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Episode 1: A Man at Sea
Hanns Loewenbach
Escape became the only option to survive for Hanns Loewenbach and his family, as the Nazis rose to power in Germany and destroyed their lives. In his early twenties, with his future plans suddenly erased, Hanns became a wanted man on the streets of Berlin. His extraordinary story includes a desperate swim to Denmark, unexpected help from an SS officer, and living in the Shanghai Ghetto while enduring the Japanese occupation of China.
Further information on Hanns Loewenbach
In his own words, Hanns Loewenbach had “the bad luck of being born in Germany in 1915.” Even prior to Hitler’s rise to power, Hanns was often the target of antisemitism. He spent his early life in Lübeck, Germany. His father, who owned several department stores, later relocated the family to Berlin, hoping that they would be less conspicuous as Jews.
In 1934, his father was one of the first Jews to be forcibly taken from his home and transported to a concentration camp. Hanns’ young life was filled with one frightening escape after another, and eventually, he fled with both of his parents to Shanghai, one of the few places Jews could seek refuge without a visa.
Mostly stripped of their assets, these stateless refugees lived in cramped, communal housing where running water was not always available. They mingled peacefully in the same area with their Chinese neighbors, who were also very impoverished. In spite of these challenging circumstances, this community of exiled Jews established newspapers, synagogues, businesses, schools, and hospitals.
By the end of WWII, approximately 20,000 people lived within roughly one square mile, which became the Shanghai Ghetto. Curfews were imposed, food rationed, and conditions worsened with the onset of the Japanese occupation of China. Their German allies tried to get the Japanese to implement a plan to wipe out the ghetto, similar to their strategy across Europe, but this was rejected.
Hanns survived with his parents by operating several businesses. He married and later immigrated to the United States. During the last part of his life, Hanns shared his story with thousands of students and community groups.
In this podcast, you will hear Hanns say “evil does not need your help; only your indifference.” His last presentation was two weeks before he died at 96.
Episode Topics
Topics mentioned in this episode or associated with Hanns’ story:
1936 Olympics
Kristallnacht
Dachau
Shanghai Ghetto
For more information on these topics:
yadvashem.org
ushmm.org
echoesandreflections.org
Lesson Plan
- Word: Loewenbach
- Adobe: Loewenbach
Photos
Hanns Loewenbach (far left) in his Shanghai Ghetto millinery shop
Episode 2: The Signal
Ester Wondolwicz Goldman
Esther Wondolowicz Goldman was a young teenager when the Germans invaded her small Polish town. She learned quickly to depend upon herself. Separated from her large, loving family, she survived the Bialystok ghetto, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and a death march to Ravensbrück before being liberated by the Russian Army. Esther and her family remained in Europe for a decade before immigrating to the United States.
Further information on Esther Wondolowicz Goldman
One of ten children in a loving Orthodox Jewish family, Esther Wondolowicz Goldman was a teenager at the beginning of WWII, living in Sokoly, Poland.
The German Army quickly occupied her small town, implementing forced work details, setting fire to Jewish homes, and murdering and arresting as many Jews as possible. Esther found herself alone in the chaos.
First deported to the Bialystok ghetto, she was eventually shipped to the concentration camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Esther’s talent as a seamstress helped to save her life in the camps, where she also worked in a munitions factory.
In early 1944, as the Russian Army was closing in from the east, the Nazis, in an attempt to move concentration camp prisoners closer to Germany and reduce their numbers, forced the already weakened inmates to walk for miles, often in severe weather conditions without food or water. Esther survived a death march to Ravensbrück, where she was liberated.
She returned to Poland and married Charles Goldman, a fellow Holocaust survivor. They moved to France, where their two sons were born. The Goldman family later immigrated to the United States, settling in Norfolk, Virginia.
Esther began telling her story in the early 1960s when it was less common to talk about the Holocaust than it is today. She spoke to hundreds of people before she passed away in 2001.
Episode Topics
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Ravensbrück
Death march
Lesson Plan
- Word: Goldman.docx
- Adobe: Goldman.pdf
Photos
Goldman family enroute to the United States on the SS America celebrating their immigration, 1956.
