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PARTISAN REVIEW
playing the cello in the Auschwitz orchestra and later in Belsen. Ruth
Kluger, who was younger yet, survived and became a practicing psycholo–
gist in the United States. Inge Deutschkron survived in hiding due to the
poli tical connections of her father who had been an active Social Democrat.
Gad Beck survived in Berlin as a member of the Zionist
halutz ic
under–
ground, supported by the homosexual network. There are at least a dozen
other accounts of young men and women who survived by assuming false
identities, hiding in unlikely places some of the time, and not staying too
long in anyone place. Generally speaking, girls found it easier to hide than
young men simply because the latter attracted more attention: every able–
bodied male was supposed to be in the army. It is also true that, after 1943
when the Allied bomb attacks created havoc in many ci ties, records were
destroyed and the hold of the Gestapo became much weaker.
Next comes the main category of the memoir-writers, the great
majority who left in good time, before the outbreak of the war. Only the
very lucky ones had the good fortune to migrate immediately to their
country of destination. The majority went first to a West European coun–
try (where they were not welcome) and later overseas, or they went to
Latin America and subsequently to the United States (or to Shanghai, and
after the war to America). Many hundreds were deported from Bri tain at
the beginning of the war as enemy aliens to Canada and Australia. Some
returned to Britain, others did not. Lastly, there were those who returned
to Germany after the war, some for ideological reasons-this refers above
all to those who went to East Germany-and others for more pragmatic
ones. They had always regarded their exile as temporary or had not been
happy in their emigration. Those who went to East Germany did not fare
too well because all Western
Emigranten
were suspect in the postwar years;
those who went to Czechoslovakia fared worse because they were arrest–
ed in the anti-Jewish show trials. There are tragi-comic accounts of some
of these unfortunates who seemed to have been in perpetual motion
except when they were in prison.
The prospects of the young immigrants varied enormously from coun–
try to country. Up until 1937 more had gone to Palestine than anywhere
else, but with the publication of the White Book by the mandatory gov–
ernment, immigration was very much reduced. Bri tain showed greater
humanity than virtually any other country after Kristallnacht, admitting
children, domestics, and thousands of others. But once they had arrived in
Victoria or Waterloo Station, their fate was often not the happiest. Many
were sent to small godforsaken places in the provinces and for lack of
opportunity remained there forever after.
All accounts show that older children who stayed in groups did not
have nearly as many difficulties of adjustment as smaller children who went
