Dorothy Anker Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Dorothy Anker
Q. Authority,
A. . . . authorities, the Nazis because I had told them that we could
leave the country at such and such a time. It was not quite clear that
we really could because we were still working on it. We did not, have
the asked for affidavit to get into the United States where we had
planned and wanted very much to go. Rut we had a promise fsom a distant
cousin who wanted to help us to get such aa affidavit. And we had first
cousins who had just settled in London, England. And I had talked TO
them and they had promised me that they would at least take Hans out and
keep him for the interim time in England. They could not give the
promise to d l of us because they were just not settled but that's why
we had trled to get tickets to the only possibilities where Jews could
go, one of then was the Isle of Trinidad and the other ane was Shanghai
which was at that time an international city.
Q. It was an international city.
A. Free city. But luckily for us we got the permit for all three of us
to get into England.
Q. Was that unusual for the whole family to be given a permit? It just
depended on your sponsor.
A. No, it wasn't impossible hut because I mean many families were in
England but for us it was a very lucky mistake and we didn't have to
part becaase after this terrible the where he was in prison aad I
stayed with my child at home and we did not know anythiug about the
future, we had promised each other that we would never want to part
again. And when this came, of course, it was for us the moqt pleasant
idea ro get into England which we knew from before and we could never
figure it was so bad, while the other areas were completely unknown.
Q. That's right. And you had people in England, your cousins.
A. We had people, we had cousins in England. We had besides some other
friends in England. And Hans had some family in England, so we figured
somehow we can make it there.
Q. Was there difficulty getting a permit to get out of Germany after
you got your permit to get into England?
England?
Which came first the pemit in
A. First, we have to have the permit for England and with that we could
apply for the passport in Germany.
Q. Did this rake a long time?
A. It dld not take too long a time with us because we were cleared of
not having enough money left in Germany pretty easily, because we were
just young people who didn' t have too much. This took very, vary such
longer in the case of my father. This is why he in the end could not
leave because there were difficulties which were maybe only of technical
appearance. I think he had hls passport before but my mother dldn't
Dorothy Anker Memoir -- Archives, University of Illinois at Springfield