Prisoners at forced labor digging sewage trenches in subdivision BIII of Birkenau. Photo with permission of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Episode 3: The Weight of Secrets
Kitty Friedenbach Saks
Displaced by their German occupiers from their home in Vienna, six-year-old Kitty Friedenbach Saks and her parents fled Austria and made a daring escape into Belgium. As the Germans advanced across Europe, both Kitty and her parents were forced into hiding, but could not be together. A young child alone, Kitty had to assume a new persona that protected her true Jewish identity as she survived the war as a Catholic orphan.
Further information on Kitty Friedenbach Saks
Kitty Friedenbach Saks was born in 1932 in Vienna, Austria, where she lived with her parents and grandparents.
In March 1938, the German Army marched into Austria and was welcomed with no resistance by the Austrian government. This political union with Germany is referred to as the Anschluss.
Shortly after, as the Nazis began to occupy Vienna, an officer in the Wehrmacht walked into the Friedenbach’s comfortable apartment, liked what he saw, ordered the family to leave, and took their home and all of their possessions. This initiated her family’s plans to cross the border, trying to stay ahead of the Nazis. Sadly, Kitty’s aging grandparents decided to stay behind.
Her father crossed the border first; Kitty and her mother planned to follow once he was safe. After several failed attempts, including armed guards, bribed mercenaries, and a strip search, Kitty, aged 6, and her mother finally reached Belgium and rejoined her father in Brussels.
Belgium soon became just as dangerous as Vienna as the German Army advanced.
At the age of 9, Kitty’s physical education teacher, Fernande Henrard, convinced her parents that in order to survive, she had to be moved to a Catholic orphanage and live as a Catholic child. So began a journey of hiding and moving from convent to convent, from orphanage to orphanage. Although Kitty had a few close calls, she managed to maintain her identity as Rosette Nizolle.
In the early days of September 1944, the British troops entered Belgium liberated the country from the Nazi stronghold. Kitty was reunited with her parents.
She later immigrated to Hampton Roads, where she married Abbot Saks and raised her family. Kitty passed away in 2021.
Episode Topics
Hidden children
Anschluss
Photos
Kitty Friedenbach Saks
Kitty's First Communion
Sisters Marie Victoria, Kitty, and Sister Marie Dominique at Paridaens Convent in Belgium, 1955.
Episode 4: Hidden in Plain Sight
Devorah Gutterman
Hiding in plain sight was sometimes the only option. Devorah Gutterman, with her baby in toe, was faced with the insurmountable question of how to survive as a Jew in Poland in 1942. Devorah moved desperately from place to place with forged Polish identity papers for protection. She and her daughter were dependent on the assistance of individuals in her community to survive, unable to completely trust anyone as she assimilated into her Catholic surroundings.
Further information on Devorah Gutterman
At the outbreak of WWII on September 1, 1939, Devorah Gutterman was married and pregnant with her first child. She had grown up in a loving Orthodox Jewish family in the small village of Wiślica, Poland.
Her husband’s mill was quickly confiscated, and Devorah, her husband, and new baby Sheila were soon living in a ghetto with her parents. In 1942, as the Nazis began liquidating the ghettos, a local farmer hid Devorah’s husband and her parents. Hiding with a baby was too great a risk, forcing Sheila and Devorah to lay low out in the open.
Because of her Aryan appearance and ability to speak Polish without an accent, she was able to get forged identity papers for herself and Sheila. Devorah had to take many chances and could never stay in one location very long. Luckily, her family had a stash of American dollars hidden before the war, which she could access in small amounts.
Desperate, after several dangerous brushes with the authorities, Devorah put Sheila in a Catholic orphanage and could only check on her once a month. Each time she returned, she was never sure if her little girl would still be there. She also found a hiding place for herself from which she came and went at great risk.
Devorah and Sheila managed to survive until the end of the war, while tragically, Devorah’s first husband and her parents did not. She immigrated to the United States, remarried, and had two more daughters and a son with her second husband. Devorah passed away in 2001.
