50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany (13 page)

Bob did not hesitate for a moment. He assured Gil and Eleanor that he had no reservations about going to Germany. They suggested that he take at least a few days before giving them his decision. But he saw no reason to wait. “I’ve already decided,” he told them. “I want to go if I can get somebody to take over my practice.” He promised to let them know within a day or so. Bob telephoned Gil later that evening to say he had found another doctor to handle his patients during his absence. He had already arranged for his mother to look after his three boys. Gil said he planned to leave for Germany in two weeks. Bob assured him that he would be ready to go.

Over the next two weeks, Gil and Eleanor frantically prepared for Gil’s departure. Gil made sure that his immediate business responsibilities at his law office had been attended to. He also traveled once more to Washington, this time with Bob Schless, to confirm the plans with Messersmith and to obtain Bob’s passport for the trip overseas.

On March 29, Messersmith sent a cable to Geist in Berlin that served as a formal “word of introduction” to Gilbert Kraus and Doctor Robert Schless. “They are sailing, I believe, on April 7 and will go to see you in the matter of bringing over a number of children to this country,” wrote Messersmith. “Both of these men are very first class people and I am sure that you can depend on their reliability. . . . You know, of course, that we are not in any way sponsoring this matter and could not do so. We do believe, however, that these people are reliable, that they want to work entirely within the framework of our immigration laws, and that they are worthy of your sympathetic consideration.”

Eleanor, for her part, worked at a furious pace in order to finalize all of the affidavits. By the first of April, the job was complete. Every piece of paper was neatly organized. Every photostat was in its proper place. Every notary seal appeared exactly where it was required. As she looked at the stack of documents piled neatly on her dining room table, Eleanor took a few moments to revel in her accomplishment. And yet she also felt conflicted now that her part in the rescue plan had come to an end. Ever since she and Gil had returned from Washington, she had felt “a combination of being very disappointed and very relieved about not going to Germany. I would have been scared to death the whole time, and now there was great relief that I did not have to go. Disappointment too—I had to admit to a feeling of disappointment.”

Eleanor also felt more than a little sorry for herself—she suddenly had nothing to do. It was time for a little bit of consolation, she decided. “What does a woman do when she is at her lowest point?” she wrote. “She buys a hat!” Spring was in the air, and Eleanor decided that a new wardrobe was in order. She set out for the millinery department at Bonwit Teller department store on Walnut Street, keeping an eye out for a hat she had recently spotted in one of the window displays. There it was—a “red tweed tricorn with a green bird that looked like a parakeet and a wonderful yellow veil.” Eleanor gasped when she turned the hat over and stared at the price tag. “I had never paid anything like this for a hat in my whole lifetime. Not even my wedding hat approached this staggering figure.” She gently placed the hat back on its perch, only to quickly pick it up and try it on again. “It was the most entrancing, enchanting thing I have ever had on my head.”

Eleanor knew she had to buy that hat. Besides, she rationalized to herself, it was much cheaper than a trip to Europe. “I bought the hat, and out I went with my consolation prize. I shopped the rest of the day for clothes and found a simple, lovely beige topcoat to go with the hat. Weary, but most gratified, I went home with my packages.”

PART TWO

THE RESCUE

CHAPTER 10

There is no possibility of Gil succeeding in the rescue effort. Instead, by going to Germany he would only confirm the impossibility and return a failure
.

—J
ACOB
B
ILLIKOPF

P
HILADELPHIA
–V
IENNA

A
PRIL
1939

T
he dinner service began with a sterling silver dish filled with intensely flavored
caviar de Beluga
. It was followed by a small bowl of spicy
gombo de volaille Creole
, a French version of traditional gumbo Creole. Gil was a man who enjoyed gourmet dining, and the sumptuous surroundings of the Grand Salon—the first-class dining room aboard the RMS
Queen Mary
—provided the ideal atmosphere for the classic French cuisine that he and Bob Schless tucked into on their third night at sea.

