THROUGH LISBON'S ESCAPE HATCH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 208, 18 June 1943, Page 4

THROUGH LISBON'S ESCAPE HATCH

fs The Door Still Open ? OR the first time since the war started a civilian plane travelling from Lisbon to London has been deliberately shot down by the enemy.. Perhaps this means that the kind of gentlemen’s agreement which has been maintained for nearly four years exists no longer. Perhaps it means no more than that the enemy’s information service failed. Mr. Churchill had been "tracked to Gibraltar. It may have been supposed that he was using civilian transport back to London. Whatever the reason was for the attack on this particular plane, it.is a fact that there has been no disposition on one side or the other to close what correspondents call the "escape hatch of Europe."

a pipeline into each other’s | territory. They need a way of getting their agents back and forth. They like to get each other’s newspapers. It is also convenient to have a means for the exchange of prisoners and for the passage of civilians whom neither side wishes to hold. ATIONS at war like to have Lisbon has provided that link, It is the only large European city that offers a land, sea, and air way from one belligerent camp to the other. The question is: Has the way now been closed? If it has, there is no other door that can be opened, since the only other European countries not in the war — Turkey, Sweden, and Switzerland — are all inaccessible in greater or less degree. Lisbon To-day Meanwhile a few glimpses of Lisbon as it is to-day will show what being Europe’s gateway means. Here are some passages from an article written by Harvey Klemmer for the National Geographic Magazine (Washington): "The best connexion between Lisbon and the belligerents to-day is by air. The British maintain a first-rate service of both land planes and sea planes. The Germans, Italians, and Spanish also

maintain services, s» They all use the same airport. "Sintra aerodrome, outside of Lisbon, is the most international airport in operation anywhere in the world to-day. When you enter the office you see five signs: AERO PORTUGUESA TRAFICO AERO ESPANOL DEUTSCHE LUFTHANSA BRITISH AIRWAYS ALA LITTORIA "You get even more of a shock when you go on the field and see English, German, and Italian planes drawn up together. It would make a better story if I could report that the crews mingle in Lisbon’s bars. But they don’t. Each group

keeps to itself and, so far as I could see, pays no attention to the others." Swarms of Refugees Lisbon necessarily swarms with refugees. The accommodation question is in fact so acute that no one is admitted

unless, with his passport, he can show a plane or steamship ticket out of the country. To quote Mr. Klemmer again: "The hotel lobbies are a babel of tongues. They talk about many things, but mostly they talk about boats and planes. These two things, which we take for granted in times of peace, have suddenly become possessed of magical powers. ‘There’s a Basque fisherman who, for 20,000 escudos, will run passengers to North Africa. You had better get friendly with him, in case the Germans come.’ ‘Have you heard about the Greek passenger ship going to New York?’ ‘My brother knows a man at the American Express; he says the Portuguese are going to put on another boat.’ ‘My hotel porter says a Spanish freighter is in port, loading for South America.’ "So it goes-gossip and ‘rumour, and hope, and despair, running through the life of Lisbon like some restless refrain out of the city’s fevered past. ... Racketeers, unfortunately, have got loose among the refugees. There has been some traffic in visas, and steamship tickets have been known to change hands-for a consideration. There have even been examples of refugees giving their all to secure passages, on non-existent vessels." Fifth Column How much fifth column work is carried on in Lisbon it is difficult to say. Mr. Klemmer thinks that "the spy ring has been greatly over-publicised." He thinks that the "suave young men and beautiful young woman" who loiter about the (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) hotels would take more pains to hide their identity if they really were dangerous. "Vendors display, side by side, periodicals of many lands. They play no favourites. You can get the London Daily Mail and New York Times; you can also get the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the Lavora Fascista, and the Falangist Arriba." Another Picture

The same impression, though with a difference, is conveyed by Louis Fischer in an article in The Nation. Here are two paragraphs: "If you glance at the map, Spain and Portugal look like Europe’s gangplank. The gangplank is crowded with people whom Fascism is squeezing out of Europe but who have not yet been able to obtain a ship, and a visa for the free world across the water. For them, every day is a gamble, odd or even, red or black, Hitler or a visa, seventeen or eighteen on a roulette wheel, the Nazis or a berth on a vessel? Hundreds of them play thefr luck each night at Estoril, an hour outside Lisbon. "This Casino is the last international. Where else does a German with a sabre gash on his cheek sit elbow to elbow with an Englishman? When the West Point disgorged the German and Italian consuls into Portugal, high Nazi officials, led by the former ambassador at Washington, met them at the gangplank, and the next evening they flipped their chips at Estoril. A Nazi official with the typical short-cropped Prussian head, bent over to place his bet in No. 33. As he straightened up, his coat brushed the shoulder of a dark woman who sat next to him. Her eyes were deep and brown, and I had watched her biting her fingernails. ‘Pardon,’ the Nazi exclaimed, ‘pardon, mademoiselle,’ and bowed sharply from the waist. The girl was Jewish, from Warsaw. He had sent many like her to the concentration camps. Perhaps he had sent her to the gangplank." From a Radio Broadcast Finally, here is a passage from an American news commentator sent to

Portugal by the Columbia Broadcasting System: "There is no real British fifth column in Portugal-that wouldn’t be ‘cricket.’ On the other* hand, many of Portugal’s secret police were trained by Himmler in Berlin. The friends they made there come to see them. Biefurn, sinister assistant to Himmler, arrived at Estoril while I was there. . .. On the same day I recognised a German socialist who had escaped from an Alpine concentration camp with Feuchtwanger. He had been a mild little man, a teacher and writer, when Hitler came to power, but had since climbed the Pyrenees carrying a sick refugee child in his arms. Fear as well as hope had left him. . . . He was on Thomas Mann’s list of 120 refugee writers considered worth a specia}_ effort to save. Meanwhile’ he awaited his visa! But when I told him whom I had seen in the Palace Hotel, he turned pale. "*To-morrow,’ he said, TI will make some acquaintances among the fishermen who have boats in the harbour.’ "