The Professor from Heidelberg

The following account of Emil Gumbel's dismissal from Heidelberg University and his escape to France, then to the United States, was given by Gumbel himself after arriving in New York. Our account is an edited version of the one given in 'The Professor from Heidelberg', in William Allen Neilsen (ed.), We escaped. Twelve personal narratives of the flight to America (Macmillan, New York, 1941), 28-57. We should not that in fact Gumbel's name is not attached to the article and when, on a couple of occasions, he gives a quote which should contain 'Gumbel', he replaces it with 'G-".

I am not one of those innocent lambs whom the bad wolf Hitler drove out of the country though they had done nothing against him and would have been willing to submit to him. For many years, since the first World War, in fact, I had fought against the elements which later became the kernel of the National Socialist Party. I was not surprised that they outlawed me when they came into power. I knew what I was doing. I am a south German, born in Munich in 1891. My family came from a district not far from Heidelberg where they had been established since 1700. The vineyards that they worked are still producing grapes - but not for us - and the house in which they lived is now a municipal building near the little town of Wimpfen.

I grew up and studied in Munich principally mathematics and economics, and by the outbreak of the first World War I had taken my Ph.D. I was still young enough in 1914 to be confused by all the patriotic talk I heard around me. I volunteered for service. Yet even then I felt not quite certain about the real issues of the war. Already things did not seem quite right. After a year in service I was sent home on sick leave, and did not return to the front again. I had become a confirmed pacifist. My sympathies drew me towards the Independent Social Democratic Party, which today no longer exists in Germany. I worked for the rest of the war as an engineer in an airplane factory, and later with an electrical firm in Berlin.

After the war I wrote a little pamphlet about the propaganda lies that had been circulated. In 1920 I published a book the effects of which influenced my whole life. Everybody knew that there had been a great many murders of prominent political figures in Germany during the previous two years. But these murders were generally regarded as due to accident, personal vengeance, inter-party feuds, isolated cases of gangsterism, or acts of insane people. I realised that they were much more; they were part of a calculated, organised plan, directed by people of importance, backed up by a determined and dangerous group. It was a system and you could even tell who would be the next victim. This was my statement in the book, which I called Two Years of Murder. You can judge how much effect it had on the public: two years later I published another book - Four Years of Political Murder. I gave all the details about the 354 political murders committed by the German nationalists as against the 22 committed by the leftists. The list went from Rosa Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Eisner, Landauer, to Erzberger and Rathenau. Their slaughter was the revenge of the militarists for the revolution of 1918. In each case I named the murderer, the instigator, and the judge who had let the murderer go. Out of the 354 nationalist murders, one was convicted; out of the 22 leftists, 17. So my accusation was not only against the paid gangsters but against the judges who acquitted them. This acquittal was the essential fact. The group of nationalists who were behind these assassinations were the nucleus of the future National Socialist Party. Out of this psychological attitude grew the Nazis.

The government was embarrassed by these publications. But their only action was to prepare a detailed answer to my books, full of statements such as, "Every attempt has been made to catch the murderers," or, "The trial against So-and-So is still pending" - but of course the murderer was never arrested and the trial never came off. The Reichsminister of Justice prepared this government answer, but did not publish it. I kept on writing articles and giving lectures, saying, "Where is the government's answer?" Finally they sent me a copy, which I published myself with a detailed commentary. People read this. Nothing happened. Not even a lawsuit was brought against me. Aside from debates in the Reichstag no action was taken, though the government had not disproved a single one of my statements.

From 1922 on, the inflation created an atmosphere of great social tension. The profiteers of the inflation were of course the heavy debtors, especially the big landowners, usually of the same families as the army officers. They paid back debts accumulated for centuries in sums worth a match, for the theory was: a mark equals a mark. As the socialists were in the government - but not in power - they were made responsible for the inflation which impoverished the middle classes and these became hostile to the workers whose representatives the socialists were. The inflation disintegrated society. Each stratum of the social order created an army of its own. These "secret" nationalist armies got their funds and their guns from the official Reichswehr, while the private army which was loyal to the Republic received practically no arms or support from the government.

In connection with these so-called "Black Armies" a new series of murders arose. The existence of the armies was officially denied, although they published their own papers, with news about their members and activities. I published exposés of them, and as a result legal proceedings were started against me three times, for high treason. But I was never brought to trial, since I had been very careful to base everything on the written statements of the nationalists themselves. Many others had been tried for high treason, for having affirmed the existence of these Black Armies, the kernel of the future Nazi troops. I published an analysis of these high treason trials, and, being a statistician, backed my statements with an elaborate table, showing the enormous increase in the number of such trials in those years. The courts of justice, even the Supreme Court, were already influenced by the secret organisations. An active proof of the existence of these armies was the Ludendorff Putsch in 1923, an attempt to seize the government. Along with Ludendorff, the leader of the Putsch was a man of whom we hadn't heard much at the time, who was not more than one of many obscure leaders of small gangs of murderers, Adolf Hitler. After the stabilisation of 1924 he disappeared but reappeared as a political figure in the crisis of 1930.

