After dumping my sack I climbed straight down the narrow steel ladder into the empty bunker and stayed crouched in the corner awaiting darkness. It finally got dark, and after what seemed like an eternity, in the middle of the night, I heard the engine spring into life and the ship start to move. The Trzat was a five hundred ton coal ship, empty, so you can imagine how that went in high seas. Within a few hours it was getting so rough that I just couldn’t stay in the corner any more I was being thrown from one side to another. So I just clung to the steel ladder and stayed there all night and most of the next morning. I was violently ill and by the time I felt I had no more bile to bring up I decided I’m going to climb the ladder by hook or by crook and I went up on deck. I spoke to one of the officers and told him of my dilemma. And gave him my mother’s watch and my mother’s ruby ring and asked him what I should do. He assured me that there was nothing more one can do except wait and see. As I looked along the railing, I saw a whole group of young men stand there with their elbows on the railing, also being violently ill. As it turned out they were some of the Israeli brigade that had been fighting in France, escaping to England. And in their bags they had their uniform and papers. Just in case a German patrol would pull us up they would have dumped the lot because there was a brick in each of the bags.
The sea was getting rougher and rougher, and the ship not having any ballast was tossed around like a cork. And would you believe this went on for three more days. Until, on the forth day we finally saw land and finished up pulling in to Cardiff Harbour. Not having any papers of course, I was immediately taken to the Cardiff police station and put into a cell. And boy was I happy to be inside a British jail.
The ground was still moving under me, but for the first time I had a decent night’s sleep and was awoken by a policeman, the next morning, with a cup of tea and a Welsh rarebit. Overnight they must have received instructions from the home office and later in the morning I was taken under police guard to the railway station and from there we went to Liverpool, by train. When we arrived there I was handed over to the local constabulary and I was taken to the local internment camp in Highton. Apparently a few days before the British Government had decided to intern all enemy aliens. And when I got there I found a whole lot of German and Austrian Jews and I could finally speak to somebody who could understand me.
After the second or third day in camp, the ground finally stopped moving under me and I was ravingly hungry. Well the only answer to that was to join the kitchen staff.
The next morning they sat in amazement and watched me while I devoured 12 pieces of toast. In the meantime rumours were flying fast and furious. And I heard amongst other things that they had started to evacuate internees to Canada. When they asked for volunteers my hand shot up quick and smart because I was hoping if I could get to Canada; first of all I would be far away from the happenings in Europe, and secondly I was in a country where I could communicate with people in French.
Very few people volunteered for this because they had their families in England and they didn’t want to leave. So they rounded up 2000 of us all together and hustled us on to a ship called the Dunera which was lying in the harbour in Liverpool.