Passengers on board a ship travelling from India to Seattle, Washington.
Overview
- Caption
- Passengers on board a ship travelling from India to Seattle, Washington.
Among those pictured is Berta Herlinger (second from the left). She would continue on her trip to live for a time in Spokane. - Date
-
1947
- Locale
- India
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Wendy Lehmann
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Wendy Lehmann
Keywords & Subjects
- Keyword
- DEPARTURES GROUP PORTRAITS IMMIGRATION SHIPS
- Photo Designation
-
JEWISH REFUGEES: POSTWAR IMMIGRATION -- North America
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Anna Valerie ("Vally")Herlinger was born on December 29, 1924 in Vienna, Austria to parents Moritz (b. 1884) and Berta Herlinger. Berta (nee Fuchs) was born in 1891 in Uherski Brod (now in the Czech Republic), the eldest daughter among twelve children. Her father was a leather tanner. When she was thirteen, her mother fell ill and died not long after, leaving Berta to help raise her younger siblings. They were a close family, and when Berta moved to Vienna to find work her younger sister, Mela went with her, followed by other siblings. In Vienna, Berta met and married Moritz Herlinger. Moritz owned a textile and menswear shop in the 15th district of Vienna, where he and his family also lived. Their first child, Herman, was born around 1920. In 1924, Moritz died, leaving Berta with a young son and expecting another child, Vally, who would be born later that year. After Moritz’ death, Berta began running the shop. The business thrived, and by the early 1930s she owned an apartment building in Hitzing where she and her family lived.
Witnessing the rise of Nazism in Austria, Berta began to save money for the family to leave. In 1938, she agreed to allow her eighteen-year-old son Herman to travel illegally with his friends to Belgium, with the plan that Berta, Vally, and Mela would soon follow. However, shortly before the date that they were to leave, Vally became ill with scarlet fever, making travel impossible. Deeply concerned about their situation, Berta wrote to her cousin Tilda Kars, who had left Austria with her husband months earlier for Calcutta. Seeing Tilda’s distress at Berta’s news, Tilda's neighbor, Doreen Barnet, offered to sponsor Berta and her family’s travel to Calcutta and provide them with work when they arrived. The sponsorship covered only Berta and Vally, but Berta planned to send for the rest of her family once she was established there. They left Vienna on April 24, 1939 and travelled by train to Amsterdam. From there, they boarded the Marnix van Sint Aldegonde and sailed to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where they had a weeklong stopover before continuing on to Calcutta on the Isipingo. They arrived on June 8, 1939.
Soon, Tilda was able to secure a sponsorship for Berta’s son Hermann as well, and he arrived at the end of July. He was apprenticed to the photographer Sydney Moses, who had also facilitated the acquisition of his work visa. Other members of Berta’s family were not able to immigrate due to the start of the war. Berta initially worked as a domestic in Calcutta, but later took an apartment in Darjeeling, where she opened a boarding house. Vally was sent to school at the Loretto Convent in Darjeeling. When she finished school, Vally returned to Calcutta and completed a secretarial course, while living with friends and caring for their children. At the end of 1941 she found work with the Lever Brothers, and later moved with the company to Delhi and then to Bombay. Herman worked for a time in Dehra Dunn before joining her in Bombay to work as a salesman in the stationery trade.
By the end of the war, Berta had lost nearly all of her family members. One brother and his wife survived, though their children perished, and one niece managed to immigrate to America. She decided to apply for a visa to the United States, along with her children. Her visa was granted, but her children’s papers were delayed, so in 1947 she travelled alone to Spokane, Washington, where old friends had settled. Later that year, Hermann married Klara Steiner, a Hungarian survivor of Auschwitz. Vally had become engaged to George Klimt, who had also fled Nazi Austria, and they married in London on June 6, 1948. The couple settled in the UK, where Herman and Klara soon joined them. With their visas to the U.S. delayed, both couples stayed in the U.K. where they had children and built lives. Berta joined her children there in 1949, and lived near them until her death in 1976.
