Planning, Coincidences, and Luck: Coping with Contingency en Route from Nazi-Occupied Germany to Kenya

This paper looks at documented journeys of German Jewish refugees who fled from Germany to Kenya. Using letters, memoirs, autobiographical writings, audiovisual testimony, government documents, and other archival sources, it traces the transit experiences of women, men, and children who sought safe havens in the East African British colony. The paper will shed light on the unpredictability of each refugee’s journey, on the careful planning and re-planning of routes, on survival and coping strategies that those fleeing the Nazi regime developed during their travels, on transient yet life-changing encounters, on luck, resourcefulness, and inventiveness.

Specifically, this paper will trace different transit routes taken by cohorts, families, and individuals in 1938 and 1939 – first by different means of transport to ports such as Hamburg, Southampton, or Genoa, and then on vessels – mostly of the Deutsche Afrika Linien – via the western or eastern African coast to the Kenyan port city of Mombasa. While the paper will address the significance of age and class for different transit experiences and the importance of supporting networks in Germany, Great Britain, and Kenya, the major focus will be on the peculiar demands, dangers, and contingencies that families traveling with children experienced. It will also address the complex situation in which German Jewish refugees, who had been racially persecuted in Germany, found themselves in colonial Kenya as members of the white ruling class. In order to safeguard the image of white supremacy in the face of colonized Africans, British colonial authorities expected white refugees to behave like other members of the British settler community. As poor refugees, many of them did not belong to the settler elite.