But the secret nationalist organisations continued to be active, although with lessened influence all over the country from 1923 to 1930. I wrote about them, saying that they might some day threaten not only Germany, but the whole world. My publications were generally regarded as a fight against mere shadows. In the meantime I continued to work as a scientist, especially in the field of applied statistics, and in the year of the Putsch I had been called to the University of Heidelberg. As a scientist I continued to teach, to do research, to publish scientific articles; as a political writer I continued to publish for the next ten years a series of pamphlets against the forces which were undermining the German Republic. I fought a continuous battle which seems to have been in vain. I rented a little house of four rooms, just a cottage, on the outskirts of the city. It was in the time of the inflation, and the municipality, which built the house, was willing to let me have it rent free for fifteen years if I paid down a huge sum of marks all at once. I was able to put up the sum from the sale of my articles in foreign papers. The idea was that at the end of the fifteen years the municipality should repay the loan in whatever the German currency was worth then. But fifteen years later was 1938!

Although the University as a whole was controlled by conservative powers, I found a group of people there who felt as I did - pacifists and socialists. I married a girl who was active in the same movement, the daughter of a Prussian general. Our house had a little garden which I worked in on Sundays, planting berry bushes, one or two apple trees, flowers, tomatoes, and potatoes. They were always the most expensive tomatoes and potatoes in the whole world, but I enjoyed growing them. We had rose bushes too. There was a little veranda built on to the back of the house, on a level with the kitchen, and we used to eat out there. The garden was like most German gardens, with a bench or two to sit on, and we spent much of our time in it. We had no maid. My wife acted as my secretary. Every now and then a charwoman came in for the heavy cleaning, and once or twice a year a man came for the digging up of the garden in spring or fall. But the rest of the garden I did all alone.

In the afternoon I took the trolley to the University from a station only five minutes away from the house. My lectures at the University and the preparation for them took up about two days a week. The rest of the time I had free for scientific research and for writing. In the evenings as a rule I was at home, smoking my pipe, listening to the radio. We often went to scientific or political meetings, to a concert, or to a social gathering, and now and then to a cinema. Twice a year we visited Berlin where we kept two furnished rooms. The group we moved in was sharply separated from the other groups in the University. Those who opposed my political opinions had nothing to do with me, and the members of the two factions never spoke to each other or greeted each other in the street. This separation went to ridiculous extremes. One day walking along the street I saw coming towards me the rector of the University, who had just recently been appointed. He was a member of the opposite party, but since after all he was now my rector, I felt that I should make an exception to our rule and at least salute him. But as we approached each other, I saw the poor little man turn around in embarrassment, and begin to stare up at the sky as if he were observing something. He kept turning so that his back would be to me, always looking up at the clouds - where nothing was to be seen - until I had passed. Of course, the men I worked with in scientific meetings were not the same group as my political friends, but as long as we were dealing with scientific questions there was no difficulty. They thought, "Well, he is a fool to occupy himself with that sort of politics." (Their own politics were not "politics.") There was no interference with my teaching because of my opinions, and only once I had a scientific paper refused for political reasons.

But the nationalists, of course, wished to see me thrown out of the University. They had a strong influence and managed to have several "disciplinary cases" brought against me - trials inside the University - but every time I was acquitted. After the first, the education department was delighted that I asked for a half year's leave to go to the Marx-Engels Institute at Moscow. Heidelberg thought with relief that I might stay there. But although I found Moscow very interesting, I did not see it as a basis for my life. I did not know what Russia was going to become under Stalin, yet already then I felt my place was not there but in my own country. I returned to Heidelberg.

Often in vacations we travelled, taking with us our little son, especially when we went skiing in the Austrian Alps. It was cheapest there. We did not go to the big hotels, but to the little huts high up in the mountains, where you can bring along your own food and cook it. In the summer we would go to the seashore, to Italy, or to France. Travelling was simple in those days, and if you needed a visa you could get it by return mail. With the economic crisis which started in 1929 the nationalist and Nazi movements increased. Their newspapers looked for a chance to attack me. I gave them good reason, for I published a book about victims, murderers, and judges in which I showed the relationship between the murderers, the Black Armies behind them, and the judges who decided that the victims were the guilty ones. The Nazi attitude was growing and spreading. Now one of those murderers whom I named is in the group closest to Hitler, and others are now in the consular and diplomatic services. Some are judges in the German Supreme Court. A disciple of mine has made a study of the continued rise of those former petty gangsters.

