Memoir of
a Stateless Person: Helmut Hassmann
About 25 years ago, when
“citizenship studies” was just beginning as an academic discipline, a colleague
from the University of Toronto asked me if I knew that there were people in the
world who were stateless. I replied that I did, as my father had been stateless
for over 30 years. Now I have just co-edited a book with my colleague at
Wilfrid Laurier University, Margaret Walton-Roberts, called The Human Right to Citizenship: A Slippery
Concept; it will be published soon by University of Pennsylvania Press. There’s
a section on statelessness in it.
Most people who study
statelessness refer to Hannah Arendt’s discussion of it in her book, The Origins of Totalitarianism (pages
276-281). Arendt herself was a German Jew rendered stateless by the Nazis, and
German Jews were one of the groups she was referring to in her discussion.
My father was a “half-Jew”
from Germany, but he had been stateless all his life, for reasons that he
reveals below. This is a short memoir
that he either wrote or dictated after he arrived in Switzerland in early
1939. It describes the odyssey of one
stateless man seeking refuge from the Nazis.
I used this memoir in my introduction to The Human Right to Citizenship because of its poignant plea for
human rights, a plea I discovered only some years after my father’s death,
despite my own lifetime of writing about human rights. My father wrote “you’re so utterly powerless,
so impotent… What ever happened to human rights? Is there such a thing anymore?
Is it not a mockery of all humanity, when, today, millions are forced to wander
about aimlessly, at the behest of a megalomaniacal criminal!? [Hitler] When
every country spits them out again like outcasts....”
In my last blog, ( https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6700283514603333187#allposts),
posted October 3, 2014, I wrote about our life in Canada after we arrived here from
Britain in 1951. My father arrived in Britain two weeks before World War II,
thanks to the assistance of the Swiss Quaker (Sister Annie Pfugler) who took
him in when he arrived in Zurich, and some English Quakers named Backhouse. In
1940 the British interned him as an enemy alien for six months on the Isle of
Mann, and then sent him to Canada for another year or so of internment. (You
can read about the internment in Canada of Jewish and non-Jewish refugees from
Axis countries in Eric Koch, Deemed
Suspect, Toronto, Methuen, 1980). Then my father returned to Britain and
joined the British army, married my mother, and became a British citizen in
1947. He held on to his British passport
the rest of his life, even when he became Canadian.
Here is the memoir. Note my father had absorbed
the Nazi racist term “Aryan.”
Michael Howard (born Helmut Hassmann):
account of his escape
from Germany, apparently written or transcribed in Switzerland, 1939
Translated by Dr.
Mathias Guenther, February 2009
“I was born in 1913, son to a family physician.
My father succumbed to pneumonia in 1918, which he had contracted on the battle
field. He was Jewish; my mother is Aryan.
I spent four years at primary school and the
following six years I attended secondary school [Gymnasium]. In 1930 I matriculated, having placed first among the
graduating students. I left school in order to begin an apprenticeship at an
oil manufacturing firm in Leipzig. After a two-year training period the last
half -year was credited to me and I was appointed by the same firm to the post
of Spanish correspondent. I was dismissed from my position in 1933, due to the
upheavals that had in the meanwhile broken out in Germany. However, shortly
thereafter I was able to obtain a position at the Leipzig sales office of I. G. paints industry, which was still
politically unconnected at the time. I worked there for five years, as a
technical sales correspondent.
However, the Nazi industrial cell [? Betriebszelle?] had in the meanwhile
gathered information about myself and found out that I am of non-Aryan descent,
something my well-intentioned boss had not revealed. This, around 1936, was the beginning of the
action against myself, which, between 1937 and 1938, had come to such a point
that I decided “voluntarily” to quit my position. All the more so, as my employers were in
absolutely no position to offer me protection, as they would then be in danger
of themselves being politically suspect.
