Biography
Frederick Beijerbach was a baker and member of the Heidelberg Bakers’ Union who fled Nazi Germany in June 1934. In February, authorities had confined him in a concentration camp for seven days after he criticized Hitler’s government. After his release, he lost his job and remained subject to police surveillance. He escaped to France and boarded the Leviathan as a stowaway at Le Havre. On arrival in the United States, he was placed in immigration custody at Ellis Island for deportation to Germany. The Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born obtained a writ stopping his deportation. International Labor Defense attorney Irving Schwab represented him during proceedings before the Board of Special Inquiry. Beijerbach belonged to no political party.
The August 30, 1934 Daily Worker prints the name Friedrich Beijerbach for the Leviathan stowaway and German antifascist whose Ellis Island exclusion case is already recorded. It reports that Immigration Commissioner MacCormack ordered a rehearing after the exclusion decision. That procedural order does not establish release, completed deportation or another intake. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n208-aug-30-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Page 6 describes a habeas-corpus writ stopping immediate deportation of Frederick Beijerback (printed spelling; existing Beijerbach identity) and announces an August 13 organizational meeting to defend him and German refugee seaman Theodore Eggeling. The article’s seamen-union characterization of Beijerback is retained as this report’s claim alongside his independently documented baker background. It supplies neither a new admission nor permanent immigration permission. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n193-sect-one-aug-13-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 1 reports that federal agents sent the Leviathan stowaway to Ellis Island on August 7, 1934; the ILD sought habeas corpus on August 10 to stop deportation on the ship sailing August 11. The contemporary report calls him twenty-two and a seamen-union activist; the separately documented baker background is retained. The planned sailing is not a completed deportation. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n192-aug-11-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Daily Worker, August 13, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The article reports the Heidelberg baker’s escape from Germany in June 1934, stowaway voyage from Havre, detention on arrival and Ellis Island hearing where Irving Schwab could not question him. A writ stopped deportation; it does not by itself establish physical discharge. Seven days in a German concentration camp is foreign custody and is not added to a US total.
