Saturday, October 19, 2013

You Have To Prepare and Act Very Early

Pulled from the comments to the post, Just How Nefarious Are the New Wire Transfer Restrictions at Chase Bank?:
Further to your reference to "The Pianist", I worked for many years in the early eighties for an older Dutch Jewish man, whose family had owned a hat factory in Holland pre WW2. They saw what was coming and started to try to sell the factory but it took much longer than anticipated since so many people were selling companies. Finally the factory was sold for an reasonable amount based on lowered expectations and all assets were given to my boss as a young man to smuggle out of the country and start a new business in Lima, Peru. His job was to get situated as soon as possible so that all the other relatives could begin traveling to Lima in small groups and have a place to stay and begin a new life. His young wife followed him to Lima shortly after he arrived but, unfortunately, he never saw any of his other relatives again.

2 comments:

  1. I have some Dutch friends. They told me that the perspective of the Dutch before the outbreak of hostilities was colored by their experience during WW1. They were neutral then, and emerged unscathed. They assumed they would be able to do the same, in the case of any future war. It was a naive view, but understandable.

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  2. Milton Mayer wrote a book a few years ago "They Thought They Were Free: Germany 1933-45" and the title comes from what almost everyone he interviewed said to him- they honestly thought they were free.

    The came for the Jews...

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