Being stateless–my grandfather was Russian, as
was my father, even though his country of birth was Germany–I was unable to
obtain any residence or work permit abroad. I thus went to Italy, as a visitor,
in order to seek to obtain a residence permit in that country for a protracted
length of time. However, on October 4th, 1938, I was verbally
informed by the vice-prefect of Milan that, unless I had departed Italy by
October 9th, I would be escorted to the German border by two
carabinieri. I then spent another two
months in Italy illegally and during that time I sought to obtain immigration
permits from all of the consulates. However, because of my stateless status the
answer everywhere was negative; alternatively, the landing fees in the states
overseas were so steep as to be unaffordable. At that time I had about 1000
lire, which evaporated throughout my subsequent wanderings. After some
well-meant advice from elderly Italian friends, and unable to find any lodging
in Milan because of my illegal status, on December 8th I left for
Yugoslavia. After walking for eight hours I got to the Yugoslav border, in a
heavy snow squall. There I was picked up; however, I was treated with great
kindness and was passed along, from one place to another, over a distance of
about 12 kilometres. Throughout I was accompanied by a soldier, carrying a
loaded and cocked rifle. This pleasant
company was to stay at my side until February 12th. At the fifth
station I eventually was made to stay, for two days. While I was not locked up
and was fed very well, I was not allowed to take one step into the open
air. The next thing I was told: back to
Italy! Back we went for five hours, in
silence, beside the soldier with rifle and mounted bayonet. All this because I
am stateless. Fortunately my guide had the day previous received three Veramon-powders [a painkiller?] from me,
[end of page 1] for his intense
tooth ache. He thus stopped right at the border and said: “ Fujine -
frontiera-Italia-Rakek.”, that is to say, “Run back to Italy and then take the
train back again to Rakek” (Yugoslavia).
I thus walked for about 100 metres in a straight direction and then
turned around again right back to Yugoslavia, skirting the customs building. I
then hiked for five hours, up the highest heights of the Yugoslavian frontier
mountains, heading inland. Snow had freshly fallen and was about 60 cm high; I
wore dress shoes and got one foot bath after another. I couldn’t walk along any
roads as I had a hellish fear of being nabbed once again. However, even the
strongest will fails in the face of exhaustion and excessive exertion and in the
end I was so spent that I just didn’t care about anything anymore. In order to
avoid drawing attention to myself I had already sacrificed my small suitcase
and briefcase containing much nice underwear and I now walked straight into the
next larger village, along the middle of the main road. A policeman who walked
my way didn’t glance at me once, for which I was very grateful to him. To my
dismay the train station to which I wanted to go was in exactly the opposite
direction that I had walked. I thus had to walk back 12 kilometres; I was very
dejected and my legs failed me.
Coincidentally, a peasant with horse and wagon appears behind me just at
that moment, who understands a bit of Italian. I ask him if he would take me
along. Yes, with pleasure; I climb up the box beside him, shivering and cold.
We drive for about 20 minutes when I notice with a start that we are heading
straight for the customs house, from which I had been sent off this morning.
.... I promise my peasant 50 dinar if he can get me by the place without being
detected. He is unflappable: “We’ll get by alright.” And he is right! Nobody
come from the building, no guard comes our way. I heave a sigh of relief. We
finally get to the stop from which the bus is supposed to take me to the next
larger village or town with a train connection. However, the bus won’t arrive
for another two hours. Eventually I am taken by bus to S. At every stop in
between five policemen–however, everything is in order. By train I drive to
Maribor, where a friend of an Italian acquaintance of mine, a Slovene, would be
setting things in order for me.
Unfortunately, he was too much of a coward to do even the barest minimum
for me.
After 2 days I drive to Belgrade. I was to rue
my notion that I might be able to go underground more easily in this large
city. I was seized after no more than five days of freedom. “So, you emigrated
without a visa! What are you doing here anyway?” “My passport has been taken
from me.” “Unless you take a ticket to the border and are away from here by 5
‘o’clock you will be arrested.” In the course of my search for a room in
Belgrade I had met a Russian woman, who had fled Russia back at the time of the
Russian revolution. She showed much sympathy for my situation. “Well, you state
that you have no money to drive back; the least the state can do is pay for
your return journey”, was her opinion. I go back to the office and inform the
bureaucrat working there, a most unlikable person with a malicious expression.
