A Problem of Nationality

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 11, 14 January 1933, Page 16

A Problem of Nationality

"I am not Mrs. Trautmann. I am not Mrs. Hanson: Who am I?" An English-born woman who had successively assumed German, Norwegian, and American nationality uttered this exclamation when she was charged at Sheffield with failing to notify her change of address as an alien. The woman, Ida Hanson, aged 40, was stated to have married a German in 1912, thereby becoming a German subject. During the war her husband was interned in England, and she went to Germany. In 1918 she was divorced in Berlin, and returned to England. In 1920 the woman married a Norwegian, and she and her husband went to America. The husband there became a naturalised American. The woman was divorced in America, and returned to England in 1924. . According to English law she was now an American subject; American law said she was now a British subject. The Bench only had to deal with the English law on the point. After the woman's return from Ame-1 rica she lived in London for a. time, I

and went to Sheffield two years ago. She had not notified the registration authorities of her departure from London or of her residence in Sheffield. A police officer stated that Mrs. Hanson hpd told him that her father had studied as a solicitor and was interested in some mines at Penzance. As a child she lived at Chiswick. She married a German named Trautmannj and subsequently a Norwegian seafaring man, and was divorced from both of them. Mrs. Hanson told the Bench that she had done nothing detrimental to England. She was very fond of that country, and that was the reason why she kept on running back to it. "I am not Mrs. Trautmann. I- am not Mrs. Hanson. . Who am If?' she asked, "I have wasted ten years of my life already.over this. It has got to be cleared up. I cannot go on like this." The police stated that Hanson was prosecuted for failing to register in 1924. She was: now fined 10s for failure to register. On a charge of improper conduct she was sentenced, to 'one month's imprisonment.