Episode Topics
Black market
Kraków Ghetto
Lesson Plan
- Word: Gutterman.docx
- Adobe: Gutterman.pdf
Photos
View of the gate at the Kraków ghetto. Photo with permission of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Episode 5: The Elsinore Sewing Club
Israel Bornstein
For Israel Bornstein, growing up in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Orthodox rituals of Judaism were a central part of his family’s life. Unlike many in Europe, Danish Jewry lived peacefully shoulder to shoulder with non-Jewish neighbors. In the autumn of 1943, Israel’s fellow Danes helped to save the lives of Israel and his family in a daring escape to Sweden that kept nearly 8,000 Jews out of the hands of their Nazi occupiers.
Further information on Israel Bornstein
Israel Bornstein grew up in a warm Orthodox family with his parents and two siblings. He was in his early 20s, studying to be a rabbi, when the Nazis occupied Denmark in April 1940. Prior to this, Danish Jews were well aware of the Nazi’s brutal treatment of the Jews elsewhere in Europe.
A few years earlier, Israel’s father had turned down a job in Frankfort, which probably saved the lives of his family. Unlike many Europeans at the time, most Danes were not as quick to turn against their Jewish neighbors. Because the Nazis perceived the Danes as fellow Aryans, they allowed the Danish government more autonomy, most notably leaving their legal system and police force alone. This, combined with the Danish government’s refusal to discriminate against Danish Jews, kept the Germans from forcing Jews to register with the state, wear a yellow star, or abdicate their homes.
By 1943, as the war began to turn more in favor of the Allied Forces, labor strikes and acts of sabotage were more frequent, straining the amiable relationship between the Danes and their occupiers. After the Danish government resigned and martial law was declared, German leadership began making plans to round up the Jewish population.
But the plans were leaked after a high-ranking SS commander had second thoughts due to political ramifications. The round-up was planned for October 1, the Jewish New Year, in order to surprise Jewish families as they celebrated. However, few Jews were to be found.
Over the preceding month, a network of resistance workers and sympathizers safely transported approximately 7,200 Jews and 700 of their non-Jewish relatives to neutral Sweden by fishing boat. This highly successful rescue was still very dangerous. The boat Israel and his family packed was almost at water level. Their ride to freedom took only 45 minutes.
Israel later became Rabbi Bornstein after immigrating to the United States to complete his rabbinical studies.
He arrived in Norfolk, Virginia, where he served Congregation B’nai Israel for over 40 years. He later joined his family in Manchester, England, where he passed away in 2001.
Episode Topics
Rescue of the Danish Jews
Lesson Plan
- Word: Bornstein.docx
- Adobe: Bornstein.pdf
Photos
Jews on a rescue boat bound for Sweden. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Frihedsmuseet, Copenhagen.
View of the Danish fishing boat and monitor on the second floor of the permanent exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Episodes 6 & 7:
The List, Part 1 & 2
Anna Duklauer Perl
Having grown up in the resort town of Zakopane, Poland, Anna Duklauer Perl’s comfortable life was quickly upended when the Nazis invaded and remanded her and her family to the Krakow Ghetto. She was eventually sent to the Plaszow concentration camp when a miracle struck, and Anna’s name was added to Oskar Schindler’s list of 1200 Jews who served as slave labor in his factories. The only person in her immediate family to survive the Holocaust, Anna eventually made her way from Poland to Czechoslovakia to Israel and eventually the United States.
Further information on Anna Duklauer Perl
The 1994 film Schindler’s List immortalized the story of how the titular German industrialist saved the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. The film shined a bright light on Anna Duklauer Perl’s story.
In 1939, when the German Army invaded her country, Anna Duklauer, her parents, her sister, and her brother had been living peacefully in the ski resort town of Zakopane in the mountains of Poland. Not long after the start of the war, the Nazis loaded the Duklauers, along with all of the Jews from their town, into trucks and resettled them in the Kraków Ghetto, where all five members of the family lived in one room.
In 1942 Anna, her father and sister were sent to the Plaszow concentration camp, commanded by Amon Goth, a notoriously sadistic Nazi. Anna was only at Plaszow for a few months when her name was added to Schindler’s List; initially, she did not want to leave her family behind. Her sister insisted that she go and save herself.