A lengthy report is taken, where are you from? Why? Aha, half-Jew etc. “Well, for the time being you’ll have to stay
here, for a couple of days. Of course, you will get room and board.” The room
was—a prison cell, 1.5 x 3 m. The board
consisted of water and a kg. of bread per day. Christmas passed, and then the
new year; early at 7 o’clock a walk, always in a circle, a horde of ragged,
coarse guards, who were generous with their face slapping and kicking. Reading
forbidden, newspapers forbidden. I didn’t understand any Serbian. The light was
kept on all night long, there were no mattresses for sleeping but only the hard
wooden floor, for 4 weeks. For no other
reason but because you are stateless and do not have any right to live and work
anywhere, because you are “non-Aryan” and regarded as a second-class human
being. The only admirable thing was companionship. Nowhere is there better
companionship than in prison. There were men there, genuine men, who wasted
away in prison for their convictions and who were tortured. Yes, tortured! Hit
on the soles of their bare feet, with ox reams braided with wire, 50, 100 times
or more! I saw a man, 55 years of age, who had been denounced as Macedonian: at
5 o’clock in the evening he was summoned for “questioning”; he returned at 8
o’clock, led by two policemen, as he was no longer able to walk on his own. He
had to endure the caning of the soles of his feet on the grounds merely of a
suspicion: to watch all of this was worse than anything else... I had stomach
cramps for 3 days; you could relieve yourself only during the walking hours.
Otherwise there was a bucket; no one, of course, wanted to use it, in
consideration of his comrades. Later on we shared one large room with 15
political prisoners. I had been brought in on December 17th; at
midnight on January 14th a gendarme took me to the Italian border.
The darkness was pitch black and rain was streaming down. Suddenly, a
flashlight flares. “Alti le mani!”
(Hands up!) I look into the barrel of a revolver and am in the hands of
the Italians.
At times the border guards can be simply
touching. I immediately started to speak Italian, was given a glass of wine, a
cup of espresso, and was allowed before anything else to lie down for a sleep.
After lying down for perhaps 15 minutes, I notice how the Italian, the same one
who had confronted me with his revolver, placed a warm fur coat over my thin
blanket. However, my luck was to last for only one day; the day following I
found myself in Abbazzia, a nice resort town, in prison. No sign anywhere of the ocean, of course, as
where I lie, together with three others, is in a cellar. I was unable to sleep
a wink, because of fleas and bed bugs. My bed consists of a straw mattress and
old sacks, too torn even to be used to carry coals. My arms and legs are
completely covered with bites, literally, blister upon blister. It is a
horrendous torment. I sleep in my clothing, winter coat, gloves, partly because
of the cold–there is no stove–partly so as not to scratch myself like mad all
the time. Four weeks imprisonment in
Abbrazzia. At 7:30 in the evening the light is turned off, which is worse than
elsewhere, when it was kept lit. You’re already fully done sleeping at midnight
and the hours drag on without end. Come dawn, it gets worse again, in another
way: the bare “white” walls, up which crawl the bed bugs; this iron bedstead
with its linens that haven’t been laundered for years, the barred small
windows, high up, the constantly locked door, the bucket, the dirt on the
floor, the vermin in the “bed”. And
you’re so utterly powerless, so impotent, at the mercy of the arbitrariness of
Italian officialdom. What ever happened to human rights? Is there such a thing anymore?
Is it not a mockery of all humanity, when, today, millions are forced to wander
about aimlessly, at the behest of a megalomaniacal criminal!? [Hitler] When
every country spits them out again like outcasts....
Finally, bound with handcuffs, I was brought to
Trieste, from there, via Venice, to Milan; then, after eight days of louse-ridden arrest, on to Como, from there
to Chiasso, always manacled, always in a single cell, mostly without any
window. That was my fate until February 22nd, 1939. I spent 12 anxious
hours on the mountain at Lake Como, which forms the border to Switzerland. I
sent a short fervent prayer to heaven to get there, for my freedom. And HE
helped me. .. I am now here, in Zurich, without any means and illegally, but I
feel well all the same as good people have afforded me help.”
No comments:
Post a Comment