THEY WENT TO SOUTH AFRICA

EXODUS TO AFRICA

By Adam Yamey

This is to tell potential readers what my latest book Exodus to Africa is all about.

Prior to the British taking over the Cape Peninsula in about 1800, Jews were not permitted to live there by the Dutch East India Company that had been governing the region for several centuries. Some Jews, who converted to Christianity, did set foot in what is now ‘South Africa’, but unconverted Jews did not. The arrival of the first openly practising Jewish settlers followed close on the heels of the commencement of British rule.

At first, there was a small trickle of Jewish settlers, almost all of them from Great Britain and the German states. A few arrived from St Helena. With the arrival of the Mosenthal brothers from Kassel, the flow began to increase. The Mosenthals and their Jewish associates began setting up a chain of trading stores, which effectively began to make the remote interior of the Cape Colony begin to prosper. All of this activity began before diamonds (in about 1868) and gold (in about 1880) put South Africa (i.e. the territories that united after 1910) amongst the economically significant countries in the world. Before the discovery of these precious commodities and the opening of the Suez Canal, The Cape was little more than a place, like the tiny island of St Helena, where ships stopped to pick up water and supplies whilst they travelled between Europe and Asia. It was not a place that attracted many immigrants, Jewish or otherwise, from Europe. The USA was the most favoured destination for those seeking a better life. The diamond and gold ‘industries’ that began in the latter half of the 19^th century changed this. South Africa became attractive to immigrants including the Jews. The trickle of Jews from Europe to South Africa began to become an exodus (especially from Tsarist Lithuania). At the beginning of the 19^th century, there were a handful of Jews in southern Africa. By the 1930s, as many as one in twenty ‘white’ people was Jewish.

My book, Exodus to Africa, takes a fresh look at the reasons Jews chose to travel to South Africa; how they got there; what they did when they arrived; what they and their descendants did to affect the history of the country; how they helped to oppose racial inequality (apartheid and its antecedents).

The first of my relatives to arrive in South Africa was Heinrich Bergmann from Bavaria. He disembarked at Cape Town in 1849. The last of them, my father’s cousin Hendrik Jami, who arrived 100 years later. Between these two dates, many members of both of my parents’ families migrated from Europe to South Africa. Their diverse experiences cover many aspects of Jewish life in the country. Using many of their stories to illustrate these, I have attempted to produce a history of the Jews in the south of Africa.  The stories are told against the ever changing historical background of the troubled country where they chose to settle. My book is based on a multitude of sources, both previously unpublished primary material (documentary and from interviews) and also published secondary documentation.

Here are a few of the ‘protagonists’, whose tales are unfolded in my book:

Heinrich Bergmann (1830-1866), an early settler typical of the Jewish man who joined the Mosenthal Brothers.  His life took a surprising turn.

Jakob Seligmann (1846-1906), from Bavaria, was a ‘founding father’ of a small town in the Orange Free State. He fell afoul of the law and fled from Africa.

Sigmund Seligmann (1856-1939), also from Bavaria, started as an employee in the Cape Colony, and then began his own successful trading business before retiring to Germany in the late 1890s.

Franz Joseph Ginsberg (1862-1936), from a part of Prussia that is now Poland, began life in South Africa as a photographer. Soon, he became an industrialist, and then first an influential local politician, and later a national one. In 1927, he was elected a Senator in the Parliament of united South Africa.

Gustav Ginsberg (1872-1922), Franz’s brother, a dentist, who suffered from the effects of the vagaries of first the 2^nd Boer War and then later the First World War. His sons became well-known in the arts, both in South Africa and the USA.

Iwan Bloch (1886-1931), from Baden-Württemberg, who began working as a shop assistant in Zurich, and ended up the Mayor of a town in South Africa.

Joseph Halperin (1870- c. 1949) sailed to South Africa with his wife and three children. Ran a bakery and then a dairy in Cape Town before retiring to enjoy the successes of his children who had advanced up the ‘social ladder’.

