Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror

4. Manila Hears about Kristallnacht

✦ 4 Manila Hears about Kristallnacht the tall, jovial man in the fashionable white suit was pacing the promenade deck of the Empress of Japan, the fastest liner in the Pacific, which had left Vancouver, British Columbia, in mid-October 1938.Alex Frieder and his wife,after an absence of almost three years,were aboard the vessel,which was making its way to Manila after a port call in Hong Kong. Philip, Alex’s older brother, had been managing the family business, the Helena Cigar Factory, but more recently he had led the Jewish Refugee Committee in its most visible role—directing the selective immigration of mainly German and Austrian Jewish refugees to the Philippines. Alex Frieder, with his ebullient personality , was impatient to be active again and participate in this venture, in contrast to Philip, who was more reserved. As Frieder passed a small group of people on his promenade deck rounds, he heard them speaking German in hushed tones. Not at all bashful, but deciding to bide his time,Frieder later that day encountered two of the group, Heinz Kutner and his wife, Gerda, when they were alone on deck. Despite some language difficulties, contact was made, and the Frieders asked the dozen Jewish refugees to join them for tea. Besides the Kutner couple, their friends Edith Lange and her fiancé, Dr. Max Pick—all from Beuthen in Upper Silesia—were included. At tea with Alex Frieder and his wife, the conversation turned to employ- Manila Hears about Kristallnacht 35 ment. Corinne Frieder was sure that there would be a job for Edith Lange in her field as a cosmetician and Gerda Kutner would have no problem as a nurse. As for Max Pick, the issue of a practice for doctors was still unsettled, so Alex Frieder just said, “We will see.”1 In a separate conversation with Heinz Kutner,Alex Frieder broached the issue of money. Did the refugees have any, and if so,how much? He was concerned that these people could become an unplanned financial burden. On the other hand if they did have funds, he took the opportunity to solicit money, saying it would aid others who were not as fortunate.But Kutner did not reveal their finances because these twelve people were on their way to a remote place of which they knew very little and had to carefully husband their resources.2 Back in Germany, in another Upper Silesian city, Gleiwitz, just ten miles from Beuthen,Egon Juliusburger was a senior partner in the coal supply firm of S. Chzarnowski. Things were relatively peaceful after the Geneva Agreement of 1922 established a joint administration of Upper Silesia by Germany and Poland and brought protectorate status to the rich coal mining region . By 1928 Juliusburger’s family had grown to four. Besides his wife, Charlotte,there was Ernst and his younger brother,Heinz.Ernst,after his bar mitzvah in 1933,graduated from the local Volksschule and was accepted at the Real Gymnasium in Gleiwitz. But when the protectorate status for Upper Silesia lapsed on July 15, 1937, Egon Juliusburger lost his business, and the seventeen-year-old Ernst Juliusburger was thrown out of school. He remembers it well: “My closest friend, an Aryan, waved to me, saying he was no longer allowed to talk to a Jew.”3 That incident and similar antisemitic experiences made Ernst eager to leave Germany. The elder Juliusburger, however, still insisted that Germany was his country and had been for hundreds of years, and that such roots would withstand the current storm. But soon the constant harassment began to weaken his resolve, and he decided to escape to Shanghai. The possibility of Manila as a destination had also come up,but businessmen , particularly those in the coal trade, were not on the “desired” list for Manila. Juliusburger, however, hoped a way could be found to immigrate to the Philippines, where he, like many other refugees, saw an opportunity to wait for a quota number to eventually enter the United States. More than thirty family members gathered to see the two men off at the railroad station in Gleiwitz as Charlotte Juliusburger accompanied her husband and Ernst on a D-Zug (express), which sped through the night, arriving in Bremen the next morning. After a train ride to Bremerhaven, Char- 36 escape to manila lotte accompanied Egon and Ernst to the dock, where the Scharnhorst, its...