From 1933 on, the Nazi regime attempted to expel Jews from Germany. After Austria and Czechoslovakia were occupied in 1938/39, Jews there were robbed of their assets and deported to neighboring countries. Emigration from the German sphere of control was possible up to 1941, but very few countries were willing to take in Jews. Favored destinations included neutral countries in Europe, such as Switzerland, various North and South American countries, and the British Mandate of Palestine. Some Jews fled clear across Europe to escape persecution. Often they reached a country of refuge totally destitute. Some countries then turned Jewish refugees away. Some Jews tried several times before managing to flee; many were picked up and later murdered by the Nazis.
Thousands of Jews attempted to escape to Switzerland or via Portugal to the Americas. Important escape routes led over the Pyrenees to Spain and over the Alps to Switzerland. The refugees had to pass through German-controlled areas and to cross national borders without being discovered. People with a good knowledge of the area and the borders played an important role. Helpers procured forged documents and arranged lodgings at waypoints. Human smugglers brought refugees by train and truck to places near the borders. They were not always reliable and frequently demanded large sums of money from the refugees. Near the borders, the local mountain guides took over. They brought those fleeing along secret paths through the mountains and across the border at night. Not everyone succeeded. Some were sent back at the border or handed over to the Germans.
The Jewish aid organization Children and Youth Aliyah organized the escape of more than 130 children from Germany and Austria. The group left for Palestine in April of 1941, reaching Zagreb, in Croatia, by train. From there most of the children were able to continue their journey to Palestine. The remaining 43 had no immigration papers and had to remain in Zagreb, where Jews were also being persecuted. The children were therefore brought to Lesno Brdo in Slovenia in July 1941. When fighting started there between Italian soldiers and Yugoslavian partisans, the children were moved to Italy. They lived in a villa that DELASEM, an Italian Jewish aid organization, had rented. Once Italy was occupied by German troops in September 1943, the children were no longer safe there. Locals hid them until the group finally managed to escape to Switzerland in October 1943.
“The Zagreb–Karlovac–Ljubljana morning train transported us from the yawning emptiness of the Croatian capital. We heaved a sigh. But did we know that we were traveling without passports and without money? We didn’t find that out until a month later, when we were long since in safety. Fifty-six chaverim (friends), fortified with knapsacks, were sitting in the train compartments.”
Leo Koffler in his recollections, Summer 1944
German troops occupied Greece in the spring of 1941. Between the spring of 1943 and the summer of 1944, almost the entire Jewish population was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka extermination camps and murdered there. Very few managed to escape across the Aegean Sea to Turkey and from there to British-controlled Palestine. With the help of Greek resistance groups and the Jewish Agency, partisans from ELAS, the Greek People’s Liberation Army, brought about 1,500 Jews to Turkey, one of the most significant transit countries. From October 1943 to September 1944, small motorboats and sailboats crossed the Mediterranean, each carrying up to sixty people. They set off from the Greek island of Euboea bound for the port of Izmir in Turkey. The boats often flew the swastika flag as a disguise so they wouldn’t be stopped by patrolling German ships. The refugees had to hide during the passage.
On December 12, 1941, the Struma put out to sea from the port of Constanţa, Romania. On board were more than 760 Jewish refugees, most of them from Bukovina and Bessarabia (today Romania, Moldavia, Ukraine). They fled across the Black Sea bound for Palestine, which was under British Mandate. The ship experienced engine trouble and was towed into the port of Istanbul. The Turkish authorities refused to let it land, as the refugees did not have valid visas. Negotiations with the British government for entry into Palestine also failed. On February 23, 1942, the Turkish navy towed the damaged ship back into the Black Sea, where it was hit by a torpedo and sank. Only one man survived; all other passengers died.
Jews also tried to flee the Warsaw Ghetto by streetcar. The trams with non-Jewish passengers drove through the ghetto daily, guarded by Polish police. At some locations the trains moved slower. Eight-year-old Ludwik Brylant jumped onto the moving tram twice, but each time he was caught and beaten. The third time was the charm: in late 1941, Ludwik Brylant again jumped onto the streetcar, and this time a Polish passenger helped him hide. Three stops later he got off and escaped. At first he hid at the home of a non-Jewish friend of his father; he survived the war in a Catholic orphanage.