Solomon Yamey (1883-1931) left his shtetl in Tsarist Lithuania and became a wandering pedlar (‘smous’) in the Cape before owning his own successful store in an Afrikaans speaking town near Cape Town. 

 By the time that John Katzin (1866-1931), who was born in Tsarist Lithuania, arrived in South Africa he had already lived in Amsterdam and London. In South Africa, he made a fortune in the laundry business. Some of his children became noted in wider world of public work and literature.

Henry Polak (1882-1959), [seated left in the picture above] a lawyer with London, became one of MK (later the ‘Mahatma’) Gandhi’s close associates in South Africa.

David Kitson (1919-2010) was one of the brave people with Jewish roots who actively supported the struggle against apartheid. His cousins the Budlenders, of Lithuanian and Polish Jewish extraction, risked arrest and worse because of their brave stand against the iniquities of racial oppression in South Africa.

There is no doubt that though a small proportion of the European population of South Africa, the 

Jewish people played a disproportionately large role in the development and history of its country 

from 1800 onwards. Freed from the repression and hostility that they faced in the countries where 

they were born, they flourished in a country that was no stranger to oppression. Exodus to Africa  explores all of this and much more. 

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A MOST COSTLY RAILWAY

Retired railway locomotive in Barkly East, 2003

I never met my mother's father, Iwan Bloch, as he died many years before I was born. His eldest son, my late uncle Felix, remembers sitting with him when he returned home from work and opened his correspondence. This was in the 1920s when Germany, where Iwan's family came from and where many of them still lived, was undergoing a severe hyperinflation. Felix remembers that many of the stamps stuck on envelopes from Germany bore high denominations, many thousands or hundreds of thousand, or maybe even millions, Deutschmark.

My late mother remembers taking the train from Barkly East to Aliwal North on her way to boarding school in King Williams Town. The first part of the journey was mountainous. The train had to negotiate a series of switchbacks, and moved very slowly. She remembers that her elder brother Felix and many of the outher young boys on the train, used to jump out of it and run down the slope to the next lower stretch of railway. There, they would wait for the train to make its way down to where they were sitting by the track. This railway would probably never have existed had it not beeen for my Grandfather Iwan Bloch...

At 11 p.m. on the 8^th April 1886, a birth was recorded in the town of Diessenhofen on the Swiss side of the Rhine. The child was my grandfather Iwan Isaak Bloch. He was of German nationality as his father Salomon Bloch was born in the town facing Diessenhofen on the German side of the Rhine, Gailingen in the state of Baden. Salomon had a store there. Iwan's mother was Peppi Bloch, née Seligmann. She was one of the fifteen surviving children of Isak Rafael Seligmann of Ichenhausen in Bavaria. Iwan died in 1931 in Johannesburg, having been a successful businessman and also the Mayor of a small town in the Eastern Cape, Barkly East. This is his story.

Wedding day of Iwan Bloch and Ilse Ginsberg

Before we continue with Iwan, it is necessary to describe the events that led to his arrival in South Africa. The Mosenthals of Kassel were probably the first German Jews to have made a success of trading in South Africa. Around and shortly after 1839 Joseph Mosenthal and his brother Adolph settled in Cape Town and became general merchants. They were very successful and set up trading posts in the interior of the Cape Colony and beyond the Orange River (Saron & Hotz pp 349-55). The importance of the Mosenthals in establishing an efficient system of commerce throughout the Cape and beyond cannot be over emphasized. To quote Saron and Hotz (p. 350) they, "not only acted as intermediaries who bought and sold; they were also, by force of circumstances, the financiers and bankers of that first generation in which their business took root". Further on, Saron and Hotz write (p 353), "Firms like Mosenthals were responsible for attracting to South Africa, as assistants, many good class immigrants who were able to give services otherwise almost impossible to supply in the comparatively undeveloped state of commerce and finance. These men in turn contributed towards the further extension of trade and industry in their new homes." These homes were the small towns scattered all over the Cape Colony and along the Orange River. Iwan Bloch's uncle Sigmund Seligmann (Iwan's mother's brother) was one of these men attracted to South Africa. Louis Herrman (p. 216) noted that, "The Mosenthals and their industrial and commercial activities were the means of introducing into South Africa nearly half the Jewish families who came to this land between 1845 and 1870".

