Evening star., 1940-09-01
British Took Germans
And Film Off u. 5.
Liner After SeuffIe
Officers Tell How
Comeromen Fought
Censors at Bermuda
BY the Associated Press.

by the Associated Press.
JERSEY CITY, Asg. 31.-Puzzled
officers and passengers of the Amer
lean Export Liner Exochorda told
tonight how British authorities at
Bermuda, disregarding the captains
protests, removed three German sub
jectS from the ship without expla-
nation and seized rolls of war film
from an American photographer
after scuffle.
The vessel, which arrived today
from Lisbon, with 166 passengers,
also lost AIS pouches of mail to
British censors at the Bermuda stop.
Capt. Wenzell Habel said he be-
lieved the, incident was the first
since the start of the war in which
passengers had been taken off a
vessel flying the American flag.
(Today at Bermuda, British
censors removed 1856 bags of mail
from the American Export Liner
Exeter, Lisbon-bound from New
York. and las from the Yankee
Clipper, weSt-bound from Horta,
the Azores, the Associated Press
reported)
Asked for Germans by Name.
Capt. Habel said British authori-
ties asked by name for DR.. Berbert
Block, 81; Adolf Sandhaus, Al, and
Hans Schiffman, 80.
The British made no comment,
Capt. Habel said, and refused either
to entertain his protest of their
action or to explain why they
wanted the three passengers.
He said that they questioned a
fourth passenger, Sigmund Egel-
hardt, SO, a jeweler and uncle of
Mr.. Sandhaus, but did not take him
off.
Mr.. Sandhaus, passengers related,
told the British he was an Aus
trian who never had been in Ger
many but who had spent months in
German concentration camps in Bel
gium and France before he was re-
leased after the capitulation of
France.
Dr. Block had told passengers
that he was en- route to Boston to
teach political economy IN a COL
lege. They did not recall the name
Of the college.
Mr.. Schiffmann had informed
shipboard acquaintances that he was
en- route to Richmond. Va, to visit
relatives whom he did not name.
Film Seized After Fight.
More exciting to passengers than
the removal of the three Germans,
however, was the seizure of film
from Frank w. Van Lew of Lawton
Okla, a photographer employed by
the European Picture Service, con-
tinental organization with outlets in
the United States.
Mr.. Van Lew said he had been
given 16 rolls of German war films
in Switzerland and that some of the
films, made by Germans, showed
action in the historic British retreat
from Dunkerque, France.
When the British censor demand
ed the films the photographer said
general scufae ensued on the ships
deck.
Later, he said, the censor went
ashore and came back with three
big police officers. who took them
from me forcibly."
Took Personal Belongings.
Mr.. Van Lew said that during the
past several months he had sent
1900 still pictures to the United
States by Clipper plane, with as
surance that the planes would not
stop at Bermuda, but that only 166
pictures ever reached New York.
Among other things taken from
him, Mr.. Van Lew said, was his Phi
Beta Kappa certificate and his uni
versity of Oklahoma diploma.
Seventy of the passengers were
United States citizens and the re-
mainder mainly Jewish refugees.
In the ships strongboX was S2,964,-
$50 in gold from the Banco Portugal,
consigned to the Federal Reserve
Bank. and a private case of gold
and jewels worth $4,000, from the
Bank of London and South Africa
consigned to the Commercial Bank
& Trust Co. in New York.