On December 10, 1904, the police
inspector in charge of
HAPAG’s emigration halls at the port of
Hamburg, Wenzel Kilian Kiliszewski, noticed a man calling
himself “Jossl Kalischer.” Claiming to be a Jewish migrant from the
Russian empire, he
turned out to be
Julius
Kaliski, editor of the Social Democrat’s
daily newspaper
Vorwärts. Although his disguise
aroused suspicion, Kiliszewski was unable to
prove
Kaliski had
broken any laws, and he left the emigration halls a free man. Two days later, on
December 12, 1904, Kiliszewski informed
HAPAG’s management about the incident. A reply issued the same
day read: “Our general director was of the opinion that it
would be best not to pay too much attention to the matter...”
Vorwärts announced the publication of
Kaliski’s articles on the
morning of the same day. Between December 20,
1904 and January 10, 1905, six
articles titled “On the Road with
Ballin” describing
Kaliski’s journey from the
Prussian border near
Tilsit in East Prussia to
Hamburg were printed.
In order to experience the treatment of eastern European migrants during their
passage through
Germany on their way to the
USA,
Kaliski disguised himself as
a Jewish migrant of modest means. His articles document the various stations of
his journey from the Prussian-Russian border to
HAPAG’s emigration halls at the
port of
Hamburg.
“On the Road With Ballin.” Hamburg 1904 (translated by Insa Kummer), edited in: Key Documents of German-Jewish History,
<https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:source-81.en.v1> [December 21, 2024].