TREASURES LOST

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 August 1940, Page 4

TREASURES LOST

DIAMOND MERCHANT LEFT ALL.

Mr. S. Granaat, 25-stone middleaged diamond merchant from Amsterdam, who left his luxurious hbme and magnificent art collections in Holland in order to save his life when the Nazis arrived, was interviewed in London by a representative of the Daily Mail. He told the following amazing story:— The voyage was made with 58 other refugees from Holland in a fishingboat with a captain and no crew; it took 17 hours, 2 J of them spent in minefields; it cost £.4000 —the bulkfl paid by another wealthy Amsterdam business man, the rest by passengers according to their means. In the fishing-boat were two young couples, a young man and his fiancee and a young married couple, who had been picked up in a stolen rowboat miles off the Dutch coast. The trip ended in the arrest of 18 of the 59 and their being taken under armed guard to Holloway Gaol. Mr. Granaat said: “In the rush to get away it did not matter in what boat or with whom one sailed. Most of the Dutchmen on board I knew. I knew a family of Poles, very nice people, but it was soon clear to me that there were also Germans aboard. “I was very scared about the presence of some of the Germans. I’m no professional detective, but I should say there were at least five or six quite harmless ones. Others I was not so sure about. 1 “One man was so gay he couldn’t have been genuine. There was another, a fat man with a mysterious passport, and a girl who made herself very important. “This girl’s father was one who kept apart. He didn’t talk to me. When you are with people for 24 hours like that, you don’t like people who won’t talk to you.” The little fishing boat, of less than 50 tons, came safely through the mines and neared England without a mishap. At dawn an East Coast fishing village was sighted. The refugees signalled with an electric torch. Fishermen rowed out and guided them into Lowestoft. “It was a masterpiece of organisation,” said Mr. Granaat. “As soon as we were in England there were kind people to bring us hoi food and tea and coffffee.

“Then the 'immigration officers and the police interviewed us. “I don’t know why the Germans came to England. I wouldn’t say I suspected them of being Fifth Columnists, nor could I ' say whether many of them had been in Hplland long. But I understand the police are looking after them now.”

“Mr. Granaat abandoned a fortune to cross to England. He has travelled thousands of miles as a diamond merchant, and still has a business and property in Italy. “But the trip has saved my life,” he said. “I should have been shot the first day the Germans came in. My anti-Nazi views were Well known.”