The Accidental Captives: The Story of Seven Women Alone in Nazi Germany

By Carolyn Gossage

In April 1941, a passenger ship was attacked and sunk by Nazi Germans. This is the story of seven Canadian women survivors detained in Germany.

In April 1941, seven Canadian women became prisoners of war while on a voyage from New York City to Cape Town. Their aging Egyptian liner, the Zamzam, was sunk off the coast of South Africa by the German raider Atlantis. The passengers were transferred to a prison ship and eventually put ashore in Nazi-occupied France. As "non-aliens," all 140 Americans were released after five weeks in captivity, and with the help of theLifephotographer in their midst,the news of their narrow escape became an overnight sensation.

The hapless Canadians were taken to Bordeaux and became part of a group of 28 women and children interned in various German detention camps. By a stroke of luck, the Canadians eventually received permission to travel to Berlin where they were left to fend for themselves and adapt to life among "the enemy." As prisoners-at-large, they established contacts with American journalists and diplomats, an elderly Jewish professor, and even with Nazi propagandist P.G. Wodehouse. Finally, in June 1942, an exchange was arranged and the Canadians were able to board a special diplomatic Freedom Train bound for Lisbon, and from there they got back across the Atlantic to New York and new-found freedom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Mar 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781459703117

Carolyn Gossage

Carolyn Gossage is the author of books on Ethiopian icons and crosses. She has also published a number of historical titles, including Greatcoats and Glamour Boots and The History of the Frankfurt Book Fair. She lives in Toronto and has taught history and English in Canada and abroad for over twenty years. She is also the author of a number of books including: A Question of Privilege, Canada's Independent Schools (1977).

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Index

Preface and acknowledgements

This book owes its genesis to a chance discovery made over twenty years ago in the Metro Toronto Reference Library. I was sifting through the library’s card catalogue researching another project entirely when I stumbled upon Free Trip to Berlin, published in Canada in 1943.

The book’s unusual title immediately caught my attention, and once I had a copy in my hands it was a matter of minutes before I was irrevocably drawn into this extraordinary and fascinating story. Almost certainly this was largely due to the author’s distinctive style. Isabel Russell Guernsey was clearly a woman of exceptional intelligence, wit and charm, whose irrepressible joie de vivre reverberated through the decades since the publication of her book.

In April 1941, Isabel Guernsey was a passenger on board the Zamzam, an Egyptian liner sailing from New York Harbour to Cape Town, when the ship was attacked and sunk by a German raider in the South Atlantic. The Zamzam’s two hundred passengers were literally fished out of the water by the crew of the raider and transported via a German prison ship to Vichy France. Here the majority of them – as neutral citizens of the United States – were then released, while the remaining passengers were transported to the Third Reich as prisoners of war. Among these were 28 women and children who were citizens of either Great Britain or British Commonwealth countries – including Isabel Guernsey and a number of other Canadians – who were dispatched by train through German-occupied France and zigzagged their way through Nazi Germany before arriving at Liebenau, an internment camp in the vicinity of Lake Constance (the Bodensee), near the Swiss border.

Three months later, seven of the Canadian women who had been passengers on board the Zamzam received permission to leave the camp and travel unescorted to Berlin, where they held high hopes that arrangements for their safe return to Canada could be made within a matter of weeks. Instead, before their exchange for an equal number of German women in Canada was finally realised, they remained stranded in Berlin for the better part of a year.

By the time I closed the covers of Isabel Guernsey’s book, I realised that I had unwittingly fallen under its spell. What an intriguing story and what an incredible journey! I was consumed with curiosity, but soon realised that I was also left with more questions than answers. Isabel’s account concentrated primarily on her recollections of the people she came to know during her stay in Germany, whereas her impressions of the six Canadian women who shared the same experience remained on the periphery. Isabel herself mentions this disparity in her foreword to Free Trip to Berlin. ‘I regret that my Zamzam companions appear so incidentally in these pages, which is a pity, since each one is a story in herself …This is a story mostly about people – people I met and grew to know in Germany. My hope is simply that they, through me, may shed a little light that hasn’t been shed before.’