At the beginning of the war, Oskar Schindler joined the Nazi party and took advantage of the Aryanization of business and society, acquiring several factories in Poland that Jews had previously owned. Like many, he was looking for the quick profits that war often creates and seemed to have little interest in humanitarianism.
The most famous of these factories was the Emalia in Kraków, which manufactured enamelware. Most of the workers were slave laborers from the Kraków Ghetto. In 1943, the ghetto was liquidated, and he allowed his workers to spend the night in the factory. These prisoners now lived at the Plaszow concentration camp.
Conditions were even more deplorable than they had been in the ghetto, and Schindler began to intervene on his Jewish workers' behalf. Schindler managed to save approximately 1,200 Jews by the end of the war.
Because of Oskar Schindler, Anna Duklauer Perl was the only member of her immediate family to survive. She returned to Czechoslovakia after the war, where she married Jano Perl. They had three children and first immigrated to Israel and later to the United States, where they settled in Norfolk, Virginia.
Episode Topics
Kraków Ghetto
Oskar Schindler
Aryanization
Amon Goth
Photos
Anna Duklauer (far right) with her parents and siblings before the war.
Anna Duklauer Perl with Oskar Schindler and fellow members of Schindler's list after the war.
Page one of Schindler's list, including Anna Duklauer at #34, courtesy of Yad Vashem.
Episode 8: This is Our Johnny
Jan Frolich
Betrayed by a Catholic priest in his hometown of Pisek, Czechoslovakia, 13-year-old Jan Frolich and his four younger siblings were suddenly imprisoned by the Gestapo in Prague. His gruesome ordeal continued as he boarded a train all alone bound for Theresienstadt and later Auschwitz. After miraculously surviving these camps, he immigrated to Israel and fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Further information on Jan Frolich
Jan Frolich grew up in Pisek, Czechoslovakia, the son of a Catholic mother and a Jewish father.
As the threat of deportation against Czech Jews grew, Jan’s mother refused to divorce his father. Desperate to save her five children, she sent them to her priest, and begged him to convert them to Catholicism. Instead, he turned them in to the authorities, who swiftly transported 13-year-old Jan and his younger siblings to Gestapo headquarters in Prague, an hour and a half away.
During their overnight stay in the jail, Jan bravely tried to keep up their morale. This was especially important for his youngest sister, who was only 3. The next day they boarded a train to Theresienstadt, a transit camp and ghetto which was used as an important Nazi propaganda tool. Despite cramped living conditions, hunger, and forced labor, Theresienstadt had a rich array of educational and cultural activities.
In 1944, the Nazis hosted a visit of the International Red Cross to show the world how well they were treating their prisoners. Gardens were planted, houses painted, and barracks were renovated, while special cultural performances rehearsed for weeks in preparation for the visiting aid workers. The ruse worked, and as soon as the visit was over, the camp returned to its previous condition and purpose as a transit stop for enemies of the Nazis headed east to death and concentration camps.
Three years after arriving at Theresienstadt, Jan, at the age of 16, was on one of the many transports bound for Auschwitz. In spite of even more brutal conditions there, Jan survived and was liberated in 1945. Following his recuperation in Prague, he moved to Haifa in what was then Palestine. He became a paratrooper, fighting for Israel in the 1948 Israeli-Arab war. He later immigrated to the United States and passed away in 1999 in Norfolk, Virginia.
Episode Topics
Theresienstadt
Auschwitz
1948 Israeli-Arab war
Lesson Plan
- Word: Levine.docx
- Adobe: Levine.pdf
Photos
Jan Frohlich as a young man in Israel.
Jan Frolich transport document to Auschwitz, courtesy of Archives, Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic.
Jan Frohlich kneeling at left with Israeli soldiers during the late 1940s.
Episode 9: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Janine May Levine
In 1942 as a young bride living in Paris, Janine May Levine refused to wear the mandatory yellow star ordered by the Nazis. Shedding her Jewish identity, she was able to find employment as a bookkeeper with a business secretly working against the Nazis. Her employer, who worked with the resistance, also had something to hide, and she assisted him with his mission to pass information to the Allies until she was nearly arrested
Further information on Janine May Levine
Janine May Levine grew up in St. Etienne in the east-central part of France. By 1940, the Nazis occupied the northern half of France, and the collaborationist Vichy government ran the southern part of the country.