Of course this activity of mine did not further my scientific career. An important chair in statistics fell vacant through the death of a professor who had, incidentally, suggested that I might be his successor. They kept it vacant rather than give it to me. The University did not want to put in a completely mediocre man, so the chair remained vacant. The state of affairs that exists now in Germany, where you simply fill a chair by putting in an old party member, knowing that he is a fool, had not yet been reached.

In 1930 came a big explosion, a storm in a teacup. I had remained Privatdozent all this time, although younger men with less experience were being promoted to the rank of professor. It was the custom that you would be promoted when you had been teaching a certain number of years and had done a certain amount of research, and I had been qualified a long time. But the pressure of the nationalist group was too strong. Usually the faculty makes recommendations about promotions and then asks the Minister of Education to make the appointment. But in 1930, the Minister, who was a Social Democrat, finally decided that I should be given the title of professor, and, contrary to the usual custom, it was he who asked the faculty what they would do if he appointed me. He received an assurance from the dean that they would take no action. So he made me professor, a mere title which did not mean an increase in salary or in security.

At once there was a tremendous row. More debates were held and more articles written about this trifle than about all those murders. Of course the Nazis were really talking about my statements on the political murders when they attacked the government of Baden for violating academic freedom in giving me the title of professor. This centring on a side issue and avoiding of the main issue was typical of them, and created many difficulties for me since I was forced to treat seriously what was actually a mere pretext. The faculty, moved of course by political feelings, protested that they had not known about the appointment and had not been consulted. It was hard to say whether they had been officially informed or only knew about it, because faculty meetings were secret. The Association of University Professors joined the faculty protest, and a group my friends resigned from the Association over the issue. There were mass meetings of the students, and riots broke out. They even held a kind of plebiscite directed against me. There was nothing spontaneous in their fight. The students had to pay contributions to support a student organisation which consisted of men who had come to the University not to study, but to organise the National Socialist youth. They were professional "students", in reality party agitators paid for undermining the Republic. The ministry of Baden finally dissolved the body.

I remained as professor. The next year I published a book on the German fascist organisations, which were forming into the Nazi party. I used as a title a sentence from one of Hitler's own speeches - he had become a public figure again - "Let Heads Roll!" Since my writing, heads have indeed rolled, for millions have had to die because of the Nazi movement.

Once Hitler came to speak in Heidelberg, and the Nazis were proud to announce that "Heidelberg youth prefers Hitler to Gumbel!" My wife and I left for some visit and the local Nazi paper made reference to our departure, saying: "Gumbel has left today with his Sarah and her golden rings." My wife's name happened to be biblical, but it was Mary, not Sarah, and she had been wearing that day one plain gold ring, a family heirloom with their coat-of-arms engraved on it.

In 1932 riots again broke out. The students threw stones at my house and broke the windows before the police could drive them away. I could not walk along the street unguarded. Sometimes my friends would go with me, sometimes students or workmen who were of my party, sometimes the police. The policemen who protected me at that time have since been discharged or sent to a concentration camp. Finally the Minister of Education and the University yielded and I was suspended from the faculty. It was a matter of pure chance that I had decided to make a trip that year to the United States, to attend a scientific conference. I left for that trip with no idea that I should never come back to Heidelberg. I rented the house, as I had usually done, to a friend, and my wife and son went on their vacation to Switzerland. I left Germany, peacefully, on a train, with just a few of my belongings. My case had been referred to the Council of Ministers of Baden and had not yet been decided when I left. I warned them that they were doing themselves most harm by giving in to Nazi pressure. I could understand their sacrificing me if it had assured their safety, for such decisions must sometimes be made. But I knew that once they gave in to the Nazis, they were lost themselves. I urged them to resist. I tried to tell my colleagues that the precedent of a professor's dismissal because of pressure from Nazi students would lead to the dismissal of them all. "Academic freedom is like a stone wall," I told them. "If you let the Nazis discharge me, it is like making a hole in the wall, and such a wind will come through that it will blow you all down." But they thought they could save themselves by appeasement. When I returned to Europe from the United States after a few months, I went to Paris, where I had been invited to give some lectures at the University, and was met by my wife and son.

On the first of February, 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. On the 28th, the Council of Ministers of Baden made their decision against me. A few days later the ministers themselves were sent to a concentration camp. The Nazis confiscated my house. One of the first things they did was to cut down my trees. These were a "traitor's" trees. They stole part of my library and burned the rest, and confiscated my bank account. In August, 1933, I was expatriated, on the first list. Later my wife was too. After doing some lecturing in Paris and Strasbourg, I received a small appointment at the University of Lyons, and moved there with my family in 1934. The very day I arrived in Lyons, my furniture, though confiscated by the Nazis, arrived also. We rented a pleasant house. It too had a garden, where I worked on free days. Apples did not grow there, so we grew peaches, and maize instead of potatoes. There were rose bushes again, and grape vines, but I could not get wine out of them.

