Palavras lidas #239

"How easy it would be," wrote Denis de Rougemnont about the refugee journeys through France and Spain, "to close off, at any point anywhere, this slender artery through which our old world is being little by little emptied of its elite at the same time as of its parasites." The Nazis, he went on to speculate, were keepign the artery open precisely to rid Europe of its unwanted population of "ex-ministers, ex-directors, ex-Austrians, ex-millionaires, ex-princes" who were, fittingly, leaving Lisbon on American ships bearing names beginning with Ex [for American EXport Lines]: Exeter, Excalibur, Excambion. By whim or policy, the Third Reich could at any instant pinch shut the tube of escape, leaving Europe at the mercy of its new master. (p. 32)

_____

To refugees who climbed to the fourth floor of the Hôtel Splendide, the presence in Marseille of the concerned American with a mission to save them and the money to do so seemed scarcely a believable gift. Hans Sahl, a German writer on the ERC [Emergency Rescue Committee] list, recalled (in the form of an autobiographical novel) the strong emotion of their first meeting in Fry's room.

Imagine the situation: the borders closed; you're caught in a trap, might be arrested again at any moment; life is as good as over---and suddenly a young American in shirt sleeves is stuffing your pocket full of money, putting his arm around your shoulders and whispering in a poor imitation of a conspirator's manner: "Oh, there are ways to get you out of here," while damn it all, the tears were streaming down my face, actual tears, big, round, and wet; and that pleasant fellow, a Harvard man incidentally, takes a silk handkerchief from his jacket and says: "Here, have this. Sorry it isn't cleaner." (p. 59)

_______

After weeks of waiting in Lisbon, the Manns and Werfels finally departed for New York on the Greek ship Nea Hellas. The leave-taking, as Heinrich Mann recorded it, was tinged with a sense of loss: "The view towards Lisbon presented the harbour---the last image as Europe faded. It seemed indescribably beautiful. A lost lover is not more beautiful. Everything life had given us had come from this continent . . . it was a parting of exceeding sadness." (p. 63)
______

After learning that bad weather was holding up Atlantic flights, Shirer tried the shipping office of American Export Lines, finding it

jammed with a mob of refugees---jittery, desperate, tragic victims of Hitler's fury---begging for a place---any place---on the next ship. But as one of the company officials explained to me, there are three thousand of them in Lisbon and the boats only carry one hundred and fifty passengers and there is only one boat a week. He promised me a place on the Excambion, sailing next Friday the 13th, though it may only be a mattress in the writing room.

The date was ominous but Shirer was anxious to move on. Aboard ship he joined a group of other American correspondents gathered in LIsbon---among them, James Reston of the New York Times and Whitelaw Reid of the New York Herald Tribune---and as it slid down the Tagus to the ocean he was entranced by a full moon above and "all the million lights of Lisbon and more across the broad river on the hills." Like others, though, who marveled at the wartime show of light, he questioned how long it could continue.

Beyond Lisbon over almost all of Europe lights were out. This little fringe on the southwest corner of the Continent kept them burning. Civilization, such as it was, had not yet been stamped out here by a Nazi boot. But next week? The month after? Would not Hitler's hordes take this too and extinguish the last lights? (p. 78)

______

His critically praised book about the experience, I Saw England, had ended with Robertson flying from England to Portugal, where he had booked a ship passage aboard the Exeter for America.

Here in Lisbon [he wrote in the book's closing paragraph] we had lights and butter and sugar. And in Lisbon we realized how little such things meant to us. In Lisbon we turned our thoughts back to the country that was fighting in darkness---to a great generation of British people who . . . had learned through suffering. They had learned, and I too had learned, by being with them through those months. In the depth of the English blackout I had seen the stars. (p. 92)

______

We never realized how miserable we had been in warring Italy, before as well as during internment, until we arrived in Lisbon, where the gaiety, plenty and brilliant lights made the somberness of blacked-out, half-starved Europe we had left seem all the more dismal by comparison.

---Reynolds and Eleanor Packard, Balcony Empire (p. 95)