Sigmund Seligmann

The Seligmann family of Ichenhausen in Bavaria was quite enormous. Some of the family were involved in commerce in Ichenhausen during the nineteenth century. Many of them emigrated. Sigmund Seligmann had a first cousin Heinrich Bergmann who arrived in South Africa in 1849. He was a very successful member of the Mosenthal business, and by the time of his death in 1866 was running their branch (under the name of "Mosenthal and Bergman") and their bank (the Frontier Bank) in Aliwal North. I have written about Bergmann in a recently published article (see Stammbaum, issue 25, 2004). I suspect that Bergmann was one of the earliest members of the extended Seligmann family to reach South Africa. Sigmund Seligmann came to South Africa in 1874, aged 18 years (having already spent two years in the USA!). He worked in businesses in Rouxville and in Lady Grey before setting up his own trading business. His first business was started in partnership with Moss Vallentine in Dordrecht, Cape Colony, in 1884. This did well. In 1885 Sigmund decided to open another store, in Barkly East, on the Langkloof River, north of Dordrecht in the southern edge of the Drakensberg range of mountains. It is one of the highest towns in the Cape. The opening of S.Seligmann and Co. Ltd, took place in 1886. Gradually Sigmund sent for three of his nephews: Jakob Krämer, Julius Cornelius and Moritz Rosenberger (incidentally, he also was a member of the brass band of Barkly East). They came out from Germany and helped to run the business before and after Sigmund returned to Germany in 1898. Other nephews were sent out to help in the business and amongst these were Iwan Bloch and his brother Daniel.

The Seligmann store occupied the site where Lewis &

the Barkly East Bottle Store stand. It was burnt down in the 1960s.

The red roofed building beyond it was a store for wool bought by Seligmann's.

Now I shall digress to describe the Jewish life of Barkly East, of which there is little to report. Barkly East was mainly a commercial centre for the flourishing local sheep farmers and the wool business. Its heyday antedated the building of good motor roads. In latter years when road transport became better (after WW2) its importance declined as the farmers were able to reach bigger centres such as Queenstown and East London. Saron and Hotz make one mention of Barkly East: a Jewish cemetery was consecrated there in 1894. The earliest gravestone in the cemetery records the death of Hannah (wife of Manassah) Woolf who died in February 1894. In an appendix I have provided a list of the Jews who were buried in Barkly East, with some notes about their families. I do not know when the first Jew(s) arrived in the town, but Iwan Bloch's uncle Sigmund Seligmann was certainly there by 1885. Barkly East had no synagogue and was probably not visited much by rabbis from neighbouring towns. The last Jewish family to live in Barkly East was that of Lazer Bortz. Lazer and his family were of Russian origin. They joined Seligmann's on arrival in the town. Later they started their own business, a dealership in fuel. They left the town some years ago, in the 1980s (approx.) and were last heard of in Bloemfontein. Of all the Jewish businesses, the only one that retains its name today in Barkly East is that of Bortz, albeit under new ownership. Whilst we were visiting Barkly East last year, a curator in the town's small museum showed us a small object which she had detached from the deserted and derelict former home of the Bortz family. She asked us to identify it as she was unaware of its significance: it was the Mesusah, with its scriptural contents intact, from the family's front door!

