LONG JOURNEY ENDS

Southland Times, Issue 24232, 16 September 1940, Page 6

LONG JOURNEY ENDS

Danish Woman And Child THROUGH RUSSIA AND FAR EAST (Special to The Times) AUCKLAND, September 14. The story of a remarkable journey was told in Auckland yesterday by a young Danish woman, Mrs Marie Warburg, who left Denmark after the German occupation and travelled for three months through Soviet Russia and the Far East with a five-year-old daughter to join her husband and elder child in New Zealand. The husband, Mr Christian Warburg, was a farmer in Denrriark, but as the freehold land which he owned was too small to support a family his thoughts turned to settling in New Zealand. Europe was then at peace, but when he had sold his land and was preparing to leave the war broke out. Being forbidden to travel to England or through Germany and Italy, he left by aeroplane for Rotterdam with his daughter of nine, and after crossing France by train, joined an Italian steamer, in which they reached Sydney in February. ENTER THE GERMANS

Mrs Warburg remained behind to settle some of her husband’s business affairs. Having done so, she obtained a passpiort, but was refused German and Italian transit visas because she was bound for a country with which Germany was at war. She then decided to follow tlie same route that her husband had taken, but while she was negotiating for a French visa Germany invaded Denmark on April 9. When she arrived at the consulate that day the staff appeared to be all engaged in burning documents, which made a vast amount of smoke. She learned later that they had a car ready in the hope of escaping, but the German troops arrived first and riddled it with bullets. The invasion dashed Mrs Warburg’s hopes to the ground, but after an interval she again tried to obtain a visa for travel through Germany to Italy, which was then non-belligerent. Being again refused, she let matters rest for a little while. In the meantime, Belgium and Northern France had been invaded, and the number of German officials in Denmark was greatly reduced.

AUCKLAND CONSUL’S HELP Knowing that possibly she would be able in future to deal, with Danish officials only, she destroyed her first passport, except for a British visa, which she removed and hid. She then applied for a new one, stating that she wished to travel to the United States. Having obtained it, she secured visas for the journey across Asia. She was allowed to leave by steamer for Sweden, and at Stockholm she and the child boarded a Russian air liner for Riga and Moscow. Since the invasion, Mr Warburg had been trying to get into touch with his wife, and by good fortune a cablegram from him had been delivered to her before she left, the German and Danish officials assuming for some reason that 1 the place of origin, Auckland, was in the United States. On getting a message from Stockholm that she was on her way, Mr Warburg consulted the Danish vice-consul in Auckland, Mr C. G. Macindoe, who immediately set about doing everything possible to make her long journey easy, He cabled to the Danish consulate in Moscow and to consuls, shipping companies and others at nearly all points along her intended route, asking for help and co-operation.

HUSBAND’S GRATITUDE The result was most gratifying. Mrs Warburg stayed a day in Moscow and then joined the train for the long trans-continental journey of nine days which eventually took her and her little

girl to Dairen, the chief port of Manchukuo. There she boarded a Japanese steamer for Shanghai, and after a wait of 16 days connected with an Australian liner. This vessel called at seven Japanese ports before turning south to Manila, Rabaul and Brisbane. Finally, after 12 weeks of travel, the family was reunited in Auckland.

Mr Warburg said that they would always remember with gratitude what Mr Macindoe, a British citizen, had done to bring them and their children together in New Zealand.