Lyons is a city of small industries - rather a dirty city, but we lived on the outskirts. There was no social life such as there had been in Heidelberg. To the Lyonnais, anybody from outside the city, even if he comes from Dijon only two hours away, is a "stranger". We had a small circle of friends, and life was much quieter than in Germany. But in vacations we could go skiing again, in the French Alps now. They do not have small huts for the skier, but too many big hotels - the automobile roads are too good. I did not write any more political pamphlets. The French people did not wish to know that the Nazis were murderers and that you can expect the worst from an assassin. They did not wish to know that there is no chance for peace if you have to be the neighbour of a gangster. All my publications during those years were purely scientific. I felt I had done all I could to give warning - now it was for others to take action. I was busy helping other refugees who were coming out of Germany, raising and distributing funds to re-establish them. Most of the money came from America. When my passport expired I got French papers which allowed me to travel outside the country. The German consulate in Lyons actually tried to steal my wife's passport, but when it expired she and my son were able to get French "travelling papers". We applied for citizenship, without hope of ever getting it. Always I thought that somehow the Nazis would still be overthrown and that we might go back to Germany to live again. But my wife used to say, "I don't want to see that country again where the people allowed such horrors to take place - never, never. I want to stay in France." It was often a subject of dispute between us. The question was decided for us - and neither turned out to be right.

***

When the war broke out in September, 1939, I happened to be on a vacation in Brittany. When I returned to Lyons the day before the actual declaration, a friend of mine told me that he had seen the announcement of my citizenship in the Journal Officiel. The week after the declaration of war, the French government interned all persons who had come out of the "Great Reich" in its largest sense. A law had been passed a year before, that all those profiting from the sanctuary of France should serve in the army. Great queues lined up in front of the barracks to be enlisted, and now these people were put in camps. They were at first called internment camps. Some weeks later this euphemism was abandoned and the official designation, "concentration camp," was introduced. The day after my return to Lyons, the police asked me why I had not reported to the camp. I told them that I was a citizen, but I had no proofs and owned no copy of the Journal. So I went out to buy a copy to show them, and found it impossible to do so anywhere in the town. Finally I started going from one café to another, to see if I could find it. At last one proprietor let me borrow one, for 100 francs, and I took it with all speed to the police station. They accepted this proof, and a week later my regular papers arrived. I was not molested in any way that winter, but when I was invited to the University of Cambridge in December it took me three months to obtain a visa to England. I got there in April.

It was May 10th when I started back. We got on the boat at Dover, and our life belts had already been handed out, when suddenly it was announced that the boat would not sail. There was no explanation given, and we were put back on the boat train. At the station we learned that Germany had invaded Holland. The whole trainload of us went back to London, and we found that it had already been arranged that we should sail from a port in the South. We crossed from there the next night, very quietly. The whole affair was excellently organised. On the train from Le Havre I heard the news about Belgium. It was the next day that the big May internments took place. There was a great fifth columnist scare in France. A fifth columnist is the man for whom you look under your bed, but whom you do not recognise when you lunch with him. The real fifth columnists were not among the unemployed immigrants living on the alms of the committees, but those very French Frenchmen in high positions who thought that their country's right place was not as the foremost British dominion but as the close ally of the Nazis.

At the end of May we became terrified by the idea that the Italians might advance into France while the Germans were coming down from the North. My wife and I decided it would be the safest to get out of a city like Lyons, and we took a bus to the country, to the West towards Clermont-Ferrand. When we arrived there we found it was completely overcrowded. All the big administrations from the North of France, all the central bureaus from Paris, were in Clermont-Ferrand or in the rural surroundings. The idea of finding a refuge there was hopeless. We were offered chairs in the hotel lobbies for the night at 50 francs! Although we did finally manage to get a bed, we saw that we could not stay in the town, and started back to Lyons again the next day. It took us two days to get back, by different busses each of which was the last one going in that direction. We were going against the stream of French refugees fleeing to the West - it was like driving against one-way traffic. The Germans - not the Italians - were approaching very quickly. At Lyons we could hear steady gunfire. The radio announced that the Germans were at Dijon. "When the Nazis get us they will certainly shoot us as traitors," we thought. My mother-in-law, the divorced wife of a German general, who had however a British passport, could not risk being caught in my house. Our maid was an Austrian refugee who had also some accounts to settle with the Nazis. So all five had to leave - but how?

