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Luck and Chutzpah: Against all odds

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LUCK AND CHUTZPAH: Against All Odds

by Hans G. Kahn: The Man Who Never Surrendered

"I suppose you could call me a Holocaust survivor, but I wasn't liberated from the Holocaust. The Holocaust liberated me." - H.G. Kahn

Hans Kahn is a fighter. It's in his mature. Fifty years ago, when millions of Jews were being shepherded to their deaths, Hans G. Kahn chose to fight back. After watching his family and friends submit unquestioningly to the laws of the Germans he decided that he would not allow himself to be powerless. He would never surrender or bend.

Nothing in his youth suggests such a remarkably tough character. Born in Berlin in 1922 to a well-to-do German Jewish family, Hans spent most of his life in Holland. Despite the protests of his educated father, Hans knew he wanted to be a Jewish sailor.

When the Germans carried out a house-to-house search looking for Jews to deport, Kahn stealthily fled to Belgium. Taking on the persona of a naval cadet from Belgium, Kahn even had a meal with a Nazi officer convinced by the disguise. Yet like so many others, Hans was eventually caught by the Nazis and deported to the Vernet Concentration camp in Vichy-France.

True to his credo, Hans did not surrender, nor bend to authority. After killing a German guard, he took refuge in a church in Toulouse, where he was hidden in a French brothel that serviced German officers. Finally, Hans was taken to a farm where he remained for four months, until resistance fighters guided him to Britain. There he enlisted in the Dutch Navy-in-Exile.

After the war, Kahn helped establish and train the new Israeli navy which fought in Israel's War of Independence. He returned to Holland to go into business for himself, eventually founding Jumbo Navigation, the world's first shipping company to conceive, build and operate special ships for the transport of large, heavy units.

These days, Kahn spends his time aboard his yacht with his family or in his house Ceasaria. Still a fighter - loyal to his friends and hard on his enemies - he continues to rage at the Jews who went timidly to their deaths. Even so, he welcomes the Sabbath every Friday night, and will proudly tell you of the happiness he derived from sitting in synagogue with his grandson on Saturday mornings. The writing is absorbing and the story presented shows how one man was not willing to be caught by the Nazis or be made a victim. His daring story shows how it was possible to fight back as long as you had luck and chutzpah.