1939
Feverish political activities followed, appeals by the British government to Germany, by president Roosevelt to Hitler and Mussolini, signing of a mutual assistance pact between England and Poland, also an appeal by premier Daladier of France to Hitler. The Poles mobilized. On September 1, the German attack on Poland on land and in the air started, and England and France mobilized, but expressed readiness to negotiate, if German forces were withdrawn from Poland. England and France sent an ultimatum to Germany, which Hitler rejected. On September 3, England and France declared war on Germany, thus initiating the Second European War of the twentieth century.
I had enough reason for grave worries for the lives of Hedy, Johanna, Hedy’s parents, Lisa, and Francis. I thought that I will now be completely cut off from them, and that I will never see them again. It took me some time to see this was a special kind of war, affecting, at least for some time only Eastern Europe. The Germans had occupied within 4 weeks one half of Poland, at which time the Russians, to the astonishment of the whole world, invaded Poland from the East, occupied the other half of that country, and met the Germans in the area of Brest Litowsk, where they shook hands with the Germans.
At about that time my worries abated a little, when I received letters from Hedy from Vienna, and one of them made me especially happy, in which she wrote that she had received the American visa for herself and Johanna, and that she was now trying to get the tickets for a boat. So, It was a special kind of war, in which it was possible to send letters from Austria to Cuba, and in which it was possible to leave Vienna and to go on a voyage to the United States. It finally really happened that they got tickets for the boat Rotterdam and could go to Holland and leave for the United States.
From Lisa I had at that time also news that she had to leave Paris when the war started, that she could not get a permit to go to Le Touquet to join Francis, and that she had gone to Reims to friends of Lucy, Raymond’s wife. She had to stay there for 2 or 3 months, till she finally succeeded in getting a permit, and could go to Le Touruet, where she had then with Francis, at least for a while, a relatively pleasant life.
I am inserting here a third letter, written by Francis on August 24, 1939, in Le Touquet, which reads as follows:
Dear Papa!
I strolled so much about that I could not write to you. I had started already 2 letters, but had never the time to finish them. I have one broken and one undamaged swallowtail, one has the antennae broken. 4 small foxes, 2 oakspinners, 1 damaged pigeontail, 2 butterflies, one like that and one like that (drawings), 1 damaged admiral, 1 thickhead, 1 fox, 1 painted lady, 1 Tagpfauenauge (verbally translated: Daypea-cockeye), 1 vanessa-C, 1 small Waldportier (woods-porter), 1 blues, 1 small fritillery, and 3 others. Where do you get the pins and boxes from?
I hope you will buy for yourself a Rolls Royce. I had caught a caterpillar of a bear-spinner and it crawled away. Send me a few photos of you.
Many kisses
Franzi
The letter was written in August, shortly before the war had broken out and everything was still peaceful. He was busy with butterflies, had a good time on the seashore, while Lisa was still in Paris. A few days later, it was quite a different story.
The great disappointment was that Francis did not get the American visa in France. The American consul in Vienna had told Hedy that he will send all the papers for Francis to the American consul in Paris, so that he could get the visa there. But the American consul in Paris was not willing to write the visa for Francis, gave as the excuse that there was not enough time to write it, although there would have been plenty of time. He said that the mother should leave without him and that Francis could follow her with another boat. When Hedy came to Amsterdam, she was, of course, terribly disappointed, that Francis was not there, did not know what had happened.
