Fromms: How Julius Fromm's Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis by Aly Gotz

Author:Aly, Gotz [Aly, Gotz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography
ISBN: 9781590513774
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 9622330
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2007-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Arandora Star, sunk by a German submarine

Most of the guards on the Dunera were convicts released on parole. They looted the internees’ luggage, and during a stopover in Cape Town, quite a few of them made off with their loot. Some were sadists who made the prisoners walk barefoot over broken glass. The officer in charge, Lieutenant Colonel William Scott, was unperturbed by this abuse, as documented in a message he telegraphed shortly before arrival to the Australian army department responsible for the prisoners of war. “The German Nazis,” in his “personal view,” had “exemplary” behavior, the message read. They are “of a fine type, honest and straightforward, and extremely well disciplined.” By contrast, the Italians, Scott contended, “are filthy in their habits, without a vestige of discipline, and are cowards to a degree.” The Austrian and German Jews, he declared, “can only be described as subversive liars, demanding and arrogant.”

An impressive aspect of British democracy is that even in times of war it allows for criticism. Once the details of the “hell ship” voyage had come to light, journalists and politicians were heated about what was now being called the “Dunera affair,” and about discrimination against Jewish refugees in general. The distinguished economist John Maynard Keynes spoke out on behalf of interned colleagues and declared that he had “not met a single soul, inside or outside government departments, who is not furious at what is going on.” Victor Alexander Cazalet addressed the House of Commons on August 22, 1940, to condemn the “tragedies” on the Dunera, which he deemed both “unnecessary and undeserved”: “No ordinary excuse, such as that there is a war on and that officials are overworked, is sufficient to explain what has happened,” he fumed. One year after the Dunera affair, William Scott and several guards stood trial. Scott was court-martialed and his deputy sentenced to a year’s detention.

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