I, too, found myself equally disappointed that her companions in adversity were mentioned only in passing. Dozens of beguiling questions had already begun to surface and percolate in the back of my mind. Who were these six other Canadian women who had been thrown together by fate and circumstance as Isabel’s companions on this 1941-42 wartime odyssey that ended with them being marooned in Berlin? Vida Steele from Three Hills, Alberta, Olga Guttormson of Naicam, Saskatchewan, Allison ‘Jamie’ Henderson of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Katharine ‘Kitsi’ Strachan and Doreen Turner from Toronto and Clara Guilding, formerly of Toronto. Why had they chosen to leave the safety of home to risk a four-week Atlantic crossing fraught with uncertainty and danger? How had they reacted – both individually and collectively – to the countless difficulties they encountered on their long and wearisome odyssey? And after spending more than a year in Nazi Germany, initially as civilians detained in a variety of jails, then an internment camp and later as ‘enemy aliens’ at large in Berlin, how had they dealt with the challenges of fending for themselves and organising their lives in the war-torn capital of the Third Reich?

In retrospect, it must have been at precisely this moment that I realised that sooner or later I would have to try to find answers to these and other enticing questions in order to record my own expanded version of this long-forgotten and little-known World War II episode.

When their ship was sunk from under them in the South Atlantic by the Atlantis in April 1941, there began a series of shared adventures which included 140 Americans – their fellow passengers on board the Zamzam. Ultimately, protected by their neutrality, the Americans were destined for release; however, for the Canadians the journey had barely begun.

Now it would be up to me to attempt to shed even more light on what lay beyond Isabel’s personal perspective. However, it was only four years ago that I began concentrating my efforts on finding answers to the myriad unrelenting questions that had remained with me since my discovery of Free Trip to Berlin more than twenty years earlier. It was now or never!

Since Isabel’s original account had been written long before the final outcome of World War II, as an aspiring journalist she had taken pains to protect the identity of certain individuals she encountered during her time in Berlin. In many cases, she made a point of identifying these people using only their first names. Her intentions were noble, but this inevitably created certain difficulties in terms of further research.

Fortunately, another of her Zamzam companions, missionary-nurse Olga Guttormson had written and published Ships Will Sail Again, which includes her own detailed account of the Canadians’ extended stay in the Third Reich. Although a few of the others left cursory references and reminiscences of their mutual ordeal, without the literary legacy of these two women there would be little or nothing to bear witness to the relatively brief presence of these Canadian women in Berlin. What they have written – each from her own point of view – presents the reader with a first-hand account of life among the inhabitants of Berlin between September 1941 and June 1942. Events observed, almost seventy years ago, through the eyes of outsiders looking in.

In any case, most of the additional side bars only came to light once I had decided that I would have to cast the net wider by sending out an author’s query to local newspapers across Canada in an attempt to locate survivors or relatives of those who had been passengers on board the ill-fated Zamzam. The response to this was nothing short of overwhelming, and provided me with invaluable new information and insights from a variety of sources across Canada, and also the United States. Among these were the colourful revelations found in the letters of Kathleen Levitt, a young British war-guest who had wisely decided to remain in the Liebenau internment camp with her two young children, Peter and Wendy, rather than risk the perils of accompanying her Canadian friends to Berlin. Then, too, there were the exhilarating first-hand reports and photographs of two American journalists, David Scherman and Charles Murphy, both of whom had been released in Biarritz with the other American citizens after an extended five-week ordeal aboard the German prison ship Dresden as involuntary guests of the Third Reich.

As for the seven Canadian women in Berlin who had been unwilling participants in this wartime drama, their experiences and observations, hopes and frustrations struck me – even for those exceptional times – as something unique and extraordinary. Each had been caught up unbidden and unexpectedly in a war in which they became reluctant pawns in a diplomatic game of cat-and-mouse.

