"THE RETURN THROUGH HELEN’S EYES”
 by Elliot Marshall

For Helen Marmorosch Marshall, it was A return to Shanghai. “ I still can’t believe I lived in Shanghai, China.”-  Helen repeatedly states as we tour the streets where she lived as a little girl. “ Is it a book I read, a movie on T.V., a dream I created from some story – no, it is true, it really happened and I was there, lived it, and after 57 years went back to a reunion with my husband and two daughters.” 

Let me go back a little – I was born in Vienna, Austria; as a child forced with my parents to flee to Shanghai, China to escape Hitler and his program of exterminating the Jews.

I lived under three regimes: The Nazis in Austria, then the Japanese from 1943 to 1945 and finally the Communists in 1949, at which time we left for Israel which had just been declared a State.  In Israel my father, being a furrier, couldn’t make a living, so it was obstacle after obstacle for him as to where to go now – to find a place to take his family in order to return to a stable and normal life.  While in Israel, we had to opportunity to go to Uruguay, but as Christians – my father refused saying, “ I escaped Hitler as a Jew, I will find somewhere to go as a Jew”.  We went to Italy to await a visa to the United States or Canada.  While waiting 7 months in Italy, finally Canada came first on the furrier’s quota and we settled there. 

HELEN DELIVERS HER THOUGHTS

My thoughts regarding the return to Shanghai and the Reunion.

On a guided tour, as we walked through the old familiar streets, especially when we found the very apartment where we lived, it became more and more emotional.  As I described to my daughters how we lived and played, went to school as kids, reminding ourselves of certain times and events, tears came to everyone’s eyes.  We were so happy that we brought our daughters, who are mothers themselves now, but when I used to tell them stories periodically about Shanghai, they would only half listen.  About going on the trip they didn’t know what to expect, but now they can put the stories to reality as they saw in person what it was all about.  It hit them; it touched them, in various ways.

One keynote thought that we all realized while we were there was the 42 second and third generation young people who attended this reunion with parents and grandparents – they were a wonderful presence there and added much to the whole event.

For Elliot Marshall, Helen’s husband, it was “A Mission to Shanghai”.

Shanghai was home to Jewish refugees – the only doors open, which didn’t require a visa or documents to enter.  It became a safe haven for 20,000 Jews from Germany, Austria, and some from Poland and Lithuania in the late 30’s and 40’s.  It’s one thing to escape the horrors of Nazism but another to survive.  You have to realize that Shanghai wasn’t exactly an enticing city; first of all it was a cultural shock, the contrast coming from sophisticated town as Vienna and Berlin.  Once there, a small but wealthy community of Sephardic Jews who came there in the early 1900’s and White Russian Jews, runaways from the Bolshevik Revolution, assisted them.

THE STRANGE HAPPENINGS OF WAR

The Japanese who controlled Shanghai and who had an alliance with Nazi Germany welcomed the Jewish refugees because of their belief in the awesome power of World Jewry.  They did not persecute the Jews, although after Pearl Harbor in 1943 they forced all of them into a Ghetto neighborhood – Hongkew – one of the poorest parts of the City, covering about 5 square kilometers.  The starvation and disease did not prevent the refugees from creating a viable community, within the larger community, establishing a rich cultural life.  They had their own hospital, synagogues, newspaper, as well as schools, theatres and clubs. They learned how to cope, as Jews do, wherever they find themselves – cope with Japanese authoritarianism, and to co-exist with their Chinese neighbors.

Being occupied by Japan, Shanghai was bombarded by the United States Air Force in the waning months of the war.  Thirty Jewish refugees were killed in those raids. After the war the refugees began to leave to Canada, the U.S., Australia, Israel and elsewhere.  The Jewish refugees suffered from malnutrition, food was scarce and disease was rampant – dysentery, typhoid, cholera; proper medicine was unavailable but they dealt with it and persevered.

SOME EVENTS OF THE REUNION

On one of the tours we visited a small park on Wayside Road, where Chinese men and women dutifully performed Tai Chi calisthenics.  There is a black plaque commemorating the Hongkew Ghetto era – inscribed in English, Chinese and Hebrew. An arranged formal ceremony was held acknowledging the event, attended by local dignitaries, the Mayor, and many local citizens.

We also visited Ohel Moishe synagogue, which was built by Russian Jews at the turn of the last century, and is now a museum called, “The Jewish refugee memorial hall”.  Shanghai once had 7 functioning synagogues, five shuls, one of which housed the Mira Yeshiva, were torn down.  Another synagogue, Ohel Rachel, constructed by the legendary Sassoon family in 1920, renovated by the municipality in 1998, in another part of Shanghai.  This schul is generally closed to the public; advance arrangements must be made to see it, which our group was permitted to visit and tour.