We decided not to go straight West where we had just come from, not straight South, since there was danger from the Italians, but in a south-west direction. We didn't know if the trains or busses would still run - the telephone was working only partially. We packed all night, each member of the family taking two suitcases, what we thought each could carry. I prepared a special trunk with all my scientific papers in it which I wanted to leave in a safe place. For all the rest of my possessions there was no hope. In our haste we left behind many of the most valuable things and took along the most worthless. The next morning I telephoned a colleague, the one with whom I was on closest terms, with the hope that he might keep my scientific work for me. His wife said he was not at home, but I might come over. When I entered my colleague came towards me shouting: "Go away! You damned German émigrés have brought this stupid war on us. You are responsible for the defeat. Get away or I shall smash your face - je vous casserai la gueule!" "I'm sorry for you; you are mad," I said. He would have gone at me if his wife had not restrained him. I went out into the street and by chance caught a bus - the last one going down town. When I got off, a voice called out my name behind me. It was the colleague who had just thrown me out of his house. Now he explained that he had simply been over nervous; he also had just returned from a trip in a crowded district where he had had to sleep on the street all night. He said he would have cried out at anyone. I told him that, as he had not meant it for me, the incident was closed, but I didn't ask him to take the trunk of scientific papers. All this time it was pouring rain. I tried to get the University to take my trunk, but everybody refused to do so out of pure fear. I asked the librarian to accept my whole library as a present, but she said, "This is not the time to accept gifts." In New York terms: the Martians were already in Albany. The banks were closed, also all the big stores, but fortunately I had cash with me. I went to the railroad station, to the bus depot: all trains were gone, no busses were running any more. The sound of gunfire always grew louder. The only way left to get out of the city was by private car. I never had had a car, but I decided to buy one since my son had a driving license. We had always wanted to get a car. Now we were going to have one, and nothing else. It is dangerous to wish for things - your wishes may be fulfilled.

At the first garage I went to, everybody laughed at me. It was almost impossible to buy a car. Moreover, when sold a car must be accompanied by registration papers. This garage had a car, but the papers were lacking. At another garage, there was car with papers, but no petrol. At a third garage, the car had papers and petrol, but it didn't run. At the fourth garage, I found a good car, and telephoned my son to come quickly. By the time he had arrived, the car had been sold to someone else. I had found another one, but by that time I was so confused that at first I could not find the garage where I had seen it. When we did find the place, it wouldn't go. When we came out to the street again, we saw an automobile standing before us. It appealed to me. I asked the garage man if he would sell it, and he agreed to do so, along with 50 litres of petrol. But before he would give it to us, he took it home - "to tell my wife" - he said. Later we found out why he made that extra trip. For the moment the car ran, and we drove it back to the house and loaded it.

During my trip to town my wife had tried to find out whether her mother could be put under the protection of the British consulate, but the consul had left. The American consul didn't know what the regulation would be about such cases. Then my wife bought poison, enough for three, since we didn't want to fall living into the hands of the Nazis. The noise of the guns became always louder. When the neighbours saw us piling our bundles into the shabby car in the rain, their attitude suddenly changed. They had always looked at us with suspicion, thinking that we were fifth columnists. I asked them now to take all left-over food, and the carpets, silver, etc., from the house. This was the final proof that we were sincere; for nobody, unless their life is in real danger, is capable of giving away their property. They became friendly. One even took my trunk of scientific papers, and gave us the address of a cousin's farm in a lonely district. We gave him the keys to the house. Inside we left everything open. The Nazis should not have the trouble of destroying anything in their search. The cat we left in the garden. My last act was to take the oilcloth table cover, which turned out to be helpful in covering the motor of the car. But I forgot my typewriter. The car was overloaded. We had all put on our best clothes, as that was the best way of carrying them with us. Only after we had left did I discover that I had put on my best pair of trousers, but in the confusion had worn them with my very oldest jacket! During all the next weeks that mistake was the thing that bothered me most. I could put behind me the loss of my home, my possessions, my books, our whole security - that was something past to which one had to resign oneself, but I just could not get over the mistake with the jacket. It annoyed me all the time.

We got out of the city by small side roads. The next town we passed was being bombed, and there were irregular troop movements, but we could not see which way the troops were going. When we came to the road which would have led to the home of our neighbour's cousin, we found it was barred. Then the car stuck. It was getting late. We arrived at a peasant's house in the dark, and he agreed to take us in and gave us some straw to sleep on. A group of French soldiers passed and asked us the way to Andance - they had beautiful maps of all parts of Europe except the region they were in. We gave them directions and they went on. Later we found out that they had gone on to one of the few skirmishes in which the French put up a stiff resistance. The night was bad, full of constant noise of bombing and gunfire. The next morning we discovered that we had chosen a house that was right by the anti-aircraft base, and that we were on the edge of a village where we could have found a hotel and a garage.