After the gumbo had been cleared away by the liveried waiters who moved effortlessly from table to table, out came the two main courses for that evening’s dinner:
delice de sole Veronique
and
poussin en cocotte paysanne
—delicate fillets of sole sautéed with green grapes and heavy cream and a hearty chicken casserole prepared with bacon, white pearl onions, and red wine. Side dishes of
haricots verts nouveaux
and
pommes Garfield
accompanied the main courses along with carefully matched pairings of fine French wines. The meal ended sweetly with crystal bowls of
coupe aux fraises
and rolling carts that featured artfully arranged trays adorned with frosted cakes and fancy pastries. Gil sipped his coffee as the waiters swept away the last of the dishes, looked across the table at Bob, and, for at least another moment, tried to push all thoughts of Nazi Germany out of his mind.

Three days earlier, on the evening of Friday, April 7, Eleanor—sporting her new tricorn hat—made her way down one of the interior hallways that traversed the main deck of the stately
Queen Mary
. She peered into the small windows of the ship’s boutique shops, which offered for sale everything from men’s silk neckties to dazzling diamond necklaces. The ship also boasted two indoor swimming pools, beauty salons, libraries, five bars, a music studio, and a lecture hall. State-of-the-art telephone equipment made it possible for passengers to place ship-to-shore calls anywhere in the world. There were outdoor paddle tennis courts, even a dog kennel. The ship truly was a “magnificent, floating palace,” Eleanor thought to herself. A few minutes earlier, she had walked out of Gil’s snug but handsomely decorated first-class stateroom so that he could finish a conversation with Louis Levine and a few other men from Brith Sholom who had squeezed into the room to discuss last-minute arrangements. Eleanor enjoyed her stroll around the ship, which had filled with passengers and guests like herself who had come aboard to say their farewells before the ship’s evening departure.

Gil soon joined Eleanor on the main deck. She lingered in her husband’s arms, kissing him good-bye and fighting off an unmistakable chill. She did not want to leave, but the time had come for all of the visitors to make their way down the gangplank and back onto the dock. Standing alone on the pier, Eleanor continued to gaze at the ship as it heaved away from its berth and made its way down the Hudson River, toward the harbor. Thinking of her husband and Bob Schless—“these two handsome men who were sailing away”—she removed a handkerchief from her purse. “I shed a few tears very quietly. I prayed for their safe return and then went home by myself.”

Back in Philadelphia, Eleanor received a late-night phone call from Jacob Billikopf, a prominent figure in Philadelphia’s Jewish and business circles. Billikopf for many years had been the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Charities but had stepped down in early 1937 so that he could focus all his attention on efforts to get Jews out of Germany. He spent nearly the next two years as the executive director of the National Coordinating Committee for Aid to Refugees and Emigrants from Germany and continued to be involved in rescue efforts even after leaving that post toward the end of 1938. Gil knew Billikopf quite well through mutual business connections; Billikopf was involved in labor-management matters, some of which overlapped with Gil’s legal work for Albert Greenfield’s company.

Eleanor told Billikopf that Gil was “out of town” and could not be reached anytime soon. Billikopf said he had heard of Gil’s plan to go to Germany as part of an effort to bring a group of children into the United States. Saying that he was calling as “a very close and dear friend” and not in any official capacity, Billikopf told Eleanor that he wanted Gil to be aware of the dangerous conditions in Germany and the grave risks in proceeding with the rescue effort. Eleanor continued to hold her tongue.

But Billikopf had another message that he wanted Eleanor to pass along to Gil. He said there was “no possibility” of bringing groups of children into the United States, and that Gil, in attempting to do so, would only confirm this impossibility and would “return a failure.” Finally, he reminded Eleanor that Gil had an excellent reputation in Philadelphia and that he “should not do anything that would discredit or hurt him in any way.”