Janine was 20 when she and her husband moved to Paris; soon after they settled into their apartment, there was a sweep of Jewish men. The police arrested her husband, and she never saw him again.
Janine defiantly refused to wear the mandated Jewish star to readily identify her as a Jew, risking instant arrest if she were caught. Because of her hidden identity, she secured a job as a bookkeeper, and Janine quickly discovered that her boss worked for the resistance, passing important information to the Allies on his frequent business trips to Switzerland. Janine prepared these notes by writing in invisible ink.
After nearly being caught by the Gestapo, it was not safe for Janine to stay in Paris. Following a treacherous flight to Vichy, France, she felt safer. Two days after arriving, the Vichy territory fell under tight German control. Janine continued to elude the Nazis and survived until the liberation by the Allies in 1944.
After the war, she worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Army, married an American soldier, and eventually settled in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She passed away in 2003.
Episode Topics
French resistance
Vichy France
Swiss Neutrality in WWII
Lesson Plan
- Word: Levine.docx
- Adobe: Levine.pdf
Photos
Hermann Goering speaks with Pierre Laval, the head of the Vichy regime, during an official visit. Photo with permission of the United States Holocaust Museum.
Janine May Levine's family home in St. Etienne, Loire.
Episode 10: Ave Maria
Louiza Halfon Weintraub
The Nazi's quest to dominate Europe reached Greece in 1941. After many months of hiding in one place after another, Louiza Halfon Weintraub’s mother placed Louiza and her older sister, Liana, in a Catholic orphanage. The danger of discovery was constant, ultimately tested one Christmas Eve when Liana was selected to perform Ave Maria for an audience of Nazi officers.
Further information on Louiza Halfon Weintraub
Louiza Halfon Weintraub was a small child when the German Army invaded Greece in 1941. Before the war, she lived happily in Salonika with her father, Leon, a Greek Jew, Henriette, her French Catholic mother, and her older sister, Liana.
Beginning in 1942, Leon would be picked up periodically by the Gestapo because he was Jewish and later released by authorities without explanation. Living with the constant stress of arrest, her family moved constantly, hoping that the German authorities would lose track of them.
As conditions for Greek Jews deteriorated, a good friend of the family offered to hide the Halfons in his basement. After a year in hiding, afraid that he was endangering his family, Leon fled to Albania. Henriette continued to fear that her half-Jewish daughters were in peril and placed them in a Catholic orphanage. Unfortunately, it was next to the Gestapo headquarters. During their time in the orphanage, Liana, who had a beautiful singing voice, was selected to sing Ave Maria for the Christmas Eve service. Accompanying her on piano and violin were two Nazi soldiers in front of an audience teeming with Nazis. As luck would have it, Liana performed without anyone discovering her true identity.
Louiza’s father returned at the end of 1944. The family reunited in the basement of their friend in an attempt to stay hidden through the end of the war. The family was quickly discovered, but Leon’s automotive skills saved their lives.
The Halfons immigrated to the United States in the mid-1950s, where Louiza met her husband, Aron Weintraub. They lived in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and had two sons. Louiza passed away in 2020.
Episode Topics
Greece and the Holocaust
Lesson Plan
- Word: Weintraub.docx
- Adobe: Weintraub.pdf
Photos
Louiza (age two) with her parents Henrietta and Leon, and her sister Leona (age five) in 1938.
German troops man an observation post overlooking Salonika Harbor. Photo with permission of the United States Holocaust Museum.
Episode 11: Take the Gun
Sam Althaus
As Sam Althaus struggled to survive in Auschwitz-Birkenau and later in Dachau, there wasn’t a day when he didn’t suffer from relentless hunger. By providing starvation rations coupled with backbreaking labor, the Nazis intentionally worked millions of prisoners to death. Forced to subsist on a daily ration of minuscule amounts of substandard food, Sam’s story reveals that even though he endured unimaginable hunger, he did not lose his compassion when it seemed as if everyone else around him had. After the Holocaust, food and feeding others were a central part of Sam’s life. He and his cousin Irving (also a survivor) served the families of Newport News for decades at Althaus Delicatessen.
