World traveler Alma M. Karlin: "I do not want to go, but I have to"

With an "Erika" typewriter and a handwritten dictionary in ten languages, Alma Maximiliana Karlin left her birthplace Celje in Slovenia on November 24, 1919, to discover other continents on her own. It was not until the end of 1927 that she returned, richer and at the same time deeply sobered up of many experiences.

"I blindly trusted in my knowledge, boldly drifting into uncertainty - much as an unsuspecting child climbs into a leaky boat," she wrote in her book "Lonely World Tour," which deals with the first four years of her adventure.

The daughter of an officer and a teacher had a difficult childhood. The short, thin girl was paralyzed on one side, with a head of water and a squint, the doctors saw little chance of survival.

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However, Karlin struggled forward and soon felt the urge to break out of the confines of the province. In addition to her native German she studied eight foreign languages ​​while studying in Graz, Paris and London. After the war began, she lived temporarily in Norway and Sweden.

Independence instead of bondage

A future as a wife and mother, which must always be subordinate, was unthinkable for her. Instead, she wanted to lead a self-determined life as a writer and journalist as a "free spirit and formation of disobedience".

"I do not want to go, but I have to," she told herself before her big trip. "Something is pressing in me, and I can not find peace." Her savings - 130 dollars and 1000 Reichsmark, which she earned as a teacher - sewed her into a belt.

Karlin arrived in Genoa via Trieste and embarked on the ocean liner "Bologna" in the direction of Peru. Their tight budget forced them to sleep in the tween deck, crowded with seasick passengers who had to vomit all the time. "The ship and the stomach rose and fell continually."

Her entertaining, often ironic portrayals later made Karlin one of the most read travel writers in Europe, and her books also appeared in translations.

Commitment to "world peace"

She imaginatively described her impressions of people, cities and exotic landscapes. In the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, for example, she saw "a church that has as many cracks as an old-woman face has wrinkles".

The young woman with the disheveled bob hairstyle had the ambitious goal "to work in word and writing for world peace among peoples". Her gaze, however, was euro-centered; she met people of a different skin color with prejudice. Such phrases as these are causing confusion today: "Only those who are quite inconsiderate will perish in the countries of the half-breeds."

She watched attentively her mates in South America: "In the nature of women was something melancholy, life-tired". She had traumatic experiences with men. She was harassed and robbed, she narrowly escaped rape several times. The fear of such robberies never overcame her.

Followed by "human animals"

With all his might, Karlin, who dreaded sexuality, stood up to uninvited admirers: "I became prickly like a tropical hedgehog."

Men became "beasts," "human animals," and "bipeds with human faces," in their eyes. Several times she fell in love with those whom she saw as "soul mate," but all these relationships failed.

Chronically Karlin was short of cash, hungry her constant companion. In order to finance the onward journey, she gave language lessons, made Christmas cards or sold her own drawings. When she became a certified interpreter in the province of Panama, her precarious situation improved. But Karlin soon set new goals.

To end her world tour prematurely, she never seriously considered despite all the problems. The naive enthusiasm for travel, however, was soon gone. "With the lust and courage I had on 'Bologna', it was over," she confessed at a stopover in Hawaii.

"Everyone bowed to the money"

She sent a warning to other enterprising women in the 1929 book "Lonely World Journey": "My fellow-wives should know the difficulties one faces when traveling abroad with little means (all bow to the money) ), only wanting to live the art, traveling alone. "

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Alma M. Karlin
Lonely world trip

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Aviva

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400

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In 1922 she reached Japan, where she temporarily worked in the German Embassy in Tokyo. From there she traveled to Korea, Manchuria, China and Formosa, Australia, New Zealand, the South Sea Islands, Indonesia, Thailand and India.

When she received the news that her mother was dying, she returned home. Exhausted and ill, she arrived in Celje in December 1927.

During the trip she had written articles for several newspapers. Her books - "Under the spell of the South Seas" is another title - were widely used in German-speaking countries in the 1930s. At the beginning of the forties, her writings were banned by the National Socialists. She had already decided to distance herself from the regime, refused to cooperate with newspapers in Germany after the Nazi takeover.

In resistance to the Nazis

In Celje she took in 1937 the expelled by the Nazis journalist Hans Joachim Bonsack with him. After the invasion of the Wehrmacht in 1941, the Gestapo arrested Karlin; In 1944 she was released and joined partisans.

She was also open to criticism of communism and the authorities in Yugoslavia refused her a passport. As a German-language author, she was rejected in her homeland and fell into oblivion. Completely impoverished, Alma M. Karlin died in 1950 in a mountain village.

Only after the independence of Slovenia their work was rediscovered and until then unpublished writings appeared. A bronze statue with a suitcase in hand, which was erected in 2010 in the center of Celje, is also reminiscent of Karlin today.