Rudolph Sabor

As years went by, I was firmly convinced that my place was in Germany and that the Nazi hordes were there on ‘auf Abruf’ [on call]. That any day Mr. Chamberlain would march in at the head of his troop with his umbrella and chase the Nazis away. That was what I thought, and it was very foolish, but there it was. And that made me stay as long as possible.

[about Kristallnacht] I was up in the night and I went to the Babelsberger Strasse [Synagogue], and I saw what happened. And that strengthened my belief: this cannot be forever. The people who produced Dürer, Goethe, Kleist, a cultured people like the Germans would wake up any day. It was total delusion. The only thing I can say to make it explicable is that my love for everything German was greater than my common sense.

We had a lovely time in York [internment camp]. It was away from the war, very understanding people who were in charge of us. One was the father of an M.P. today, Janner, a Liberal M.P, I believe. And he kept us there no longer than he could. He made it easy for us to find reasons for leaving. One of the main reasons was bad health. And we had in our company a man with diabetes, and he would sell his urine to people, which we took ourselves to the camp doctor, one by one, and every day one of us was released for suffering from diabetes, except the man himself, who stayed till the end, of course, because it was a marvelous revenue for him. He was the last one to leave the camp. So we stayed for a total of about six months or so.