Bill from the Hotel Splendide in Marseille for Walter Mehring (1940)
Bill from the Hotel Splendide in Marseille for Walter Mehring (1940)
Wir steckten Mehring im Splendide ins Bett. Der Arzt kam, sah ihn kurz an und schrieb dann ein sehr eindrucksvolles Attest. Es besagte nicht nur, daß Monsieur Mehring krank und somit unfähig war, wegen der Verlängerung seiner Aufenthaltserlaubnis auf der Präfektur vorzusprechen, es bestätigte auch noch, daß Mehring nicht vor Mitte November in der Lage sein würde, sein Zimmer zu verlassen.
[We put Mehring to bed in the Splendide. The doctor came, looked at him briefly and then wrote a very impressive certificate. It not only stated that Mr. Mehring was ill and therefore unable to be present at his case for extending his residence permit in the prefecture, it also confirmed that Mehring would not be able to leave his room until mid-November. (ed. trans.)]
Varian Fry, Surrender on Demand, 1945
After the invasion by the German Armed Forces in Belgium, Holland and France, like countless other refugees, Walter Mehring rescued himself by escaping to the unoccupied zone in the south of France and came to the crowded city of Marseille after several weeks of being on the run.
Mehring met the American, Varian Fry, who had arrived there on 14 August 1940 to coordinate assistance for refugees while working for the Emergency Rescue Committee. The starting point for Fry's work was his room at the Hotel Splendide, where he set up a kind of office and tried to organise the departure of endangered and threatened writers and artists.
The first attempt to help Walter Mehring to escape over the French-Spanish border failed. Mehring was arrested and taken to the St Cyprien detention camp.
Once Fry had succeeded in obtaining Mehring's release, he gave him a certificate that was to protect him from being arrested again. Mehring spent several months almost exclusively in the Hotel Splendide. In the records of the Emergency Rescue Committee, several of Walter Mehring's hotel bills have been preserved. Since Mehring's name was on the Kundt Commission’s wanted list and he was particularly at risk, it was necessary to find an alternative escape route. In February 1941, he obtained a place on the freighter Wyoming to Martinique - one of the last ships that was able to leave France. From there, Mehring travelled to the USA.
Gallery
