GIRLS FOR ARGENTINE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 953, 22 April 1930, Page 10

GIRLS FOR ARGENTINE

ATTEMPT MADE TO STOP DANCERS LEAVING

There ■war. an amazing scene at a Berlin railway station recently, when relatives of 12 girls who were being sent to the Argentine attempted to rescue them as they were entering the night train for Hamburg. The girls had been engaged by a Frau Schmerling to appear as dancers id South America, and had signed coni’, acts, written in Spanish, which they did not understand.

The Argentine Consul in Berlin, when he saw the contracts, revised ;o give the girls visas. He explained 10 them what their fate would be, and read to them the statements made by two German girls who had been engaged in the same way and had managed to get back to Germany. The two had never appeared as stage dancers, but had had to dance with the men who frequented a dance hall. Parts of their description of what happened to them are unprintable. Altogether IS girls, including an English girl, were interviewed by the Consul.. Four of them took his advice and refused to travel to the Argentine. Whether the English girl was among those who left is not known. Of the 12 who reached the station three were persuaded by their relatives not to go. A young man, who declared that he was engaged to one of 'he girls, attacked one of the persons accompanying them with his fists, but his sweetheart refused to listen to him. He broke down and sobbed as the train steamed away with the girl on hoard.