We did one foolish thing after another all during this period. We spent the morning trying to get the car repaired, and finding some way to buy petrol, which was illegal. As the car was not registered in our name we had no tickets for petrol. When we got going again, we found the road was barred. I told the officer we had to get to Bordeaux - that all the professors of the University had to report there. (Later this turned out to be really the opinion of all the Lyons professors.) The officer let us through. In the next week or so it was always the same. Every night we searched for a place to stay, slept on straw or wooden floors, the next morning tried to buy illegal petrol, tried to get the car repaired, found the road closed, argued with the police to give us permits to pass, went on again. Petrol was very scarce, partly because it was being destroyed to hinder the German advance. When we had left Lyons we had seen the petrol tanks flaming and in other places it was being dumped into rivers. It always rained - I have never seen such an unceasing downpour. Our car had only half a cover - the back seats were open, so that the two people who sat there became very wet and cold. We put a sort of cover over us, but it was not enough. The first time we had put on a flat tyre and started to change it for the spare from the back, we discovered that the owner of the car had put on a spare that didn't fit our wheels. That was why he had gone home with the car.

We never knew just where the Nazis were, although we tried to hear a radio whenever possible. For several days they were always twenty-four hours behind us: we left a place, the next day it was occupied. Our idea was to reach Bordeaux, hoping to get a boat to England. The British passport of my mother-in-law was highly honoured - until the armistice came. It served as a reason for our trip: "The old woman wants to return to her country" - where she had never lived. But we never reached Bordeaux. In the mountains we were held up for two days because of troop movements. We had been wondering if the French troops were moving from South to North, which would mean an advance against the enemy, or from North to South, which would mean flight. Then at last we saw that they all were moving from the North to the South. All around us now were these troops. It was frightful to see the young men, officers in good uniforms, tanks in good repair, plentiful equipment - all in the complete disorder of what officers call a retreat. Very few of the army cars showed bullet marks. The soldiers in general were saying, "We have been betrayed - on nous a trahis et vendus" - but that was more a common phrase usual in any crisis than an expression of actual opinion. More serious was their statement that the officers had left first, leaving the unguided soldiers behind them.

Once, having crossed over into a new département, we had to stop at a little inn. The Gendarmerie Nationale refused to let us pass - "because you are Boches." Yet they knew we were refugees. (The coat-of-arms of the refugee during those days was the mattress laid over the top of the car.) I went to find an official who could give us a pass, and then hunted for a higher official who could sign it. I returned to the inn, and discovered that my family had already passed the border in my absence. The commanding officer had gone to lunch, and the soldiers had said to them, "Well, what are you waiting for?" The sacredness of the luncheon hour was among the decisive reasons for the French defeat.

In the next town we came to a camp that had been set up for refugees, where we left our maid. There was no point in her going on to Bordeaux. We gave her letters which would make it possible for her to go back to our house in Lyons as soon as the immediate danger was over - a time which we thought was very distant. Then from the radio we concluded that we should probably arrive in Bordeaux the same moment as the Nazis, so we turned farther South. If we had only dared to go straight South from Lyons to Marseilles it would have saved us all our troubles, but we didn't know that the Italians would never reach French territory. We heard that the Nazis were advancing in three columns, and were afraid we might be caught between them. All this time, of course, there were still no trains, no mail, telephones only inside a town, telegraph service sometimes inside a département. The rules about moving changed from one town to the next; one never knew what to expect. You had to have a pass to travel about the country now, as the refugees were forbidden to move. The newspapers were saying that there were 11 million refugees in unoccupied France. The greater part of them were French and they still thought the Germans were baby-eaters. As a matter of fact the Germans were not so old-fashioned, but much more polite and efficient. They simply printed paper worth one mark, which was not valid in Germany, and bought everything in France for that, claiming that one mark equalled twenty francs, and thus getting all the merchandise they wanted by creating a French inflation. There was very little plundering or violence. The French government was quite right in forbidding the majority of the refugees to keep moving around the country in a panic. Their attempt to stop the refugee movement was absolutely sound, but it failed entirely. Everywhere with the approach of the German troops, thousands left their homes, desperately hurrying to the South. Most of them had no real reason to flee - we had.

Meanwhile the armistice negotiations were going on. All through the population there was a wave of fresh hope. But the Germans were still advancing. After great difficulties I was allowed to telephone to the American Consulate in Bordeaux about my mother-in-law. Their answer was that there had been no provision made for evacuating British subjects. We asked permission to go to Marseilles to put her under the protection of the American Consulate there. Already the British were not regarded as allies any more. The final signing of the armistice caused an outbreak of the most naive joy everywhere. Peace had returned! Officers were celebrating in the city cafés, drinking champagne. I thought that the time of my flight was over. But it was really just the beginning: the conditions of the armistice included the famous article 19. The French government promised to hand over to the German government all Germans named in a list drawn up by the Nazis. I knew that Hitler always forgets his friends but never forgets his foes. Having been on the first list for expatriation, I was sure to be included in the new list. It was highly doubtful that the Germans would recognise that I was a French citizen or that the French government would be willing or able to protect me.

