and not to coincide with other visitors, enough communication to organise the escape became possible, without attracting Gestapo intervention. Three batches of children were collected together to be transported by train to the Aachen frontier point (and from there to Paris). The first batch had been granted entry visas by Brazil, but by the time it came to the second batch the Brazilian quota had been filled up. Assurances were received, however, that in return for payment, the Argentinian government would provide entry visa for the second and third batches - approximately 60 children and young people. It was forbidden for Jews to take significant amounts of money out of Germany, but Isidor Pinkus was able to give effect to the Argentinian entry fee on Ellen's behalf by contacting a kinsman in Palestine who owned a bank and made the payment. The third batch of refugee children, which included Ellen, left Berlin on 13 April 1939. Her mother and grandfather said their farewells on the station platform. Her father could not bear to come to the station and stayed home. Travelling via Paris and Le Havre on a cargo ship the children reached Buenos Aires on 25 May 1939, the day of Argentina's May Revolution Holiday. During the ocean crossing one stage she contracted polio, a common infection among the European refugees starting off near the bottom of the social pyramid: the disease was untreated, and although she recovered she would be left with a permanent stoop. The Jewish Colonization Association (HICEM) in Paris had successfully organised French exit visas, but had been able to provide the children with entry visas only for Bolivia, so the refugees stayed on the boat for several more days, fearful of being sent back to Europe, until a Jewish Aid organisation succeeded in obtaining entry visas for Argentina and Ellen Pinkus was able to begin her new life. The small bag her mother had packed for her with clothes and basic medications disappeared her first night ashore. In Buenos Aires Ellen Pinkus worked, initially, as a nanny in the Recoleta quarter. Responsibilies include attempting to teach the English language to her employers' two-year-old infant. After five months her (Catholic) employers visited a relative who was a novice nun, and who pointed out that the new nanny was Jewish, so she was dismissed. There followed another job with a French family with whom duties included