Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

244
travelling companion recalled the same journey, but also highlighted how
vulnerable they were:
We went on the boat to England. Anyhow, we got on a train to go to
London, and somebody said: “I help you to change money.” And what did he
do. He took off with my money. He was an Englishman. I said: “You got my
money!” “I got your money.” “Yes, you didn’t give me my money back.” So,
he gave me a couple of shillings, and he said: “Here, I give you some
because you haven’t got any.” I [will] never forget that! In London we were
sent to Hampstead. We were there for a week before we got onto the
boat, the Oronsay. And we were handed over to a couple, Franz and Bianca
Böhm. They were coming here too; he was Jewish, she was a baroness, a
German. They were to keep an eye on us.
You know, I was only fifteen. I turned sixteen in Adelaide. I was very
young……for a girl of this age to go so far away. 132
The relief of being out of Germany was felt even more greatly by Inge-Ruth
Herrmann when she set sail for Australia, as she explained:
Once I was out, across the border, I was singing Hallelujah. But when we
came through the Suez Canal towards us was coming a boat, a German boat,
and I had a big mouth, and I yelled out, I said, I don’t know how it came
about: “Where are you going to?” I then said: “We are rid of your country, we
are going to Australia!” And I said something very rude, I can’t remember
what it was, but somebody said something to me saying I shouldn’t say that. I
said: “What the hell can they do to me? They don’t know who I am!” So they
couldn’t do anything to my parents. I remember that very well……We went
from London to Toulon onto Gibraltar, then we went through the Suez Canal
to Aden; then we went to Colombo, and then to Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne,
Sydney. 133
Both girls disembarked in Adelaide close to the time of Yom Kippur 1938. Inge-
Ruth Herrmann celebrated her sixteenth birthday there on 12 October. Both young
girls only remained in Adelaide for approximately one month before deciding to
settle in Sydney. 134
132
Poppert, op. cit., 9 January 1998.
133
Ibid.
134
The original destination of both girls was, in fact, Sydney. However, owing to the
persuasion of a girlhood friend of Gisela Kent’s, whose family had settled in
Adelaide, they disembarked in Adelaide. This was an unusual occurrence for
unaccompanied immigrants.