Chapter 14

Obviously, this is where Dad's story belongs. But there are several different stories to be told, too.

The Vos family sailed on the ship (date?) but could not disembark in the United States: "They crossed into Portugal, where they resided in Coimbra. They subsequently sailed on the ship Hakone Maru from Lisbon to Shanghai, and were denied shore leave when the shipped docked in Los Angeles. They ended up in Indonesia where they were imprisoned by the Japanese for three years in separate camps before being able to go to Australia."

Also, apparently, on the same ship Abraham and Thekla Velleman. From their son's story, it would seem he bought them their tickets while he stayed longer in Portugal.

The other thing I find that I wish for more detail on is that this ship had also--presumably before its role in my father's life--had taken German and Austrian Jewish refugees the other direction--to Shanghai. Thus, according to an archived article by Ralph Harpuder ("The Ships that Brought Us To Shanghai"):

"Not all refugees that left Germany and Austria during the last moments before the war came to Shanghai on Italian luxury liners. A smaller contingence of refugees also booked on Japanese passenger and cargo ships. An example was the TSS Hakone Maru that sailed from Naples, a city and port in southern Italy."

From S. Hochstadt's "Exodus to Shanghai: Stories of Escape from the Third Reich" (Palgrave Studies in Oral History):

Ruth Sumner (neé Wendriner) was born in Silesia on August 24, 1927, and grew up in Bobrek and then Beuthen. When she was six, her mother was killed by an intruder to their home. Her father, Kurt, owned a bar, but sold the business and retired to Beuthen. On Kristallnacht , her father’s brother was arrested and killed at Buchenwald. Her father and she then sailed to Shanghai on the Hakone Maru in January 1939; shortly afterward, her sister left for the United States. In Shanghai, her father opened the Roof Garden Mascot restaurant on Wayside Road. They lived together with her aunt, Erna Schaie, on Tongshan Road. 

After the war ended, Ruth got married in Shanghai to an American soldier, Forrest Sumner, and had a child within a month of arriving in the United States in 1947. They live in Florida. \

From UMD thesis:

Austrian refugee Ilie Wacs recalls that the Heim at which his parents and his sisters were dropped off “was filled with mostly the old, the ill, and those that couldn’t take care of themselves. It was a jarring introduction to life in Shanghai, having just come off a luxury cruise liner…to find ourselves being herded like cattle into the over-crowded, hot human warehouse.”50 Indeed, German refugee Ruth Sumner recalled that “There I had been in first class luxurious Japanese ship, and then we were in a home with army cots and blankets.”

Found link showing others that left on Hakusan Maru in fall of 1938. [See also stories about Japanese ships taking refugees from Japan. https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/this-month/june/1941.html ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatsuta_Maru ; http://search.archives.jdc.org/multimedia/Documents/Names%20Databank/Japan%20Emigration%20Lists/Set%20IV/Additional%20Links/Complete_AR33-44_00043_00122.pdf 

Additional background: https://www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance/docs/pdf/chapter6.pdf