The branch of Seligmann's at Moshesh's Ford, 2003

Before going out to South Africa, Iwan Bloch left Gailingen and lived in Zurich where he was employed in a department store. Clearly Iwan was a good choice as a helper in his uncle's store as he had already had some experience in commerce. According to information on his Certificate of Naturalization (April 1908), Iwan arrived in South Africa in 1903, aged 17 years, landing at East London (where he stayed for 6 days at Deals Hotel) in 1903. Then he went to Barkly East where he became a "general dealer's assistant" at S.Seligmann & Co. When Iwan arrived, the firm was directed by his three cousins: Krämer, Cornelius and Rosenberger. Seligmann's was not only a general dealer (they sold everything from cups to coffins, from pins to farm equipment. My late mother recalled that the firm imported the latest clothes from the leading fashion houses of Paris. Seligmann's was the 'Harrods' or 'Saks Fith Avenue' of Barkly East!). It was also involved in issuing credit to farmers and handling the wool produced by the many sheep farmers in the area. When the farmers were hard up, Seligmann's sold to them on credit, and when the wool was harvested the farmers settled their debts. Iwan worked his way up through the firm from clerk to a managing director, in conjunction with his friend and neighbour Carl Blume.

According to Iwan's obituary (in the Barkly East Reporter), "The late Mr. Bloch was born in Germany, and who was 45 years of age, came here in 1903 when he was a mere youth. He joined the firm of Messrs. S Seligmann & Co, and soon showed that he possessed a remarkable business attitude. Within a few years he and Mr. Blume had taken over the business, Mr. Bloch acting as managing director, a position he filled with great success." I am not sure exactly when Iwan became a managing director of Seligmann's, but it was most probably before 1916, when Iwan married Ilse, daughter of Senator Franz Joseph Ginsberg of King Williams Town, a signatory of South Africa's Act of Union in 1910. Her mother was Iwan Bloch's second cousin, Hedwig, née Rieser. Franz Ginsberg was not merely an important public figure in the Eastern Cape, but was also a major industrialist in the area. He was an important South African manufacturer of soap, candles and matches.

Iwan's business achievements alone would have qualified him as a success in life, but this was not enough for such a hardworking and intelligent person as he was. Returning to his obituary, " But immersed in business as he was, he found time to take his share in public life here. For twelve years he was member of the Municipal Council, and for eight years in succession he was Mayor, until he retired in September last. It is not too much to say that we never had a better Mayor, and that his term of office was marked by great progress in Municipal matters. The electric light was installed; the accommodation for Natives in the Location was twice added to; and the town greatly benefited from his knowledge of finance and his business acumen. He was ever to the forefront in the advocacy and carrying out a progressive policy, and his actions were always designed with a view to furthering the best interests of the town as a whole." Iwan was a member of the Barkly East Municipal Council from 6^th May 1919 until 21^st Aug 1931, a few months before his death. He was, I believe, the first Jewish member of the Council, and most probably the town's only Jewish Mayor (his term of office was 4^th Sep 1923 until 21^st Aug 1931). Even before becoming a member of the Council, Iwan appears to have been interested in public works. I have a photograph of him in 1918 standing with several of the town's officials at the opening of a dam built to improve the town's water supply. He was also Chairman of the town's Chamber of Commerce.

Iwan Bloch's home as it was in 2003

Iwan's impact on the development of Barkly East was not inconsiderable. In 1910 the town's Council had made enquiries into the possibility of acquiring an electricity generator to provide lighting for the Town Hall and the main square, but nothing came of it. Under Iwan's Mayoralty, in 1927, the electrification of Barkly East was finally achieved. Electricity was available for the use of inhabitants between the hours of 4 PM and 12 PM only! By 1930 Iwan Bloch warned the Council that the existing electricity scheme no longer met the needs of the town, and three years after his death this was remedied. Iwan's greatest municipal achievement was his involvement in bringing the railway to the town.