Further information on Sam Althaus
Samuel Althaus was born in Ciechanow, Poland, in 1924. After the Nazi occupation, he and his family were deported to Auschwitz in 1942. There, most of his family perished, leaving Sam to survive on his own. He was later transferred to Dachau, where he was assigned to an industrial labor unit alongside a friend.
Starved and emaciated, the two knew they had to find food to survive. Near the building where they worked stood a doghouse belonging to a large German Shepherd that was fed daily. Realizing this might be their only chance, they devised a plan to take what they could. Though it was only scraps meant for the dog, Sam later recalled that in that moment, “it tasted like a gourmet meal.”
After liberation, Sam immigrated to the United States in 1949 with his brother Simon. He later wrote a memoir titled Where Is G-d, dedicating it to his parents, five siblings, and others from Ciechanow who were murdered during the Holocaust. Alongside his cousin Irving, Sam owned and operated Althaus Delicatessen & Caterers for 46 years, becoming a beloved part of the Newport News community.
Sam Althaus passed away in 2009 in Newport News, Virginia, survived by his wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
Episode Topics
Auschwitz
Starvation
Survival
Lesson Plan
Photos
The ovens in the crematorium at Dachau
Althaus Delicatessen & Caterers advertisement
Episode 11: One Man, Two wars. A Complicated Fight for Freedom
Reverand William Hilton
Reverend William Hilton grew up in modest means in the Jim Crow south. Racism followed Willie even after he enlisted as a soldier in the segregated United States Army. As a member of the all black 184th engineers, he and his unit built bridges and cleared minefields. They were eventually attached to General George Patton’s 3rd Army as part of the Allied invasion of Europe. A pivotal part of his tour in Europe was serving as a concentration camp liberator, an experience that strengthened his resolve to fight even harder in a war that, for Black American GIs, was waged both against the enemy abroad and against segregation at home.
Further information on William Hilton
William (Willie) Hilton was born in Manning, South Carolina, on July 15, 1923, to a family of poor sharecroppers. At 15, he headed to Norfolk, Virginia in hopes for a better life. Willie enlisted in 1942, and the following year he was sent to Europe with the 184th Battalion of
Combat Engineers. Under the leadership of Major M. Killin, the all-Black battalion was in France building bridges and clearing minefields so Allied soldiers could advance. From France, the unit traveled to Luxembourg and Germany.
As the 184th moved deeper into Germany, they came upon what Willie described as a “barbed wired place.” He described the people within the camp as “covered with lice and sores and had no human look. They had been burned. They were starving to death.” He and the other members of the unit learned they were Jews, innocent of any crimes, though sent there to be killed. The unit encountered horrific sights while in the camp, including “human heads in jars and skeletons in ovens.”
Witnessing the horrors of the Holocaust was only part of Willie’s experience; at the same time, he was fighting his own battle as Black soldiers faced unfair treatment within the U.S. military. Although he performed the same duties as other soldiers, segregation remained. After enduring both the aftermath of the Holocaust and the burden of segregation, Willie received an honorable discharge from the Army and returned home to begin a new life.
In that new chapter, William J. Hilton became Bishop William J. Hilton at Friendship Baptist Church in Newport News, where he served as a founding pastor. In 1994, he and other Black soldiers dedicated a special gallery, Marching Towards Freedom, at the War Museum of Virginia in Newport News. Bishop William J. Hilton passed away in 2009.