Before ending the call, Eleanor promised only that she would pass along Billikopf’s message when she next saw her husband. She hung up without ever letting on that Gil had already left for Germany.

Over the next several days, Eleanor made an effort to resume her normal routine. She visited her sisters. She spent more time with her children. But her thoughts were always with Gil, and she tried as best she could to convince herself—with varying degrees of success—that he would be all right.

Five days after leaving New York, Gil sent Eleanor a cable letting her know that the
Queen Mary
had landed safely in Southampton, England. From there, the adventure began. After crossing the English Channel by ferry, Gil and Bob boarded a train to Amsterdam. Gil went straight to the American Express office, where he set up banking arrangements for his upcoming travels. He also rented a safe-deposit box where he could store important personal papers, minimizing the risk of having them in his possession while inside Nazi Germany. From Amsterdam, Gil wired another telegram to Eleanor letting her know that the two men would be leaving for Berlin.

Upon arriving in the Nazi capital, they checked into the Hotel Adlon, one of the city’s most elegant hotels, which had long been a favorite destination for international celebrities, politicians, and royalty. Kaiser Wilhelm II attended the hotel’s opening in 1907, and over the years the hotel’s guests included Enrico Caruso, Marlene Dietrich, Tsar Nicholas II, and Charlie Chaplin. After Hitler took power, the Adlon continued to serve as one of Berlin’s prime social centers. Its popular bar, located just off the plush lobby, happened to be one of the city’s notorious watering holes for Gestapo agents. The hotel was a short walk from the American embassy, which was housed in the former Blücher Palace, which stood at the edge of the city’s grand Pariser Platz. Under the Nazis, the broad boulevard that led into the plaza had been lined with soaring columns draped with huge red banners that featured the thick black lines of the Nazi
Hakenkreuz
—the swastika—centered in white circles.

Just as George Messersmith had promised, Raymond Geist greeted Gil warmly when he and Bob presented themselves at the embassy. Gil took an immediate liking to Geist and also felt a sense of relief and reassurance upon meeting the embassy’s senior diplomat. Geist was a man of imposing physical stature, with broad shoulders and a thick neck that was accentuated by his close-cropped hair. But he had an easygoing manner about him, along with a reputation for being unflappable. Despite his interest in Gil’s rescue plan, Geist, like Messersmith, still offered no promises that the plan would actually work. He was aware of Gil’s proposal to set aside unused visas for the children but made no guarantees that any such visas would become available.

From the time that Gil and Louis Levine had first discussed the rescue project, Gil always assumed that he would look for the children in Berlin. Even after six years of repression under the Nazis, Berlin’s Jewish community, while diminished in size, still maintained an active organization that was now largely devoted to helping Jews leave Germany. One of Berlin’s Jewish leaders, Julius Seligsohn, had been a well-known lawyer until the Nazis prohibited Jews from practicing law. By 1939, he was serving as the president of the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden—Aid Association of German Jews—which was Berlin’s main Jewish social welfare agency. “Now that I cannot work anymore as an attorney, I am devoting myself entirely to the work on behalf of Jewish emigration,” Seligsohn wrote that year to Cecilia Razovsky. “I hope I will have some success in spite of the enormous difficulties we must face.”
^*

In fact, Seligsohn and other Jewish leaders in Berlin, prodded by Nazi officials, had been remarkably effective in helping tens of thousands of Jews—both individuals and families—find their way out of Germany during the six years that Hitler had been in power. And while there were still plenty of Jews who remained in Berlin by the time Gil arrived in April, Geist knew there was a more pressing need elsewhere for the kind of rescue project that Gil hoped to pull off. He urged Gil to travel directly to Vienna, where conditions for Jews had been deteriorating at an alarming pace since the Anschluss. While he was in Berlin, Gil also met with Seligsohn and other Jewish leaders, all of whom quickly confirmed what Geist had said. Time was quickly running out for Jews in Vienna. That is where Gil should go and find the fifty children.