Schulberg, Budd "Passport to Nowhere"

This dark tale of an accomplished Polish Jew's futile attempt to emigrate to pre-War Palestine is set in the late 1930s. Schulberg's protagonist is Nathan Solomon, an artist (a painter) who quits his native land in the late 1920s after a pogrom had killed his lover (a young Christian woman). Over the next few years he moves on to and is forced out of Berlin and then Paris in the wake of Europe's rising fascism. Failing to obtain French citizenship, Solomon decides to move to Palestine and accordingly books a 3rdClass ticket on the Italian steamer VENUS DE MILO sailing out of Marseilles. Aboard the ship he's befriended aboard by a Jewish American couple on a holiday cruise to the Holy Land and also by a wealthy 1st Class woman ("an adventurer") who admires his painting style. The author draws a riveting portrait of shipboard life, with particularly fine descriptions of 1st and 3rd Class social conventions. When the ship arrives in Palestine Solomon is denied entry because he does not have enough cash with him to prove that he's not be a burden to the mandated territory. 1st Class passengers eventually take up a collection to aid the Jew, but the DE MILO's captain refuses to allow him the money because, as an Italian shipmate sailing an Italian vessel, such "would not please the Fascists" (i.e., Italy's rulers). The Italian captain forcibly keeps him aboard the DE MILO while the ship is docked in Palestine, carries him back to Cyprus and then hustles him ashore there. Without money, Solomon is nonetheless at least temporarily safe. Schulberg angrily closes his story noting that "darkness was the only refuge now" for a Jew like Solomon.