Canada
Charles has a transit visa for Shanghai. He tries to get permission to stay in Canada.
Came the fateful 23rd of June 1940, and Robert and I stood on the railway station and boarded the train for Liverpool. I was apprehensive all the time. Any moment the invasion would start. Any moment all exits from England could be barred. Any moment our ship could be requisitioned by the authorities. We got a taste of war when we spent the night in a boardinghouse in Liverpool. The sirens would start to scream, and we would run into the cellar and spend there most of the night. Those were the days when the real attack by Hitler’s Luftwaffe had not started in earnest. It began 3 months later in September 1940 with thousands of bombs raining on London and the principal cities and ports of Great Britain. But so far we were safe in Liverpool and when the day came we boarded our ship. We were given life vests which we had to carry with us day and right, because an attack by a German submarine could come any moment. Indeed, one ship carrying prisoners of war and hundreds of refugees who had not passed the aliens tribunal, and who were sent into internment overseas was torpedoed a few weeks before and many lost their lives. (SS 210-56) .
At last, the ropes were cast away and the big ship, the '”Empress of Canada” left her moorings and made for the open sea. Another ship went too, a passenger boat, and our safeguard was provided by a small gun boat which would dash between us and guard us against a submarine attack. Meanwhile we would enjoy though apprehensively all the luxuries of a first class passenger. During the foregoing months I had not the money and often not even the time to eat properly. But now we were treated royally in the dining room, and I responded heartily and with gusto, in spite of the ship’s heavy rolling in a turbulent sea. After a day the gunboat left us, and after the second day we were told that a submarine attack is now very unlikely. And then I had the finest days in years, but only 5 days. When the ship docked in Halifax another terrible message awaited me in the headlines of the newspapers. Russia had occupied the northern part of the Bukowina and Czernowitz. My poor family! The shops will now be taken away from them and what treatment they would suffer as “capitalists” only Heaven knew. At least, Claire was free, and the chance that we should see each other was still there. I sent off a telegram to Greece, telling her of my safe crossing and then we went to Montreal. Here we stayed the maximum time, 3 days, before going to Vancouver to board the steamer for Shanghai. Once in Canada, I tried desperately to stay there. There was a possibility, and I worked frantically on it. I visited members of the Jewish community, influential businessmen and solicitors, but they could not offer any immediate solution. If only I could extend our stay in Canada, something could be done with the Government in Ottawa, but 3 days are too short. Some people told me to go clandestinely to the U.S.A. and then try to get Claire to the American continent, and be it Central and South America. I even contacted men who did the job of spiriting people over the frontier for $250 per person, delivering anyone right to an address in New York. It all was done by car, then by night crossing over one of the lakes which separate Canada and the U.S.A. and from then on again by car to New York. I was prepared to go, but I had not the money. Robert was too much afraid of doing anything like this. He only had the money but he refused to risk anything. In the end I realized that I would have hell in the U. S.A. always under cover, always being afraid of being discovered and deported. But that advice of Montreal businessmen to try to stay longer in Canada and have a real application made in Ottawa that advice did not leave my mind, and when the long journey across Canada began, I thought frantically of a stratagem to achieve a delayed stay. I got then the idea and began to faint of nausea owing to the train rattling day and night. I had not the money for a sleeper so I was left alone, because Robert of course had the money for it, but he had no inclination to pay a bed for me too. I then wrote a note to him telling him that my nausea is so great that I simply could not stand it any longer and had to interrupt the journey. I shall continue in a few days as soon as I had recovered. I advised him to ask his friends who were waiting for him in Vancouver (advised by cable) to skip the ship and to ask permission to go with the next steamer in 4 weeks, so that we both could go together. Then in the dead of night the train stopped, I grabbed a small suitcase and went out. I was in Medicine Hat, a small town in Mid-Canada. I went to a hotel, using the little money I had saved for this eventuality. I was afraid to tell Robert what I am going to do; because he would get frantic and he might spoil everything in Vancouver. It really turned out as I predicted, and he got permission to wait for me and to take the next steamer in 4 weeks. Meanwhile, the hotel keeper had informed Jewish businessmen in Medicine Hat that a. sick refugee has left the train and they came in the morning and offered help and advice. I spent a very nice day in the company of their families, and went the next day on my way to Vancouver. Now something came up, something I had yearned to see all my life, a train journey through the Canadian Rockies. Consequently, I stopped over the night before we came to the Rockies and then had a glorious day in the observation car. Then again I spent the night in a small hotel in a small town and in the morning I rode through some of the most fantastic mountain scenery of the world. At last, I arrived in Vancouver with Robert waiting for me on the platform. There I told him why I did all this, and why I wanted that we should stay another 4 weeks in Canada and make a formal application for admission into Canada through friends in Ottawa. At last, he had to dig into his pocket and secure for us one room with a family. (SS 210-56-57) .
