Seekers After Seclusion

Press, Volume C, Issue 29500, 29 April 1961, Page 3

Seekers After Seclusion

Floreana. By Margret Wittmar Michael Joseph. 239 pp.

Residence on a desert island carries with it certain known hazards such as possible shortage of food and water, the belligerence of wild beasts, and the onset of serious illness. The one, however, which loomed largest to the Wittmars on their arrival in Floreana was the dangerous hostility of other seekers after seclusion. Floreana is an island of the Galapagos group in the Pacific, and is a dependency of Ecuador. For some years before the Wittmars made it their home it had been known for its famous “Postoffice box’’ in which passing mariners have dropped and collected mail at infrequent intervals, and which has been mentioned in travelogues of Pacific Island explorers. In the early 1930’s it became further known, especially in Germany, as the chosen home of an eccentric misanthropist. the philosopher. Dr. Freidrich Ritter whose selfimposed exile was shared by his faithful female disciple Dore Straunch.

In 1932, Heinz Wittmar and his wife Margret decided to leave the security of their homeland, partly for the love of peace and solitude and partly for the benefit of Heinz’s 12-year-old son whose serious delicacy necessitated an open air life and much sunshine. It might be surmised that on their arrival in the island after being

storm-tossed for seven days at sea from Ecuador the Ritters might have afforded three compatriots some sort of welcome, but acually they received the newcomers with ill-concealed hostility, and left them to find out by trial and error the best way to avoid the pitfalls and dangers of a primitive way of life.

During their first two years they encountered difficulties which might have shaken the stoutest heart. The birth of their first child Rolf entailed a long-drawn out agony of four days labour for his mother, with Ritter, a qualified doctor, close at hand refusing to help, though in response to an urgent appeal he grudgingly performed an operation for post-natal complications which probably saved her life. The couple built a primitive house, and planted vegetables only to have their crops ravaged by wild cattle. They suffered further tribulations from the invasion of the island by a prepostrous creature styling herself “Baroness Wagner” who with the help of 3 strong-arm men robbed the Wittmars of their stores and treated both them and the Ritters in the most highhanded manner, finally proclaiming herself "empress” of Floreana.

This hive of Teutonic unrest and antagonisms could hardly continue indefinitely without causing strife and bloodshed and in due course the innocent Wittmars were

to be left in sole occupation, the other parties having died natural deaths or mysteriously disappeared. Their troubles were not, however, at an end, for with the outbreak of war they found themselves in grave danger of expulsion. Luckily Floreana had by then become a port of call for numerous friendly voyagers—among them President Roosevelt, who made them a generous present of stores —and the Ecuadorain authorities were persuaded by their friends among the Western allies to leave them in peace.

With a true pioneering spirit, combined with the German gifts of industry and application, the Wittmars have created in 20 years a flourishing estate from an island wilderness, and American occupation during the war of the island group has given them the added amenity of a small radio station. Now with both their children married and a grandchild already in existence they can survey their achievements with quiet satisfaction and thankful hearts.

The book is factual and quite simply written. It contains some interesting photographs and has been well translated from the German by Oliver Coburn.