Aldridge evidently wanted to escape further scrutiny by the Austro-Hungarian secret police, for in January 1854 he moved several hundred miles north and started appearing on stage in West Prussian towns near the Baltic Sea such as Danzig, Elbing (now Ebląg), Marienburg (now Malbork), and Marienwerder (now Kwidzyn), all of which are today in northern Poland. Press reports suggest that he stopped in Dresden, Görlitz, and possibly Berlin along the way but was not invited to perform in these places. London's Sunday Times noted that “at Dantsig [sic] and Elbing, where he has been recently playing, the theatres have been crowded to the extent that the orchestras in both towns were thrown into the stalls on the nights of his appearance.” The German theatrical press quoted a report from Danzig stating that “Ira Aldridge is most decidedly the greatest Dramatic Artist we have ever seen. … In the parts of Othello, Macbeth and Shylock, he stands unrivalled in our annals of the stage.” He appeared there as Othello three times, as Shylock and Mungo twice, and as Macbeth once. Unfortunately, in the only surviving review of his performance as Othello in Danzig, the critic, after exclaiming that “we have never seen such a wild natural truth, glowing and sparkling in fiery colors,” offers no evidence in support of his claim, saying instead that “we consider it superfluous to examine the performances of [Aldridge] in more detail, especially as more competent quills than ours have judged his worth and placed him beside the best English actors, Garrick and Kean.”