Now began an activity more hectic then in London. We went to Victoria, and visited the Minister for National Development, Industry and Commerce. I told him that I can produce witnesses now in the U.S.A. that I have expert knowledge in the making of tungsten carbide cutting material which was a necessity for any steel and iron working. I proved that Canada had no factory to make these goods so essential for the war effort. I said that I shall find private citizens who would be ready to put up the money for such a factory. He was visibly impressed, but he was only the minister for British Columbia. The decision must be made by the federal minister in Ottawa. He nevertheless gave me a letter of recommendation and promised to support• mine and Robert's application. Now hectic visits crowded our days. We visited industrialists, Jewish people of wealth and other men who could help us with our application in Ottawa. To make sure that we are really expert craftsmen Robert and I sub mitted our university diplomas and whatever letters and documents we had to prove our ability as industrial engineers. The papers announced then the formation of a National Council for Inventions to help the war effort. Everyone was invited to submit ideas. Immediately I began to make memoranda for new inventions, among others the impregnation of plywood with aluminum for airplanes. Plywood was a main product of British Columbia. I grabbed another opportunity. The papers were full with the stories of the German paratroopers who parachuted into Holland and Belgium and who could not be shot, because they offered such a small target. Even when a bullet hit the parachutes, the hole it made was too small to make the chute collapse. At that, I made immediately a memorandum, suggesting rifle ammunition in which the bullet is hollow and filled with white phosphorus which would ignite immediately and set the parachute on fire. In my application, a copy of which went also to the immigration authorities in Ottawa to be added to our application for admission I wrote that we want desperately to stay in Canada, and therefore we are prepared to work at these experiments which were highly dangerous. All these memoranda and drawings and letters I had to w rite in the evening and the night. In the morning we would be off again to visit people and to interest them in all this. (SS 210-57-58) .
I forgot to tell how really ingenious my stratagem was to stay in Canada for another 4 weeks. Another refugee who travelled with us, and who too knew that we would have to go from the railway station in Vancouver straight to the ship, was equally eager to stay in Canada, and was equally afraid, as we both were, of all the difficulties and dangers which awaited us in Shanghai. But his stratagem was clumsy. He simply did not show up at the ship, and came only when it had left. He could not offer any plausible explanation (as Robert could with my illness) and consequently they put him in jail and he had to wait out the 4 weeks until he was escorted to the boat for Shanghai. We, on the other hand, were free to go around in Vancouver and visit anyone we wanted. The best way to press the entry visa would have been a personal visit to Ottawa, but Robert would not part with the money for the airplane ticket. So I had to write and to write, and at last was able to persuade a woman of influence in Ottawa to see the authorities. But she too had no success, and this was only a spur for me to try and to try and to try again. (SS 210-58) .
Meanwhile a marked change in the relations of myself and Robert had taken place. It was purely psychological, and I was completely innocent. The reader must realize that Robert with his money safely in Shanghai (and easily transferable to Canada) was my only and great hope to start a business and to secure the coming of Claire. For me, Robert was the most important person I had in the world, as far as making a living goes. Consequently I was like a good brother to him, and when he was downcast, it was I who gave him courage again. But what he resented was his own weakness. The trouble was that he could not speak English. But even if he could he had not the pressing eloquence, the dynamic oratory which has made me such a good lecturer. Moreover, he did not have in himself the motor to drive him on to try the utmost. This motor was for me Claire and her precarious stay in Greece. We read in the papers that Italy is preparing to invade Greece, and this spurred me on to more hectic activity, to more insistent begging of people to help us. Robert, in turn, could not speak, but had to sit silent at my side, not knowing what to do with himself. At last he exploded “What am I, a dog or what, following you as you rush here and there?” “But Robert,” I pleaded with him, “What can I do? You cannot speak English well. How wonderful would it be, if you could visit one person and I would go to another person? We could cover twice the work we do now. “But it was of no avail. He admitted that he was unhappy about all this, that he hated himself and in the end me too, the person who symbolized his own weakness. (SS 210-58) .