In about 1902 the burghers of Barkly East began to campaign to have a railway built to the town. A connection to Aliwal North would have joined Barkly East to the existing rail network of South Africa, and no doubt would have worked wonders for the prosperity of the town. A Railway Committee was established in October 1902. By November 1905 a railway had been built from Aliwal to Lady Grey, and was a success financially once it became functional. This fuelled optimism in Barkly East. By 1916 the railway had reached New England, 18 miles from Barkly East. Much campaigning for the railway occurred between 1916 and 1924 when the Railway Board of South Africa finally visited Barkly East in connection with extending the railway to the town. By the following year, Iwan Bloch had already become the Chairman of the town's Railway Committee. He received the news that the government had finally agreed to build the long awaited extension of the railway to Barkly East. Despite this there was procrastination on the part of the government, and the construction of the railway was delayed: there was a shortage of funds. It was not until May 1928 that Iwan Bloch received the following telegram from Mr. Sephton, a Member of the Legislative Assembly, "£40,000 provided for the construction of New England/Barkly East Railway". 

The remains of the switchbacks on the railway just outside Barkly East, 2003

Exactly a year and two days before Iwan's death, the official opening of the railway to Barkly East was celebrated on 10^th Dec 1930. Two days later the Barkly East Reporter wrote, "As the train headed for the station, it was seen to consist of an engine and three of(sic) four coaches. The engine, which was decorated, had a very festive appearance. As it passed under the arch and entered the station, the Mayoress, Mrs. I.I. Bloch, performed the ceremony of christening it, by dashing a bottle of champagne…. against it". The town celebrated the arrival of the railway with a day of events including a Fancy Dress Carnival in which cars were decorated in imaginative ways. I note with some pride that the car decorated by Seligmann's won second prize in the Best Decorated Car competition. In a fancy dress parade Iwan's brother Daniel and his wife appeared as a Swiss Couple. Amongst the children in fancy dress is mention of Master Iwan Bloch, one of my two uncles, dressed up as 'Red Riding Hood'. It is of interest to note that the extension of the railway from Lady Grey to Barkly East was, according to the South and East African Handbook and Guide (1947), "….one of the most costly (about (£8,000 per mile) in South Africa owing to the mountainous nature of the terrain", and is today sadly non-functional.

How Iwan found time for leisure is a puzzle, yet he did! Barkly East was (in the Twenties and Thirties) a hive of social activity, difficult to imagine today. Iwan participated in tennis parties, held more than once a week. There was time for playing bridge, and a daily walk, not to mention many other social gatherings including golf twice a week. The family owned a number of motor cars (the most expensive newest imported models of the time) including a Hupmobile, which was used to transport the large family (Iwan had four children) on holidays to a wide range of destinations all over South Africa. My mother recalled that she and her siblings were often car-sick, and on occasion Iwan's hat acted as a receptacle for one of the symptoms of this! Iwan and his wife also made occasional trips to Europe to see family members in Germany.

In the second half of 1931, Iwan suffered a massive heart attack. He was transported to Johannesburg for medical treatment. He spent his last weeks in a nursing home (? Fairview) in Johannesburg. He passed away on the 12^th Dec 1931, and was buried in Johannesburg. His obituary noted that he was, "Of a kindly and sympathetic nature (and that) he will be sadly missed by a large circle of friends and by the poor alike". Although the Bloch family was not observant in religious matters it is worth noting that Iwan was buried in a Jewish cemetery, and the ceremony was officiated by a Rabbi.

He left behind him a widow and four children including my mother. His widow remarried Oscar Levy, who also worked for Seligmann's. Tragically, he died shortly after their marriage and the birth of their son. Oscar is buried in Barkly East. Seligmann's, the business continued to exist until the early 1960s, watched over by a member of the Bloch family and by the Ginsberg's in King Williams Town. A large fire in about 1965 destroyed the main building of Seligmann's. Today all that remains in Barkly East is the Bloch's former home and some of the many smaller buildings that belonged to the firm.