Once dispatched to Hitler’s stronghold, the seven Canadian Zamzamers also became, by default, an unrecognised and inconsequential addition to Berlin’s population, sharing the same cares and anxieties, withstanding the same miseries and misfortunes while, at the same time, remaining outsiders in an alien place. By the same token, as ‘enemy’ foreigners caught up in unfamiliar surroundings and unusual circumstances, each had the benefit of her own unique perspectives and personal insights. And the more of these I discovered, the more fascinated I became as the pieces of the story of this incredible journey gradually fell into place.

In closing, I can only hope that others will find this virtually unknown and untold fragment in the vast kaleidoscope of history – as observed from within and without – a source of similar fascination.

* * *

And I now, with great pleasure, extend my sincere gratitude to all those who contacted me in response to my request for information about the last voyage of the Zamzam and the odyssey of the ‘Canadian Seven’. Without their enthusiastic response, the contents of this book would have been greatly diminished. In particular I wish to acknowledge the contribution of Peter Levitt of Toronto, a Zamzam survivor, who was among the first to contact me and has provided me with a wealth of material, including his mother’s letters and his own childhood memories of his adventures on the high seas and internment in Germany.

I am also greatly indebted to Janet Steele of San Jose, California and other members of Vida Steele’s family, including Vera Steele Hazelton of Three Hills, Alberta, for all their help and encouragement; to Marlene Leicht and Garth Ulrich of Naicam, Saskatchewan for generously providing me with Olga Guttormson’s memoirs and other previously inaccessible material, as well as to Zamzam survivor Eleanor Danielson Anderson of Lindsborg, Kansas for her helpful assistance; to Katharine ‘Kitsi’ Strachan’s late brother, Don Neelands of Toronto and to her daughter and son-in-law, Janet and David Cameron of Millbrook, Ontario, as well as Irma Coucill of Toronto for their interest and hospitality. Thank you, too, to Marvin Demuth of Arkansas for the information he provided concerning Rev. Fred Henderson and his wife, Allison ‘Jamie’ Henderson of Winnipeg, Manitoba; also to Christopher Hives of the University of British Columbia Archives in Vancouver for hunting down useful material related to Isabel Russell Guernsey and her geologist husband, Tarrant.

To John Scherman of New York, for his kind permission to refer to and quote from the unpublished memoirs of his father, renowned Life magazine photographer David Scherman, a warm thank you. Likewise to Wendy Wright – she, whose keyboarding and translation skills are without equal – for her extensive contribution and encouragement. Particular thanks, as well, to Frau Hilga Sandkamp, her good friend in Hamburg for sharing the story of Kapitänleutnant Lorenz Kasch of the Hilfskreuzer Atlantis. And a special tip of the hat to my friend, Senator Nancy Ruth for graciously providing me with a welcome roof over my head during my research visits in Ottawa.

The interest and assistance of Paulette Dozois of the National Archives of Canada can only be described as exceptional. By the same token, her equally helpful counterpart, Frau Lucia van der Linde of the Politischen Archiv des Auswärtigen Amt in Berlin, gave new meaning to the word efficiency. Thank you both for all your efforts on my behalf. Also my thanks to Tim Dube and Melanie Quintal of the National Archives of Canada for pointing me in the right direction and to Herr Dr Axel Wittenburg of Freiburg for his painstaking research at the German Military Archives there, in addition to the obliging co-operation of Franz Goettlinger and Angelika Nauroth of the Bundesarchiv; Karen Baumhoff and Markus Toth of Ullstein Bild and Sabine Kalkmann of the Adlon Kempinski Hotel in Berlin.

But the full weight of my eternal gratitude belongs in the laps (and laptops) of Dr Britta Grell and Dr Stephan Lahrem for their unstinting efforts with the German translation and editing of the original manuscript published by Christoph Links Verlag, Berlin in 2009. During their extended stay here in Toronto, we frequently burned the midnight oil, fine-tuning the text and generally enjoying the many hours spent together in total harmony. Such a pleasure! Likewise, I want to extend my sincere thanks, as well, to the I.B.Tauris team and most particularly to Joanna Godfrey and Gretchen Ladish for all their hard work in making this publication a reality.

