VOLUME 14 NO.11 NOVEMBER 2014 journal The Association of Jewish Refugees Marriages of convenience SPECIAL EVENT as a survival strategy The Last Train The following article is an adapted version Until now, this strategy of escape and to Tomorrow of a paper given in March 2014 at the of resistance to the Nazis has not been Sunday 9 November 2014, 3 pm annual conference of the Gesellschaft für the subject of any academic research, at The Roundhouse, London NW1 Exilforschung (Society for Exile Studies) in a gap that Irene Messinger, a political Vienna. scientist working in Vienna, is seeking to We are delighted to announce that or those exposed to persecution in fill. It is her intention to raise the profile a VIP will be the guest of honour Nazi Germany, marriage to a foreign of marriages of convenience in research at the AJR’s London premiere of national presented a means of into the Holocaust and emigration and The Last Train to Tomorrow at The Femigrating to another country, where they to anchor them firmly in the mainstream Roundhouse on Sunday 9 November were protected by their new citizenship of historical research. Messinger’s research 2014 and that Natasha Kaplinsky, the from being deported back to Germany aims to present the women persecuted newsreader and television presenter, or from being rendered stateless if they by the Nazi regime as active agents, and member of Prime Minister David were stripped of their German citizenship capable of exploiting their networks of Cameron’s Holocaust Commission, will by the Nazi authorities. The advantages contacts in order to enter into marriages of be introducing the event. offered by marriages of convenience were convenience, and also to investigate their primarily of benefit to women; this was marital partners, whose motives would Commissioned by the Halle Orchestra due to the patriarchal cast of legislation have ranged from friendship and kindness and composed and conducted by relating to citizenship at the time, under and social and political commitment to the internationally acclaimed artist which a woman, as a mere ‘appendage’ of straightforward financial gain. Carl Davis CBE, The Last Train to her husband, automatically assumed his In the course of her research, Messinger Tomorrow tells the extraordinary story nationality on marriage. These marriages, has to date unearthed more than 60 of the Kindertransport through a series which often existed only on paper, have marriages of convenience, in works of of songs written by the children’s author in retrospect come to be seen as a form scholarship, autobiographies and eye- Hiawyn Oram. of assistance rendered to those under witness accounts (interviews). There are The music will be performed by the threat in Nazi Germany and are now many more such marriages than might Finchley Children’s Music Group and the judged positively. A number of people appear at first glance. It will never be concert programme will also feature The also married in order to secure a visa more possible to discover exactly how many Marriage of Figaro Overture by Mozart easily, as was, for example, the case with women attempted to save themselves by entry visas for Palestine, then administered contracting marriages of convenience as and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto by Britain under a League of Nations this is a deeply private subject and, in many performed by the City of London Sinfonia mandate. cases, a matter of shame, which only very together with an outstanding young violin few have spoken about publicly. Many soloist from the Yehudi Menuhin School. women concealed the fact of their fictitious This special and historic one-off occasion marriages on returning to Austria after will begin with a commemoration of 1945, fearing possible legal consequences the anniversary of Kristallnacht and, or the loss of pension rights and the like. as the event takes place on a Sunday Who were the people who entered afternoon, we particularly encourage into marriages of convenience? To judge members to bring along their children by those cases that are already known, and grandchildren. The symbolism that they were Jewish women who came from the Roundhouse was formerly a turning the middle classes or sometimes from point for trains and is located near Swiss the social élites and/or were members of political organisations with international Cottage, where many of the escaping connections. Among other factors, this refugees settled, should help make the is due to the high proportion of artists, concert memorable and historic. academics and other professional women Further information is on the flyer among those who emigrated to Britain. enclosed with this month’s Journal. The individuals discussed in this article are known to us from biographies, Tickets can be purchased strictly autobiographies and other records that through The Roundhouse Box Office have been preserved. However, Messinger – visit www.roundhouse.org.uk