Class of ’39 : Former Queen Mary Passengers and Staff Recall Great Escape

The first time that Curt Spiegel set foot aboard the Queen Mary in 1939, he was a 13-year-old Austrian carrying a passport bearing a Nazi emblem on the front and a red J for Jew stamped inside the front cover.

World War II had begun, and Spiegel’s family, as were many others, were fleeing Nazism. Last week, he was back at the Queen Mary, with his old passport and green card tucked inside his coat.

It was reunion time at the Queen Mary, where officials arranged a trip down memory lane for passengers and employees who sailed on the luxury liner in 1939 to promote the ship’s yearlong “Voyage to 1939” theme.

Six people made it back to the liner for a complimentary lunch and tour--and a chance to relive the past.

There was John Parkinson, a bellhop in 1939, who brought his own mementos to the reunion, including a picture of himself with other teen-age bellhops standing stiffly at attention while extending their hands for “a fingernail inspection.”

Parkinson talked about sailing in rough waters, when the grand piano would slide across the stage and waiters would set a wet tablecloth under a dry one to help keep the settings in place. The former passengers talked about seasickness.

In those days, it was not unusual to see celebrities, such as Fred Astaire or Bob Hope or Boris Karloff--whom Parkinson described as “one of the funniest people”--milling about the magnificent ship, which had 1,100 crew members to serve 1,900 passengers.

Kurt Neufeld said he boarded the Queen Mary with his parents, leaving behind a small Austrian village and a “very simple life.” He said that his Jewish family shared a windowless tourist-class cabin, the cheapest at the time, and that he was seasick for the first three days.

Neufeld, wearing his Viennese gray fedora and red velvet tie for the reunion, remembered the awe he felt as a refugee who had seen only a rowboat before his journey. “This was not just luxury, it was grandeur,” he said.

It was also not unusual to see refugees who were escaping the war in Europe. Many of the refugees were well-to-do; others had to scrape enough money to get aboard.

The key was receiving an affidavit from someone in the United States willing to sponsor them. With that affidavit in hand, “you picked the next ship sailing out. You didn’t care about the money. It was a matter of survival,” Neufeld said.

“It was very hard, because we were persecuted very badly,” said Neufeld, adding that the reunion brought back memories of his parents leaving a country they loved for the uncertainty that awaited them here.

“People can’t understand or comprehend the freedom we have here. We’re spoiled here,” said Neufeld, a semi-retired violin maker who lives in Laguna Niguel.

“It was a really foggy day when we landed in New York and saw the Statue of Liberty,” said Spiegel, a retired engineer living in Santa Monica.

The six who made it back to the liner with their spouses or dates were among about 50 people who responded to a well-publicized promotion by the Walt Disney Co., seeking passengers and employees who sailed on the liner in 1939. Disney manages the attraction that has been docked in Long Beach since 1967.

The letters came from around the world, spokesman Rich Kerlin said. Later this year, officials will have a drawing, and the winner will receive a free trip to Long Beach, including a one-week stay on the liner, which is now a hotel.

Those attending last week’s reunion live in the Los Angeles-Orange County area. Long Beach resident Olive Anacker had the least distance to travel.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would live in the same city as the Queen Mary, and I see it every day from my apartment,” said Anacker, who left England in 1939 with her mother and sister to join her father in the United States.

The guests were all smiles as they shared their memories in a small dining room that was crowded with reporters, photographers and a TV crew.

The guests toured the former Third Class Men’s Smoking Lounge, listened to a musical review featuring 1930s music, sat in a 1939 gold Cadillac and, above all, remembered the past.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Neufeld said of the reunion.