Tag #117473 - Interview #83162 (Ester Khanson )

Then suddenly on 1st September 1939 the war began, German troops invaded Poland [7]. I was in Paris. My uncle said that I had to go home at once. I could not go through Germany, so we picked the itinerary via Belgium and Sweden. I was issued a Belgian visa at once, as for Sweden it took longer. They were afraid that I would stay in Stockholm. Swedes were afraid of Germans, and they did not want to have another Jew. Only when my aunt Jenny knelt down in front of the consul, he took pity on me and gave me the entry permit. I wrote Leo that I would go through Sweden. When my uncle was seeing me off, he told me that when I meet Leo, I would understand that he does not mean anything to me anymore.

We had fun during the voyage to Belgium from France. Everybody danced. Nobody thought of war and imminent danger. I visited my cousin in Belgium. She was the daughter of my father’s brother Bernhard. She lived in Belgium with her husband and two wonderful children. Then, when the Germans occupied Belgium she wrote to her father in Tartu: ‘You can live with Germans. Do not leave.’ I spent a couple of days there and went to Sweden. I had to wait there for two or three days for the ship to Estonia.