At last, the answer came from Ottawa. Our application was turned down. 'Why?" I asked, in desperation, of the chief of Vancouver's immigration department, “'why, after all our proofs that we are good engineers and experts in technology which Canada needs so badly?” His answer was typical of the bureaucrat, war or no war. “Mr. Blitz,” he said, “you came to Canada on a transit visa, and this means you are only in transit. You must get out therefore, and then only can your application for an entry visa be properly considered. Therefore, be at the dock at the correct time and don’t you both give us any more trouble.” (SS 210-58) .
Another missed oppoprtunity: In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus
Often when he was flying to Toronto Charles would book a day or two to stay in Vancouver, staying with our family. On one occasion I took Charles on a sightseeing trip of Vancouver which included taking the aerial tramway up Grouse Mountain (on Vancouver's north shore). The trip triggered a lot of memories from his time in 1940, and in the middle of the cafeteria he shouted out "Just like General MacArthur, I have returned!"
Charles then told me that after the devastating news from Ottawa he wrote lyrics to a popular German drinking song "In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus". These lyrics (in English) described his frustration with dealing with the Canadian immigration bureaucracy. He then, once again in the middle of the cafeteria, started singing the song. By this time I no longer felt embarrassed by these events and I sat back and enjoyed the performance.
My great frustration is that I did not write the lyrics down. The first line was something like "Two Jews to Canada once came". The chorus took direct aim at the Canadian Minister of immigration (or maybe he was a high-ranking official of that department). Apparently, his name was O'Mira or O'Meara (not sure of spelling). The chorus of "In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus" includes the repeating line "Eins, zwei, g'suffa!" which translates as "one, two, chug it!" Charles substitued for this line Oh Mira, where the Oh is sustained over the notes that make the Eins, zwei, and Mira replaces the g'suffa. It sounds like OOOOOOOOO Mira. He claimed he sang this song as the ship (Empress of Asia) pulled away from the wharf.
And so it came about. On the 13th August 1940 a number of newly acquired friends who followed my struggle with sympathy had assembled at the wharf to see us off. We sailed through the wonderful straights which separate the mainland from Vancouver Island, and then we gained the open sea and headed north to Japan. We docked in Yokohama, and were told that the ship would sail in 6 hours. Robert would not go ashore, so I hired a guide and we rode by rail into Tokyo and he showed me around. I was fascinated by all the Japanese women in their kimonos with big flower patterns. Imagine a modern street with many people about, and among them many walking flowers in beautiful colours and many of them with their babies on their back. I run after them and could not take my eyes off this beautiful sight. Then in the evening I was back at Yokohama harbour and in my ship, the great “Empress of Asia”, a vessel of the Canadian Pacific Line. I hoped for a great treat next day, the sailing through the Japanese inland sea, which is very picturesque. But alas, because of the war, our ship was not allowed into Japan waters proper, and had to sail around the southernmost island and dock in Nagasaki where we spent 24 hours, the ship taking in coal for the crossing to China. Again, Robert the bore would not take the opportunity to see something of Japan. We had seen some parts of the Japanese coast, which had convinced me that this is one of the most picturesque countries in the world. Nagasaki too was very beautifully situated among hills and mountains, and of course, I set out right in the morning and visited everything I could see. I would go from. one temple to the other and be simply enthusiastic about the Japanese way of artistic decorations and outlay of their houses. I was enhanced by Japanese gardens, and I felt not tired at all. I was and still am a real traveller who enjoys seeing things beautiful. In the evening I even went into a Japanese cinema and saw some of their pictures, also a rare treat. Then back to the boat. (SS 210-58-59) .