The railway to Barkly East no longer functions. When we visited it in 2003, we were told that traind had run on it occasionally, but since a fatal accident on one of its infrequent runs it no longer operates. However, this video made in 2001 will help you to relive the glory of the railway that my grandfather helped to create. Click on this image to see it:

Appendix: Jewish Graves in the Cemetery at Barkly East

View from Barkly East's cemetery towards an African settlement, 2003

When we visited Barkly East in August 2003 we visited the small museum there. We met the curator who very kindly provided me with a list of the Jewish graves in the cemetery. The Jewish cemetery is within Barkly East's 'white' Christian cemetery on the edge of the town on the road leading to Moshesh's Ford and Rhodes, two places at which Seligmann's had branch stores. The Jewish section is small and separated from the rest of the cemetery by a metal fence. The whole place is subject to vandalism and I suspect that in a few years time most of the graves will be unrecognizable. My list gives 11 graves: last years only 6 of these were identifiable - the rest were damaged too much to be recognised.

The listing is as follows;

1. Isaac ROSENBERG: London, d. 26 Apr 1956, aged 56 yrs.

[Dr. Isaac Rosenberg, born in Barkly East, was a highly respected and much loved medical doctor in Barkly East.]

2. Emil SELIGMAN: b. 3 June 1877, d. 25 Aug. 1897

[Emil Seligman(n) was born in Ichenhausen in Bavaria, and ran the branch of Seligmann's in Rhodes. He was a cousin of Iwan Bloch]

3. Bluma Chaia ROSENBERG: d. 30 Jul 1921, aged 52 yrs. (wife of Morris Rosenberg)

[Mother of Isaac]

3. Nathan LEVENSON: d. 12 Jan 1927, aged 32 yrs.

3. Jack VALLENTINE : died 7 Mar 1897, aged 32 yrs. (son of Phillip)

[Jack Vallentine, from London, worked with Sigmund Seligmann. His brother Moss Vallentine was a partner with Seligmann in a business in Dordrecht, south of Barkly East. Jack was married to Helene Perlmutter, sister of Erna Perlmutter who was married to Sigmund Seligmann. Jack's untimely death was caused by tetanus, contracted as a result of falling from a carriage.]

3. Hannah WOOLFE: d. 10 Feb 1894 (Wife of Manassah Woolfe)

3. N. JOFFEE: d. 7 Oct 1917, aged 11 mos.

8. J. JOFFEE: d. 7 Oct 1917, aged 11 mos.

9. VAN DER HORST: d. 5 Sep 1932, stillborn.

9. S. EDELSTEIN: d. 17 Sep 1944

[The Edelstein's owned a retail business in Barkly East]

9. Oscar LEVY: died 27 Sep 1934, aged 32 yrs.

[Oscar, son of Judah Levy of Melsungen in Hesse in Germany, came out to work in Seligmann's, invited by Iwan Bloch. He was highly educated. He married Iwan's widow, but died soon after.]

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ALBANIA - a haven for the Jews

 

"Where religious prejudice and hatred did not exist"

Thus wrote Herman Bernstein about Albania in 1934, when he was the US ambassador to that country.

A house in Berat (Albania) where Jews were hidden in WW2 

(Source: Click here)

Last year, I published a brief item on my blog (click HERE ) about the idea, which was briefly mooted in the 1930s, that Albania should be considered as a new 'homeland' for the Jews. So, it was with great interest that I began reading Harvey Sarner's book about the Jews in Albania.

It appears that Jews have lived in Albania since Roman times or maybe even before. During the 12th to 14th century, there were communities in what is now Albania and what is still considered to be 'Greater Albania', notably in the now Greek city of Janina. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in the 15th century further increased the numbers of Jews in Albania. Until the 19th century, this small population of Jews lived peacefully with their Albanian neighbours. During the 19th century when nationalists, mainly Greeks, were trying to become independent of the Turks, there were several incidents during which Jews were massacred. These occurred mainly in Corfu and Janina, and have been largely forgotten.

