This blog is part 10 of the story of 24-year-old Jew Egon Schoenberger and his flight from the Nazi Holocaust of World War II to New Zealand. Egon’s story has been adapted by Museum writers Greg Meylan and Kirsten MacFarlane, using archive material submitted to Auckland Museum by Egon’s New Zealand family. There will be 24 posts in total.
The Marnix approaches Colombo amid growing excitement at making landfall in an exotic port. Egon is almost halfway to New Zealand.
Before he left for New Zealand Egon’s uncle Eugen tried to find work for him in the wine industry here. He enquired of the British wine shippers Grierson, Oldham and Co whether they knew anyone in New Zealand that could help him, but they had no real contacts. It would be several decades yet before New Zealand developed a thriving wine industry.
Egon also carried with him a letter of introduction to a Henry Kitson of Christchurch from the royal brewers Barclay Perkins & Co. They wrote the introduction at the request of Tattinger champagne maker Paul Eveque, who had assisted the rest of Egon’s family to escape into France.
In the end it was a letter of recommendation to a Dr Dreifuss in Auckland that saw Egon land a job on a farm in Huntly. The difference between his old life as a student in the picturesque cities of Europe (and an upbringing steeped in high culture) and that of his new one in the backblocks of the Waikato were huge. But Egon hardly flinched. He knew something terrible was coming to Europe and was therefore just grateful to have escaped.
But the relief of finding safety must have been tempered by enormous concern when the Germans invaded France in 1940. His mother and sister were arrested and he lost contact with them. In an attempt to find out where they were Egon put an advert in the international German Jewish newspaper Aufbau. He received a reply in January 1941 from a man in America who had been with them in Camp de Gurs concentration camp in southern France.
Finally, the first letter from his mother and sister, written from the camp arrived in his letterbox. They were alive but Egon would have known how perilous Johanna and Doris’ situation still was.
Egon would eventually retrieve some of the trappings from the family’s cultured life when he was reunited with the family silver, but that is a story in itself and one for another blogpost.
Previous blogpost: Modern day Mainz gets involved
Next blogpost: First encounter with the Oriental World
Throughout this series of 24 blog posts we’d love to hear from you. If you have any questions, would like to learn more about any aspects of Egon’s story or share your thoughts please use the comment box. We’ll do our very best to respond and answer your questions. And thank you to everyone who has commented so far.