 Gemma and her family did not speak German, and had no identity papers, money, or means of documenting where they had been.Gemma finally managed to get word to the Americans who contacted La Guardia, who had no idea where they were.He worked to get them on the immigration lists, but asserted in a letter, included in the appendix of Gemma's memoir, that her "case was the same as that of hundreds of thousands of displaced people" and "no exceptions can be made".