During the first half of 20th century before WW2, Jews in Albania were tolerated by their gentile neighbours, both Moslem and Christian. The considered themselves, and were considered by others, as being primarily Albanian rather than Jewish, even though they did adhere to Jewish religious customs. They spoke Albanian rather than Yiddish, Hebrew or Ladino (as did Jews in Thessalonika). This may have been one of the reasons that protected them from the anti-Semitism, which was so rife elsewhere in Europe. Harvey Sarner proposes 2 other reasons for tolerance of Jews in Albania: they did not set themselves apart from other Albanians and they were not so numerous that their presence adversely concerned or made the rest of the population feel threatened (as in, for example, Thessaloniki or further away in Warsaw).

I could not help wondering whether the Albanians' tolerance for Jews would not have been stretched beyond its limit had the plan, mooted in the 1930s, to create a new home for the Jews in Albania been fulfilled. The small (a few hundred) population of Jews would have been greatly enlarged by the influx of large numbers of Jews who were not Albanian, and who had little or no interest in promoting Albania's interests ahead of their own. After all the Zionists did not choose to settle in what is now Israel primarily to promote the well-being of their gentile neighbours.

When anti-Semitism became the official order of the day in Europe after Hitler came to power and began invading Europe, Albania became one of the countries that accepted Jewish refugees. Some of these had been issued with visas, but many others had fled from neighbouring Yugoslavia and to a lesser extent from Greece. The Albanian people welcomed these unfortunate refugees, and protected them from being discovered by first the Italian and then the German invaders. When asked to prepare lists of Jews in Albania, the authorities refused to do so. This was in contrast with what happened in neighbouring Greece (and the Netherlands). In Thessalonika, I remember reading in another book, the Jews themselves prepared a list of the members of their community for the Germans, and another was prepared in Janina. Both of the these Jewish communities were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. In Athens, where such a list was not prepared, the Jews could not be rounded up until the Nazis resorted to a dirty trick, namely offering free supplies of Matzo flour during Passover. The Jews who collected this were rounded up, and massacred. In Albania, no lists were prepared, and the Albanians, who held the safety of guests as an ancient and sacred tradition, made sure that the survival rate of Jews in their country was almost, if not, 100%.

Sarner describes some of the individuals who protected the Jews and a few of the stories of Jews who were saved by them. It would have been nice to have heard more of these, but for those who are interested, let me recommend Escape through the Balkans: The Autobiography of Irene Grunbaum written by one who experienced life as a Jewish refugee in Albania, Irene Grunbaum. Sarner, in a later chapter of his book, describes his successful efforts to have some of the Albanian rescuers recognised as Righteous Gentiles in Israel's Yad Vashem memorial.

After WW2, Albania began to be ruled by the regime headed by the most faithful disciple of Joseph Stalin, Enver Hoxha. According to Sarner, there was no anti-Semitism under Albania's Communist regime - unlike many other countries that had entered the Soviet 'bloc'. Although Hoxha's government were never pro-Israel, they were not anti-Semitic. The country isolated itself from the rest of the world. Neither Jews nor anyone else were able to leave it. In 1967, Hoxha decreed that Albania was an atheist state. Mosques and churches were destroyed or closed; there was no synagogue to be closed. Religious practices were banned, and Albanians had to choose names for their children that did not give away their original religions.

6 years after Enver Hoxha died (in 1985), the Communist regime collapsed in Albania. It was at this point that many Albanians fled from their impoverished country, many of them to Italy where they were not welcomed with open arms! In contrast, Israel welcomed those of Albania's Jews who wished to live there, and with a few exceptions most of Albania's Jews, none of whom knew any Hebrew, took up the opportunity.

Sarner's book is crammed full of interesting information, but is, sadly, poorly edited. There are many errors and inconsistencies of spelling . At first, this put me off the book, but I am glad that I persisted, and read all of this fascinating but brief volume. I would have liked to have given this book 4 out of 5 stars for its interest value, but stylistically it only deserves 3.

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