And last – but by no means least – my loving thanks to Mike and to my children, Valerie and Graeme, whose encouragement and support have carried me through from start to finish.

Carolyn Gossage

Toronto, April 2011

1

The last voyage of the Zamzam

20 March–17 April 1941

Welcome on board

When you are six, certain events become etched in your mind’s eye for all time. For young Peter Levitt, one of these defining flashbacks from his childhood is that of his mother, Kathleen Levitt, shepherding him and his younger sister, Wendy, up the gangplank to board the SS Zamzam in New York Harbour on 20 March 1941. Having spent a wretched winter in Montreal, Kathleen Levitt, a British evacuee, had made up her mind that – come what may – she was prepared to face the wartime perils of an Atlantic crossing to reunite the children with their father, who had been posted to South Africa as an instructor with the Royal Air Force.

To the ears of six-year-old Peter, the ship’s name – Zamzam – sounded quite exotic, and it was only many years later that he learned that her Egyptian owners – the Alexandria Steam and Navigation Company – had chosen it because of its reference to a sacred well in Islam’s holy city of Mecca.¹ The shipping company which owned the Zamzam had evidently engaged the services of the highly reputable Thomas Cook and Sons travel agency to drum up business for the vessel’s return journey from New York to Alexandria and – even on short notice – the agency’s assurances of a safe passage aboard a neutral ship had proven to be remarkably successful. Just over two hundred travellers had unwittingly signed on for the voyage of a lifetime.

Once on board, Kathleen and the children were ushered to their quarters, and soon became acquainted with the two Canadian women in the adjoining cabin – Isabel Guernsey and Katharine ‘Kitsi’ Strachan. Like Kathleen, both Isabel and Kitsi had made the same decision and chosen to take their chances on a lengthy voyage to join their husbands after months of separation. Isabel, who was in her mid-thirties, held a master’s degree in French from the University of British Columbia, and exuded the confidence that is the usual by-product of a higher education and a privileged background. From her, Kathleen learned that Isabel had been in Vancouver on home leave from Rhodesia, where her geologist husband was a consultant to the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa. Although, as members of the upper crust of Canadian society, both Kitsi and Isabel shared similarly affluent backgrounds, Kitsi had grown up in Toronto and was appreciably younger. Having been married barely two years earlier she was yearning to be reunited with her husband, Robin, who was currently on assignment in Aden with the British Colonial Office.

As the new-found friends chatted and explored their less-than-inviting First Class accommodations, which included a shared bathroom, the other passengers were gradually making their way up the gangplank of the aging liner with obvious trepidation. To a casual observer the sight could well have conjured up a vision vaguely reminiscent of the beasts venturing onto Noah’s Ark. The process of boarding had been interminably long and fraught with delay. Patience was in short supply and tempers were becoming increasingly frayed. To make matters worse, the weather had turned miserably cold, and a bone-chilling March wind was sweeping the length of the harbour.

From the bridge, Captain William Gray Smith gazed down with a distinctly jaundiced eye at the wind-blown passengers left shivering on the pier of Hoboken Harbour. Having safely negotiated his ship on a lengthy journey from Alexandria carrying Jewish refugees from Germany to a safe haven in America, he was now faced with the daunting prospect of a return voyage to Egypt by way of the Cape of Good Hope bearing what could only be described as a motley assortment of passengers.²

The bulk of those restlessly waiting to come on board were American and Canadian missionaries – including priests, teachers, nurses, doctors, wives and mothers with children in tow. Between them, they represented over twenty different religious denominations and all were bound for Cape Town and from there into the Dark Continent to shine the Light of the Lord wherever they had been called to serve. Small wonder, then, that the ship would quickly become unofficially dubbed ‘the missionary ship’, since their number comprised roughly seventy-five per cent of the passengers whose lives depended on Captain Smith’s ability to bring them safely to their destinations on the other side of the ocean.³

In the spring of 1941, the Battle of the Atlantic was continuing to threaten all of the main shipping lanes. However, the Zamzam – flying its neutral flag – would follow a more southerly and presumably safer route, with only the remotest possibility of an encounter with a marauding German U-boat or raider. Ironically, many of these one hundred and forty missionaries – Lutherans, Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists and Baptists – boarding the Zamzam along with their household possessions and cars were journeying to Central Africa as volunteer replacements for their German missionary counterparts, who had been interned there by the British.