[DRAFT] George Klimt was born on October 23, 1923 in Vienna, the only son of Fritz and Fredericka (nee von Friedman) Klimt. Fredericka ("Fritzi") was the daughter of Moritz and Caroline (nee Edler) von Friedman, and had a brother, Sigmund. Both Moritz and Sigmund had distinguished military careers, and Moritz was knighted by Franz Joseph, emperor of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Both Moritz and Caroline died at the beginning of the 1930s. Fritz (b. 1896 in Vienna) was the son of Simon and Paula (nee Kohn) Klimt, and had three brothers, Otto, Ernst, and Hans. The brothers were successful businessmen, with a chain of menswear shops in Vienna called Brueder Klimt. Their father, Simon died in 1934.
On March 12, 1938, German annexed Austria and began antisemitic measures. Sigmund was imprisoned for six months, and after his release he immigrated to Palestine with his wife Sidonie and nine-year-old daughter Rita. Fritz and his brothers, realizing the danger, began applying for exit visas and disposing of their shops. Using the pretext of having export business to attend to, Fritz obtained a temporary visa to Italy. After arriving in Milan, he went to the British Consulate and asked for an entry visa to any country which would accept him. He was offered a visa to India, accepted it, and returned to Vienna to assist with the disposition of the shops. After all her sons had left Austria Fritz’ mother, Paula, was able to obtain a visa to China. She travelled overland, arriving in Shanghai. While Fritz established himself in India, Fritzi and George planned their escape. George, then fifteen, was trained to grade pattern sizes, and to cut and sew linings into men’s suits, so he would have marketable skills for their uncertain future. At great cost, they were finally able to obtain French tourist visas, and on November 16, 1938 Fritzi and George left Vienna by night sleep train for Nice.
Fritzi and George remained in Nice for a little over a year, where Fritzi supported them both by mending women’s silk stockings. When the war began, their Austrian passports meant that they were considered enemy aliens in France and once again they had to make plans to leave. Fritzi’s brother, Sigmund arranged for them to get a 3-month visitor’s visa to Palestine, from where they planned to go directly to India to join Fritz. On December 12, 1939 they left Nice for Marseille and from there found passage on a troop ship to Lebanon. They arrived on Beirut on the 17th and crossed the border into Palestine on at Rosh Hanikra. They ended up staying for three years, first living with Sigmund and his family, then finding other lodgings nearby. George attended the Montefiore Higher Technical Institute, graduated as a radio technician, and found work repairing radios and transformers. Fritzi earned a living running a bridge club in a cafe in Tel Aviv.
By 1942, Fritz has established his business in Bombay and was able to send visa for his wife and son. On February 12, 1942, Fritzi and George left Palestine, travelling to Karachi on KLM airlines, through Basrah, Iraq, and on to Bombay. George found work there, first as a shift manager in a factory that provided waterproof canvas for tent and lorries, then later with his father in the family business, Klimt and Lion Ltd.
At the end of the war, Paula was reunited with her sons in India. She had been interned in the Shanghai ghetto under Japanese occupation, and endured great hardship. She would continue to live near her sons, first in the U.S. and later in Australia, where she lived until her death at the age of eight-nine. George, still in India, had become engaged to Valerie ("Vally") Herlinger, and they applied for visas to the United States. When the visa were delayed, and the partition of India seemed imminent, George accepted an offer of a labor permit in England. He left India on December 4, 1947 on board the SS Stratheden. Several weeks later, he was joined by his fiance Vally. They were married in London on June 6, 1948 with parents Fritz and Fritzi in attendance. In 1949, Fritz and Fritzi divorced. Fritz retuned to Bombay, where he married Halena File. They returned to London in the early 1950s, and remained there until Fritz’ death in 1989. Fritzi also remained in London and died in 1984.
George and Vallly Klimt were married for 57 years. They have three children and six grandchildren. George died in 2005.
- Record last modified:
- 2020-03-24 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1179864
