HUNTED REFUGEE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23139, 10 September 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

HUNTED REFUGEE

OEDEAL AS STOWAWAY TWO DAYS IN "BLACK HOLE" MAGISTRATES WARN CAPTAINS many cases have been suspected in recent months, for the first time persons engaged in smuggling a refugee into Britain have been traced. The Home Office has been concerned lately at the increasing number of illegal landings in the country.

As a result of intensive investigations, two seamen, Max Schermewsky, aged 23, a German, and Mnirnus Carl Louis Plansoen, aged 29, a Dutchman, were found guilty at Hove, Sussex, of aiding a 34-year-old commercial traveller, Kichard Sominer, to land without permission. They were sentenced to three months' hard labour, and were recommended for deportation. It was found that Sommer, a German Jew, was smuggled across the Channel in a Dutch steamer in a hiding place pitch dark and so small that he could not sit up. He lay there fulllength for 48 hours, without water and with only a piece of chocolate for food. Arrival of "Brown Shirts"

Principal witness for the prosecution was Somnior himself, after he had appeared in the dock and had been recom» mended for deportation. No penalty was imposed in his case. A statement alleged to have been made to the police by Sommer declared:

"When Hitler came into power in 1983 1 was engaged to an Aryan woman, and so six men of the Brown Shirt organisation called at my private address to arrest me. I happened to be at business, and my father sent me word. I had some money, and took a train for Paris immediately."

He was expelled from Fra,nce after living there for two years by selling newspapers. Then he crossed to Belgium, where the Jewish Refugees Committee granted him relief and gave him 750 francs to leave the country. Having decided to try and entpr England, a man named Max introduced him to a sailor who would take him to England for 750 francs. Hidden Behind Kitchen The sailor took him aboard a ship in Antwerp harbour and he stowed away in a hole behind the kitchen. When the sailor took him ashore at Shoreham, Sommer caught a train to London.

After the two seamen had been sentenced, the captain of their vessel, the Oost Vlaanderen, was called before the magistrates and was told: "If any further case of this kind comes before the Court, the Bench will take a most serious view as far as the masters of vessels are concerned and heavy punishment will be inflicted."

Sommer pleaded with the magistrates to he allowed to see the Jewish Refugee Committee in England because ho wished to go to relatives in Buenos Aires.