A much worse period was beginning for us - a period of new danger. Before we had only been fleeing from the Nazi troops. Now we had to flee from the Gestapo. The terms of the armistice had stated that Lyons would be freed from German troops, as it was to be in "unoccupied" France. But the Germans were still there. The whole Atlantic coast of France was occupied by Nazi troops. As no communication with England existed any more, I decided to try to go to the U.S.A., where I had an old invitation to teach at a university. I went to Toulouse, where thousands stood in front of the Spanish and Portuguese consulates, hoping to get a transit visa, and then go on to America from Lisbon. But you could not get a transit visa without a steamship ticket and an American visa. The steamship companies did not accept French money and were not allowed to accept American money. Besides it was illegal to possess dollars. It seemed hopeless. People were sleeping in the streets, the city was so overcrowded. But there I saw a newspaper for the first time for days, and street cars actually running - that made a great impression on me. By now the Nazi army had actually been withdrawn from Lyons, and I was able to get a safe conduct. We started out in the direction of Marseilles, at which we were really aiming. But of course we were stopped, and there was another struggle before they finally let us go to Marseilles.

We stayed in a small place on the outside of the city, I had grown a beard to disguise myself - my fear of death actually grew that beard. There were Gestapo agents in the city. Everything was still in a state of great upset, mails were just beginning to run again, there was real food shortage. Long queues formed before every store, and hardly get milk, butter, fish, or soap.

I went to the American consul and showed him my old university invitation, telling him about the danger from the Gestapo. He asked me to come back in a few days. When I returned, hundreds stood at his door, all claiming to be in immediate danger of death. Since he had no way of checking their statements, he refused all the requests - mine also. He was really in a terribly difficult position. I was faced now by four closed doors: the exit from France, the transit through Spain, the transit through Portugal, and the entrance into the United States. It soon became evident that I had to start with the end: everything depended on admission to America. I wired to friends in the States and settled down to wait.

Since there was no reason for my family's staying in Marseilles, where the atmosphere was terrible, we decided that they should try to go back to Lyons, to break up our home. Again after a two days' struggle they managed to get a permit to travel, and to buy petrol. They approached our home with anxious hearts, found our maid returned, the neighbours friendly, the house unharmed. The cat even met them at the doorstep - a little thinner but well, and ready to pardon our desertion. While my family was in Lyons, I had moved to a small hotel in Marseilles. My daily occupation was to spend five or six hours waiting at the various consulates, in order to state my case to the officials in one or two minutes, and then get no answer. This waiting was much worse for the nerves than the bombing or fleeing had been, when at least you knew what to do, or thought you did. Several times I sent my card to the American consul, to ask whether there was any news, and then went away. I did not like the attitude of some who insisted on seeing the consul even when it was obvious that he could do nothing for them.

Thousands of refugees of all nations gathered in Marseilles as the only available American consulate was there. They came from the different demobilised French armies, the Foreign Legion, companies of prestataires, or from concentration camps. They had left the camps with the tacit consent of the French officers when the Nazi troops arrived. Some had even come through the German lines. Now they were hiding themselves, full of fear of new internments, starvation, or being handed over to the Gestapo. The little hotel where I was living was close by the sea. There was a strange group of us, all refugees, at that hotel. In the corner room was a German couple who had been living in France over seven years. In the next room was a lady novelist of indefinite nationality (like the most of us), next to her an authentic Czechoslovakian, an author. Then came a German satirical writer, and with him a well-known novelist. We also had a labour leader, who had with him a Russian lady he had been trying in vain to marry for thirteen years. In the evenings we sat outside and ate our supper out of sandwich papers and watched the sunsets, while the satirist read to us out of his work, and the novelist read us his latest romance. It was a story in which nearly all the characters were virtuous, didn't occupy themselves with trying to get passports, visas, permits, and there was plenty of food. It was a nice love story, although it had a sad ending. Unfortunately this novelist annoyed us by eating great quantities in the pastry shops while his hungry comrades waited outside. Later the satirical author was sent twice to a French concentration camp; another of the group committed suicide when ordered to a camp for the fourth time; and the labour leader spent two months in one in Spain.

The hotel was quite well supplied with food - we even had coffee with milk in it, only we were not allowed to drink it out on the veranda, lest people might see that we had it. We also got sugar. The hotelkeeper was very friendly to us. He did not report our names to the police, though this was against all regulations. On days when it was forbidden to sell alcohol, he asked us whether we had a toothache and needed medicine. He was strongly opposed to the Nazis, and saw clearly - what was very rare in France - the distinction between them and the German refugees. Every morning I took a bath in the sea - and every evening too. That gave me the necessary strength and incredulity to resist the rumours: the Germans will enter Marseilles; the Germans have occupied the Spanish border; tomorrow a ship will sail from Marseilles to Lisbon; yesterday the ship was captured by the Italians!