Among the missionaries on board, Canada was represented by four women of various religious denominations: Vida Steele from Three Hills, Alberta, who was accompanying her husband, Ellsworth; Olga Guttormson of Naicam, Saskatchewan; Allison ‘Jamie’ Henderson, wife of Dr Alfred Henderson, both of whom hailed from Winnipeg, Manitoba; and lastly Clara Guilding, originally a Torontonian, who was accompanying her husband Rev. W.J. Guilding, based in Detroit.

Also on the passenger list were Rev. William Edwards, who, with his wife and son, were survivors of the Athenia, the first Allied passenger ship to be sunk by a German submarine – U-30 on 3 September 1939, within hours of Britain and France’s declaration of war on Germany. Their destination was the Congo, where they had spent thirty years in the mission fields.

Missionaries aside, there was a second – and perhaps equally perplexing – addition to the mix, a group of two dozen irreverent and boisterous young volunteer ambulance drivers, most of them the sons of affluent American families. They had signed on with the British-American Ambulance Corps to serve with General de Gaulle’s Free French troops in North Africa. Their vehicles and equipment had already been stowed on board, and their enthusiasm and high spirits knew no bounds. From Captain Smith’s standpoint this unlikely conglomeration of devout Christian missionaries and rowdy roustabouts had all the makings of an additional and entirely unwelcome headache.

As the missionaries’ fervent hymns wafted up to him from the pier, the doughty Captain Smith, who at 51 was a weathered veteran of countless crossings, muttered prophetically to his fellow Scot, First Engineer John Burns, ‘Mark my words, Chief. It’s bad luck for a ship to have so many Bible punchers and sky pilots aboard. No good will come of this.’⁴

In addition to this dubious combination, there were six Southern businessmen from North Carolina’s tobacco industry who had responded to an appeal by the British government to set up a tobacco auction system in Salisbury, Rhodesia. They were part of a relatively small number of non-aligned travellers that included several other British and Canadian wives en route to join their husbands, two Greek nurses returning home after receiving their training in New York and James de Graaf Hunter, the former chief of the India Geological Survey, who was accompanied by his wife and daughter. Then there was an elderly British doctor and his wife, who had opted to exchange the perils of the London Blitz for a new life in southern Africa, a Belgian family of three, and finally a rather enigmatic figure – a young Italian prince who claimed to be emigrating to South Africa.

Aside from Captain Smith and his chief engineer, with a few exceptions, such as the ship’s Greek stewardess, the Zamzam’s crew was almost entirely Egyptian. Having made the long and hazardous journey from Alexandria to New York without incident, in spite of snow on the deck and the generally foul weather, the crew’s spirits were running high. Within hours they would be homeward bound, and by virtue of their ship’s name the protection of Allah was all but guaranteed. What the future held in store for them would, unfortunately, require a good deal more than misplaced faith.

By midnight, the Zamzam had cast off from her moorings and slipped out of the harbour into the oily swells of the grey Atlantic, steering a southerly course towards Baltimore – her first port of call.

With the onset of daylight, the passengers awakened to the sound of gulls – and people began taking the measure of their ship and its so-called amenities and generally acquainting themselves with its layout. For Kathleen Levitt, it was the beginning of a disenchantment that would grow with each passing day. To begin with, the heating system had malfunctioned and she and the two children had to layer themselves with every bit of warm clothing she could lay her hands on. What’s more, there was no water in the bathroom, bells failed to function when rung, and the service rendered by the ship’s crew was next