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Today we have excerpts from a few more documents from the JDC archives describing the conditions and circumstances of the recent arrivals on the Drottningholm. Historian Corry Guttstadt devotes a chapter in her book Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust to “The Exchange of Turkish Jews in Concentration Camps.”

In the post of April 16, the passengers had been transferred from the ship to a tender in the Bosphorus and not allowed to set foot on land.

In her letters from Istanbul, Helene talks of feeling as much like a prisoner in Istanbul as she was in Ravensbrück. In some ways it felt worse to her because she had no way of contacting Vitali and she had a support system of fellow prisoners in the camp. In Istanbul, after a brief dream of freedom, she found herself alone, penniless, and stateless. She was moved from place to place. The Joint memos confirm her conditions. Many people needed help and there was a limited budget. Moving prisoners to cheaper lodging was one way of making the money last longer. But it made Helene impossible to find, either by Vitali’s relatives in Turkey or by letters from her children and nephews. Another challenge for Helene is that the last known address she had for her daughter Eva was when she was in nursing school several years before. By April 1945, Eva was living elsewhere, and was married and had a new last name. Her son Harry was still in the army somewhere in the South Pacific. The best she could do was recall the name of the apartment building where her cousin Tillie Zentner lived.

It is hard to imagine the logistics faced by the Joint and other organizations trying to help the thousands of refugees at the end of WWII. The passengers of the Drottningholm were probably the least of their worries, but the plight of these individuals was difficult indeed.

From a letter from Arthur Fishzohn in Istanbul, dated April 17th, 1945:

To: Mr. Harold Trobe
American Joint Distribution Committee, Lisbon

Dear Mr. Trobe:

Re. Drottningholm.

It has been impossible thus far to obtain from the authorities a list of the passengers that arrived on the Drottningholm on April 12th, 1945 in Istanbul. The lists enclosed herewith have been prepared from information supplied by passengers on the Drottningholm. You will note, they indicate the name of the relative to be notified and the address for that relative. …

Passengers are extremely anxious that their relatives be notified at once. …

There is a total of 115 passengers who were transferred from the Drottingholm to Turkish tender, but who on Saturday, April 14, 1945 were taken off the tender and interned in several hotels under Police surveillance, pending the decision of the Turkish authorities concerning nationality status. We are pressing for their recognition as such nationals, or in cases where such nationality may be difficult to prove, for permission to have them domiciled in Turkey. We will ask further also for the right of all of this group to be permitted to work. We have been having excellent cooperation from our top friends here and we are certain that such cooperation will be continued until this matter has been concluded….

It will be important for the War Refugee Board and the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees to stand by regarding the Drottningholm matter. I will keep you posted, of course, promptly on any change in status.

With kind regards,
Sincerely Yours,
Arthur Fishzohn

Contents of telegram dated 20th April 1945:

To:       Charles Passman
American Joint Distribution Committee, Jerusalem

From: Arthur Fishzohn

Through:         American Consulate General, Istanbul

No. 25. The repatriate account balance as of end of this month is twelve hundred Turkish Pounds and sufficient only through July. We will need about forty-five hundred pounds monthly thereafter for Istanbul and Izmir till end of year. Drottningholm cost through April nineteenth six thousand pounds. Approximate hotel costs daily are nine-hundred to thousand pounds. All Drottningholm group without means and few have relatives here. When released they will continue to be heavy burden. Total number of passengers Drottningholm hundred forty eight. Only. About twenty in this group not being presently financed by us. Please make appropriation recommendations to Lisbon and advise me concerning same. Arrange also to have funds sent promptly. Shall I contact you in Tehran after twenty-sixth. 

From a memo from April 20th and 21st, 1945 to Mr. Charles Passman From Arthur Fishzohn:

Mr. Charles Passman
American Joint Distribution Committee, Jerusalem 

Dear Mr. Passman:

Re. Drottningholm.

I met yesterday with the Repatriate Committee and with Mr. Brod concerning costs involved in connection with the Drottningholm refugees. Today I sent you cable No. 25, which makes reference to the matter of costs. I wish to give you now a somewhat fuller picture of the situation.

A total of 148 Jewish persons arrived in Istanbul on the Drottningholm. The authorities accepted as valid, passports of 31, who were permitted to land immediately. Since that time, two more persons were allowed to land on the basis of valid Dutch and British passports. Three persons are ill, and were placed in hospitals as soon as the boat docked here. The remaining 112 persons have been interned since Saturday, April 14th in two small hotels in Moda and in the Touring hotel in Istanbul.

….The estimated costs to date are as follows:

From April 10th to 14th, for food and incidentals, brought aboard the tender, 2000 Turkish Liras. From April 14th through April 19th, the first 5 days in hotels, the sum of 4000 Turkish Pounds averaging 800 T.L. per day. Hotel costs include food and the average cost per person per day is about 6.50 T.L. [We need] a total of 812 T.L. per day which we can expect will continue as long as these people remain in the hotels….

These people will be a considerable financial burden even though the Turkish authorities should permit them to remain in Istanbul, for the reason that hardly any of them have relatives here, who can help them and very few of them have any sort of trade. …[T]here will be a long adjustment period before they will be able to find work of one kind or another.

The repatriate committee, in order to keep expenses down to the minimum… is working on plans to use the Grand Rabbinate building or Bene Berith building for the purpose of housing many of these people if and when their internment in the hotels ends. The Committee isnot altogether agreed that this would be a solution or that it can use these buildings for this purpose and they are investigating other means of handling this problem.