New on dunera.de 21 April 2025

Two new articles appear today:

Ulrich Boschwitz, a promising German writer, died at the age of 27. Along with other internees, the Dunera Boy was the victim of a torpedo attack by the Nazi navy on his journey from Australia to freedom.

In his short life, he was only able to publish two books. The novels “Menschen neben dem Leben” (People Next tot he Life) and “Der Reisende” (The Passenger) describe the other side of the “Golden 20s” and the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis in a moving and haunting way. They were first published in 1938 and 1939 under pseudonyms in Swedish and English. In Germany, Boschwitz went unrecognized for decades – or was he deliberately ignored? Both books were published here in 2018 and 2019 – and subsequently in other languages – and were hailed as literary discoveries.

Boschwitz was born in Berlin on April 19, 1915. The 150th anniversary of this day is reason enough to research his biography and the life of his family.

Ulrich A. Boschwitz

The fact that only one man of the 43 German, Austrian and Italian internees – including Ulrich Boschwitz – survived the torpedo attack on the MV Abosso led to further research. It was not only about the sinking of the MV Abosso in the Atlantic on October 29, 1942, but the 43 men had to leave the Westerland in Cape Town. This not only led to some (unanswered) questions, but also to a rather coincidental look at the history of this ship and its former shipping company. This history is closely linked to the Jewish shipowner Arnold Bernstein from Hamburg, a pioneer of car transportation by sea. The Waroonga, which was sunk by a Nazi submarine at the beginning of April 1943 with a group of internees on board, was included in the historical article.

Dunera.de publishes these “Three Ship Stories”. Short biographies of the internees of the MV Abosso and the Waroonga commemorate the Dunera Boys, of which the Italians and some Germans and Austrians were caught up in a torpedo attack for the third time in two and a half years after the Arandora Star and the Dunera. Of the 54 internees on both transports, 48 found their final resting place at sea, including Ulrich Boschwitz.

Three ships: Waroonga, Westernland und Abosso (from front). Photocomposition: dunera.de.

Three Ship Stories