68GETTY IMAGESpoint during the night. Tragically, he had conceded defeat
too soon: the following day, local police reversed their decision
and allowed the rest of the party to continue their journey
to Portugal.B
enjamin, who posthumously acquired a reputation
as one of the foremost philosophers and cultural
critics of the 20th century, was among the most
well-known of the thousands of Jewish refugees
who attempted the Pyrenean traverse during the
Second World War, and one of several who took their own lives
when they were unable to complete their journey. On 5 July
1940, Karl Einstein, a nephew of Albert Einstein, drowned
himself in the Pau river – within sight of the Pyrenees – after
becoming separated from his wife during the exodus from
Paris. A leftwing novelist, scriptwriter and former commander
of the anarchist militia during the Spanish Civil War, Einstein
saw the Pyrenees as a barrier that could not be overcome.
Other Jews did make it into Spain, only to find themselves- as Benjamin did – prevented from proceeding by the Spanish
authorities. In October 1942, for example, Max Regensburger
and his partner Jenny Sara Kehr Lazarus were arrested by the
Spanish authorities while trying to cross the Coll de Nargó in
Lleida province, north-west Catalonia. Regensburger was
taken to the infamous internment camp at Miranda de Ebro,
and Lazarus was imprisoned in Les Corts prison in Barcelona,
where she killed herself rather than be deported to France.
than myself ”. (The fate of that briefcase, and the manuscript it
contained, is still unknown.) Henny Gurland later remem-
bered how the party crawled the last uphill section on all fours.
On reaching the border, Benjamin and his companions met
Carina Birman, an Austrian refugee who was also attempting
to cross into Spain with her sister and two friends. In a
manuscript first published in English in 2006, Birman
described how she and her party encountered a “German
university professor named Walter Benjamin, who was on the
point of having a heart attack”. Birman and her companions
found water for Benjamin, and Fittko accompanied the group
part of the way down the narrow track on the Spanish side of
the mountains before returning to France.
By early evening, the exhausted Benjamin and his compan-
ions reached the small coastal town of Portbou, where they
were promptly arrested on suspicion of illegal entry. They
were taken to the Hotel de Francia, a ‘special police hotel’,
and informed they would be returned to France the next day.
Birman’s sister tried to bribe the hotel owner and police
officials to allow them to continue, but Benjamin slipped into
despair. He swallowed his morphine tablets, handing Gurland a
letter for his friend and fellow exile Theodor Adorno, declaring:
“In a situation presenting no way out, I have no other choice
but to make an end of it. It is in a small village in the Pyrenees,
where no one knows me, where my life will come to an end.”
Though the accounts of the various protagonists do
not entirely agree, it appears that Benjamin died at somePort in a storm
Port-Vendres pictured c1920. This
small port on France’s Mediterranean
coast was Lisa Fittko’s base from
where she helped Jews flee France
during the Second World WarFlight across the PyreneesИЗП
ОДГОТОВИЛАГРnot entirely agree, it appears that Benjamin died at some Рnot entirely agree, it appears that Benjamin died at someУППА"What'sNews"not entirely agree, it appears that Benjamin died at some
News"not entirely agree, it appears that Benjamin died at someVK.COM/WSNWS68
VK.COM/WSNWS68not entirely agree, it appears that Benjamin died at someVK.COM/WSNWSnot entirely agree, it appears that Benjamin died at some