A fortnight later I was presenting my card to the American consul as usual, when the receptionist surprised me by asking me to come in. The consul informed me that the American Federation of Labor had written to the State Department asking for a visa for me. (The American Federation of Labor was giving affidavits on the recommendation of the American refugee committees.) So now one door was open. There remained the questions whether I could pass through Spain under my own name, and how I was to get the steamship ticket, the Portuguese transit visa, and the permission to leave France. I hesitated to apply to the French government, since if I drew attention to my presence in the country, they might feel they had to hand me over to the Nazi government. It was a race, I thought, to get all those papers before the Gestapo discovered me. A deposit with a friendly dealer in steamship tickets (who sometimes might have sold real tickets), the U.S. visa, some days of waiting, some precautions which I can not describe at this time - all these helped me to procure my Spanish and Portuguese visas. Then finally I went to the préfecture, and after six hours of waiting succeeded in asking for my French exit permit. At first it was refused - the affidavit of the American Federation of Labor was insufficient, and I had to wire to America for another statement of my university invitation. When this came they granted my request, but the papers had to go to Vichy to be approved. Each visit to the préfecture had taken a day because of the endless queues. The préfecture said they would send on the proofs of my invitation, and give me back my passport in the meantime. I came for the passport the next day - they could not find it! This put me in a bad position, since there were daily check-ups on our papers by the police. After waiting ten days I managed to see a higher official, he investigated, and found the passport. It turned out that all the time they had been looking for it in the wrong bundle. This experience made me feel very optimistic. I thought if the administration was so confused that they didn't know where to look for my passport, it would take the Nazis a long time to find me.

While waiting for the final approval from Vichy I went back to Lyons to see my family again. There I received a summons by telephone to report to a police station quite unknown to me. There were Gestapo agents in the biggest hotels and the Germans held the airfield, although Lyons was supposed to be unoccupied. As telephone calls from the police were unusual the request sounded like a trap. I sent a friend to find out whether it was a genuine order. But this was a perfectly ordinary summons. A law had been passed that those leaving France for England should be expatriated. Some time earlier the German radio had announced from Paris that I had been among some scientists who had fled to England, so officially I was not in France at all. This seemed to explain why the Gestapo had not been making any search for me. The false rumour about my departure for England had reached the ears of the local police. I now explained to the official that I had set out for Bordeaux but had never been able to reach it, and I added that the other professors from Lyons had also tried to report there. So the incident was closed. He had already heard about my present plans for leaving France legally, and approved them. At last a friend of mine in Vichy reported that a favourable reply had been given. I telephoned Marseilles to check with them, and when they too gave their approval, I left Lyons. The trains did not accept any baggage so I had to leave Europe with one suitcase and a rucksack. When I presented myself at the Marseilles préfecture nothing about the approval was known. I protested that they had just assented on the telephone. More waiting. They found the answer, asked me to come back next day, and accepted the regular fifteen cent payment for the exit visa. When I returned I was told that the procedure had been changed - the visa must now be signed by the prefect himself.

The Spanish border was about to be closed. The prefect delayed in signing the exit visa. I got to see his secretary. He decided that the old procedure could be used in my case - the visa would not have to go through the prefect. I went to the office to tell them about this permission. It was now about ten minutes to six in the evening, and all those officials go home at six o'clock. At five minutes to six the passport and the permission from the secretary finally arrived, but they delayed once more because they weren't sure that my payment of fifteen cents had gone through, and they wouldn't accept a second payment which I offered. At six o'clock I had my exit permit at last, and left Marseilles the next morning. I got to the Spanish border, and found that it was really closed. I found quarters for the night and took a bath. The next day the frontier was open. We arrived at the Spanish border post at two and had to undergo a baggage inspection which lasted three hours. Yet I had with me only what I could carry. I had to undress completely - I don't know what they thought they would find. An Eversharp pencil aroused their particular interest. Of course I missed the train for Barcelona. I spent the night at a small hotel, where I found that some Nazi soldiers controlling the frontier were also staying! I read my newspaper and was careful not to talk very much. At five o'clock in the morning I left the frontier. In Barcelona I decided not to stay in any hotel while waiting for the train to Madrid, as I did not want to report my name, so passed the time arranging about my tickets and then went and lay in the sun by the sea. There was a scarcity of food in the city and it was impossible to buy cigarettes.

In Madrid there was another wait, which I spent in the botanical gardens. Then on to Portugal during the night. In the train I had to give up my passport, and when we stopped for six hours at the border I thought they were telephoning the Gestapo in Madrid. But it was only a discussion about money - changing between the different officials who did not agree about their respective shares in the profits. Once over the Portuguese border, I slept twelve hours, ate three times as much as I could stand, and went off to Lisbon. We heard rumours of Nazis crossing Spain, so I took the first ship I could get for America. For ten days I slept on the floor of that boat, for the quarters were terribly crowded. But I was happy. On October 11th I arrived in the United States.

Last Updated September 2025