or Erika Mann, 1905-69, Thomas Mann’s elder telephone 0300 6789 222. daughter continued on page 2 journal NOVEMBER 2014 Marriages of convenience as a survival strategy continued ANNUAL ELECTION is especially interested in cases of marriages in 1975. MEETING OF THE of convenience among the ‘ordinary’ The radical left-wing Internationale ASSOCIATION OF émigrés, which have hitherto remained Sozialistische Kampfbund (International JEWISH REFUGEES (AJR) unresearched. Little is known, too, about Socialist Combat League, ISK), which had those individuals, for example members been banned by the Nazis in 1933, also he Annual Election Meeting of Jewish youth organisations in Nazi brought a number of its female members of The Association of Jewish Germany, who contracted marriages of to safety in Britain through marriages of TRefugees (AJR) will take place at convenience in order to improve their convenience. One of them was Susanne 11.00 am on Tuesday 18 November chances of securing a visa for Palestine by Strasser, born in 1915 and brought up 2014 at Belsize Square Synagogue, applying jointly as a married couple. in Vienna, who was later to become a 51 Belsize Square, London NW3 4HX. The most prominent examples of historian and a leading authority on the Agenda: Annual Report, Financial marriages of convenience among the German Social Democratic Party. As Report, Discussion, Election of Trustees emigrants to Britain occurred within the a student, she had travelled frequently The following have been nominated circle of friends around Klaus and Erika to London and, after the annexation of for re-election as Trustees: Eleanor Mann, the children of Thomas Mann, Austria by Germany in 1938, she remained Angel, Gaby Glassman, Frank Harding. where such marriages proliferated. Erika in London, where she rapidly came to play Mann, writer, cabaret artist and founder of an active role among the women refugees. All questions for the chair should be the anti-fascist political cabaret ensemble In order to remain permanently in Britain, submitted by Monday 10 November Die Pfeffermühle (The Peppermill), she entered into a marriage of convenience 2014 to the Chief Executive at Jubilee was stripped of her German citizenship with a British citizen, Horace Miller. House, Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, in 1935. Klaus Mann and his circle of Viennese-born Hilde Meisel had Middx HA7 4RL. homosexual friends assisted her in her joined the ISK at 15. From 1932 she efforts to find a British husband. In June had been a student in London, where, 1935 she married the gay British poet under the pseudonym Hilda Monte, suspicious. Ebner was thus able to emigrate W. H. Auden, whom she had never met, she published a number of articles in on a French passport, arriving in 1939 thereby immediately acquiring British magazines and books and made radio in Britain, where she was active in the citizenship. broadcasts calling for resistance to the organisation Austrian Self Aid. The art Erika Mann’s close friend, the actress Nazi regime. Through a marriage of collector Jenny Steiner, one of Vienna’s Therese Giehse, who had also been active convenience to John Olday, a gay artist, wealthiest women, exploited her private in the Pfeffermühle ensemble, found cartoonist and anarchist, she acquired networks to organise marriages for her refuge in Switzerland in 1933 but was British citizenship in 1938. She was twin daughters Anna and Clara, so that not secure there. Marriage to the novelist killed in April 1945 attempting to cross they were able to leave Austria without any John Hampson-Simpson secured a British the border to Austria from Switzerland, difficulty in 1938, one with a British and passport for Giehse, who, however, where she had been sent on a secret one with a French husband. Anna married remained in Switzerland. She later became mission. Similar cases are those of the Charles Weinberg, a British subject, famous for her performances in the plays mathematician and philosopher Grete and escaped a few days later as a British of Bertolt Brecht; cinema fans will recall Hermann, who married Edward Henry, national – but without her husband – via her last role, in Louis Malle’s Lacombe, and of Maria Saran, the future women’s Paris to Brazil, where she was reunited Lucien (1974). Sybille von Schoenebeck secretary of the Socialist International. with her mother. was another friend of Klaus and Erika ISK member Liesel Mayer entered These examples of women whose lives Mann. After the German authorities into a fictitious marriage with Charles were saved by marriages of convenience had frozen her bank accounts, and with Bruckner but this developed into a love underline the importance of pre-existing her German passport about to expire, relationship, from which four children networks, whether of family members emigration became an urgent necessity were born. After 1933 the ISK continued or politically like-minded people, in the for her.