Hans Augusto Reyersbach, born and raised in Hamburg, Germany, loved to draw.  He would sketch the animals at the zoo and the horses in the park.  He fought in World War I and returned to his hometown.  In the mid-1920's, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he donned a large yellow hat and sailed up and down the Amazon River, sketching and photographing monkeys and other wildlife. 

Margarete Waldstein courtesy http://www.holocaustmuseumswfl.org/education/teachers/teachers-portal/elementary-school-ideas-curriculum/curious-george-escaped-holocaust/.

An acquaintance of Hans' named Margarete Waldstein also grew up in Hamburg.  She, too, dreamed of being an artist, attending Germany's famous Bauhaus School.  In 1935, she followed Hans to Rio de Janeiro where the two spent months sketching and photographing.  Later that year, they married.

In 1936, the young couple moved back to Europe, this time to Paris, France.  They were both Jewish and wanted to avoid Germany due to Hitler's anti-Semetic laws.  They set up a cozy home in an apartment at the Terrass Hotel.  The couple would sketch the fishermen on the River Seine, the booksellers on the quay and the animals at the zoo.

Hotel Terrass courtesy http://www.terrass-hotel.com/l-hotel/un-peu-d-histoire.

Paris is where the Reyersbach's started writing their children's books.  The late 1930's was a difficult time to get a book published:  typesetters had joined the army, paper was scarce and the laws were strict (propaganda).  Nevertheless, the artists-turned-authors managed to get an advance from a Paris Publisher for three manuscripts including "The Adventures of Fifi".

However, while their manuscript was being typed, World War II was brewing.  News spread quickly that the Nazis were "goosestepping" their way across France.  Paris filled with refugees from the north:  Belgian farm carts and horses passed Dutch cars with mattresses tied to the roofs; taxis, trucks and green city busses whizzed by the Reyersbach's window.  It was time for the couple to join the ranks of the two million refugees.

Family flees Paris circa 1940 courtesy http://cdn.theatlantic.com.

Hans made several trips to government agencies to get their passports in order.  THUMP!  THUMP!  He also tried to purchase train tickets out of the French capital but the trains were no longer running.  Hans purchased a tandem bicycle, but he and Margarete tried to pedal it on Paris' cobblestone streets but "sans succes".  He returned the bike, bought spare bicycle parts for 1600 francs, and assembled two separate bikes.  He also bought four large baskets, two to hold bread, cheese and meat, and two to hold clothes and their precious manuscripts.


Finally, the Reyersbach's were ready for their journey.  Under the drone of the German scout planes, they left the Terrass Hotel and pedalled through the streets of Paris, part of the largest motorized evacuation in history.  As rain pattered their bicycles, Hans was relieved that their manuscript was clean and dry under his winter coat inside one of the baskets.  The first day, they rode 48 kilometres.  A gracious farmer's wife offered them shelter in her house on that first night.  On the second day, they rode 26 kilometres and were offered a spot to rest their weary limbs in a farmer's stable.  On the third day, they pedalled 32 kilometres.  They reached Etampes, France not a moment too soon for it was bombed only two days later. 

The map outlining the Reyersbach's flight from Nazi-occupied France courtesy https://www.amazon.com/Journey-That-Saved-Curious-George/dp/0547417462.

At Orleans, they boarded a train with their bicycles which steamed south to Bayonne as they stretched their weary limbs.  They disembarked at Bayonne and remounted their bikes bound for Hendaye.  There, they caught a second train, this one headed through Spain to Portugal.  Hans sold their "bicyclettes" for 650 francs at the train station, money that would come in handy soon.

At Lisbon, they bought tickets for a trans-Atlantic passage to South America.  One official thought Hans might be a spy, given his attire and his briefcase.  However, all was well once he opened the case and revealed his "livre pour les enfants".  The Reyersbach's boarded a ship named "Angola" which safely took them across the Atlantic to Brazil.  They waited two months for their papers to be in order.  THUMP!  THUMP! 

Finally, in October of 1940, four months after they pedalled out of wartime Paris, they sailed into peacetime New York, with the Statue of Liberty in full view.  Only a year later, the former Fifi landed on American bookshelves as Curious George.  And the Reyersbach's became the Rey's.  What a journey for the little monkey and the man with the yellow hat!

Original cover courtesy http://upload.wikimedia.org.

Source:  The Journey that Saved Curious George by Louise Borden.