We could take little with us, only a box, which was packed under supervision of customs officials and sent to us. We went with the MS Champlain of the French Line from Southampton, because they still accepted German currency and also paid us a small on-board money in dollars. Generally, one was only allowed to export ten Reichsmarks. From Hamburg we first went to The Hague, where my Aunt Martha and Uncle Siegfried had emigrated in the spring. At the Bentheim border station, we were subjected to further harassment. We had to get off the train, our suitcases were rummaged through, and my sister’s doll had its head torn off to see if there was any foreign currency hidden there before we were allowed to continue our journey. We spent the Sabbath at my aunt and uncle’s house. All their children were there; Gershon had come from Palestine. The family’s Christian housekeeper, who had served with them since 1913, had also come from Hamburg. On Saturday evening we drove on to Woking, south of London, where my Uncle Ernst and his family owned a larger house. It was crowded with newly arrived refugees. Uncle Ernst had put up all sorts of people from Germany as domestic servants or arranged appropriate jobs for them, because at the time that was one of the few ways to get an entry permit to England. One week later we continued on to New York, where we landed on October 20. We were accommodated in an apartment in Washington Heights in the northwest of Manhattan, where many emigrants from Germany had settled since 1933, so that one spoke also jokingly of the Fourth Reich or Frankfurt on the Hudson. We inhabited two rooms with an emigrant family and could eat there also inexpensively.
Source: Wilma and Georg Iggers, Zwei Seiten der Geschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002, p. 65f (translation)