Diaries reveal some of the most intimate, heart-wrenching accounts of the Holocaust. They record in real time the feelings of loss, fear, and, sometimes, hope of those facing extraordinary peril.
The diary of Hans Vogel, who fled Paris with his family while his father was interned, contains hand-drawn and colored maps of their flight. This page describes receiving papers allowing the family to immigrate to the United States.
Hans was born in Cologne, Germany on December 3, 1926. The family left Germany in 1936, settling in Paris. They remained there until the outbreak of World War II. Hans's father, Simon, was interned by the French as an enemy alien at Lisieux, and later Gurs. When invading German forces reached Paris, the Vogel family fled south. Upon Simon's release from Gurs, the family reunited and settled in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, in the unoccupied zone of France, near the Spanish border. They remained there from June 1940 until April 1941, when they received papers from the United States Consulate allowing them to immigrate. They arrived in New York via Lisbon on the steamer Nyassa in August 1941. Sadly, Hans Vogel died at the age of 15 from an illness in 1943.
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