Episode Topics
184th
Battalion
Concentration Camps
Troop Segregation
Lesson Plan
Photos
American troops view corpses stacked behind the crematorium
Soldiers exiting a military base
Episodes 13+14: Voyage of the SS Quanza, Part 1+2
Reporters and lawyers interview passengers
SS Quanza
In 1940, as WWII raged, the SS Quanza was the last chance of survival for most of its passengers, who had risked everything for a berth on the ship. They faced certain death in Europe if they could not disembark in Norfolk, Virginia. This is a David and Goliath story of how in less than a week, a small group of concerned citizens rallied to push The State Department to allow 81 refugees to land in the United States. The State Department, Eleanor Roosevelt, a clever court case, and dozens of local volunteers in the Jewish community all played a part in this story. This little-known piece of Hampton Roads history is bittersweet. The state department imposed even tighter restrictions in the United States’ already severely limited refuge and immigration policy following the outcome of the SS Quanza.
Further Information on the SS Quanza
On August 9, 1940, the SS Quanza departed Lisbon carrying approximately 317 European war refugees. Among them were intellectuals, prominent artists, and civic leaders. Of the passengers, 196 held either regular or “acceptable” U.S. permits and were allowed to disembark in New York on August 19.
The Quanza then continued toward Veracruz, Mexico, but upon arrival, Mexican authorities denied entry to most of the remaining refugees, amid growing antisemitism and a refusal to accept them. Turned away, the ship sailed to Hampton Roads to take on coal before its planned return to Lisbon. There, Captain Alberto Harberts faced a detention order and a substantial fine of $100,000 against the vessel.
Initially, Theodore Roosevelt maintained a hands-off approach toward the Quanza, seeking to avoid provoking isolationist and anti-immigration sentiment. However, after legal proceedings, the U.S. District Court reduced the bond required for the ship’s release to $5,000. The case delayed the vessel’s departure, which proved critical as it gave the remaining passengers time to pursue their freedom.
Professor Patrick Murphy Malin, a volunteer with the President’s Advisory Committee for Political Refugees (PACPR), met in Washington with Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Malin then returned to Norfolk and informed immigration officials that the remaining 81 passengers had valid documentation.
By September 14, the situation had become a major news event in the Hampton Roads community. Because of the ongoing war and the danger of returning to Nazi-occupied Europe, the remaining passengers were permitted to stay in the United States. They were free.
Episode Topics
SS Quanza
“Hands Off” Policy
Hampton Roads
Lesson Plans
Word: Quanza Lesson Plan.docx
Adobe: Quanza Lesson Plan.pdf
Photos
Community members speak to the Quanza passengers
Quanza passengers look out a porthole
Episode 15: Ashes of War, Embers of Hope
Ted Finder
Ted Finder was a young man working as an apprentice in a fur store in Vienna when the Nazis annexed Austria in March 1938. Arrested, beaten, and tortured, he ultimately managed a daring escape and, on the eve of World War II, made his way to the United States. Drafted into the U.S. Army, he landed in Normandy on D-Day, fighting bravely until he sustained life-threatening injuries and was captured by German forces, before eventually being rescued. He later settled in Hampton Roads with his family, always downplaying the many medals he received for bravery, insisting simply, “Others suffered more...”
Further Information on Ted Finder
Ted Finder was born into an Orthodox family in Vienna, Austria. In March 1938, as the Nazis invaded, 18-year-old Ted was arrested by SS members and forced into a car. He was imprisoned in a villa, where he was beaten and tortured, before finding his chance to escape through a hole in the fence. With the help of an aunt, Ted and his sister made their way to New York in July 1938.
Once in the United States, Ted spent two years working a series of odd jobs before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941. He served in several roles, including acting corporal and drill sergeant, and his fluency in German proved invaluable. On the front lines, he fought directly against German forces, was seriously wounded, and mistaken for one of their own, was taken in by German soldiers before ultimately being rescued. He was later transported by a British ship to Boston, where he met and fell in love with one of his nurses, Bessie Silver, a second lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps. They married in 1945 and went on to have three children.
Ted’s father survived Buchenwald but passed away shortly after liberation; his mother was killed in the concentration camps. After the war, Ted became a furrier and helped his mother-in-law open Finder’s Fine Furs in New Jersey. He later moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where he and Bessie became active members of the Jewish community. Ted passed away in 2000, survived by his wife and their three children.
Episode Topics
Refugees
World War II
United State Army
Lesson Plan
Photos
Ted Finder in the US Army
Ted Finder's military medals