FOCUS ON
 

One of the highlights of the tour was a Shabbat dinner at the Shanghai Jewish Centre, run by Rabbi Shalom Greenberg and his wife Dina.  A delightful couple, under the auspices of the Chabad Movement.  It caters to ex-patriots ranging from businessmen, students, diplomats and tourists.  The Centre – the only one of its kind in the city, is fitted with a synagogue, a pre-school, and a kosher café.  Shanghai’s Jewish population now is roughly 400 to 600 although some say up to a 1000.  I just want to take a few minutes to describe the Rabbi Director of the Chabad House.  Rabbi Greenberg, such a personality, equipped with such qualities, that you have to believe he was not only assigned the job, but was born and blessed with the gift to help find strays from all walks of life, bring them back to Judaism – an outreach program in its truest form.

THE SHABBAT DINNER

Rabbi Greenberg gave a sermon at the dinner with a wonderful stirring message, which I will try to reconstruct, while condensing – it deserves sharing.  He told us that one-day one of the Chinese staff members at the Chabad House approached the Rabbi asking him, “ How come Jews are so smart”, The Rabbi answered, “there are smart people among all races”, He then asked, “how come most Jews are rich”, the Rabbi replied, “there are wealthy ones among all peoples”. The Rabbi then said to us, that what makes us Jews stand out among the nations, is the secret ingredient we possess – call it a bond, a camaraderie cemented between each other, which can never be broken.  We are comfortable and always at ease in each others company – this is what keeps us and will always keep us united, and nothing can ever divide us, or drive us out of existence.  He of course expressed it so eloquently, in his unique style that it could never be copied by anyone.  When he speaks everyone listens.

ABOUT THAT SHANGHAI GIRL

At the welcoming dinner I had the opportunity of expressing some thoughts – a few excerpts from it.  My name is Elliot Marshall.  I am a Canadian born Jew who is very passionate about his Jewish faith.  I was a Jewish merchant in a small town, in Cape Breton Island on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, in the Province of Nova Scotia.

I was on a buying trip, met a beautiful Jewish girl who told me she lived in the Orient.  I immediately knew, and was 100% sure, she was my beshert, so I shanghaied her to Cape Breton where we lived happily every after.  We raised two daughters, Susan and Cheryl, who are with us at this reunion.  When we retired in 1998 we moved to Ottawa, Ontario.

REGARDING Shanghai: Being the inquisitive Jew, over the years I constantly bombarded my father-in-law with questions about life there, to the point he got sick with my obsession with it.  I feel I know the Shanghai story forwards, backwards and upside down and it’s consequences.  I feel I know the Shanghai experience through books and videotapes and lots of stories and information from many sources.  On Monday, two days before the reunion officially began, Helen and I, two other couples, the girls of who were classmates of Helen’s, who now reside in Florida, their kids and our daughters, took our own private tour to the Hongkew district to get a head start.

Two items from the tour.  When we visited the Ohel Moishe synagogue I entered this comment in the guest book – “Amazing, the art and the act of survival”.  The other item contains a bit of humor.  Helen had told Susan, Cheryl and myself numerous times, when describing her life and her apartment – as a little girl in Shanghai she used to slide down the banister when going downstairs.  Now let me state here – Helen, she has taken up golf and is not bad at it, but to consider her a prospect in any athletic event for the Olympics she would be no threat; so when Susan, Cheryl and I tried to picture Mummy sliding down the banister it was a bit difficult.  However, the other day when we climbed up the stairs to her apartment, Cheryl said to her mother – “Mum, one of the main reasons what convinced Susan and I to come to Shanghai was to take a picture of you sliding down the staircase – now hop to it”.

AND NOW MAY I ADD THIS POEM

When Helen and I go south to Florida in the winter months we spend a lot of the season with her three close girlfriends, classmates from Shanghai – named Erica, Ruth and Berta, who reside there all year round.  I call it, “Those four little girls from Shanghai”.

At times I often wonder why,

Four girls who literally fell from the sky,

Pretty as pictures, sweet and shy,

They sailed and then docked at the port of Shanghai.

Doesn’t it surely seem so right?

That these four little girls like birds in flight,

Looking for a safe haven to try,

Found it in an unlikely place as Shanghai.

Friends they became both scared and secure,

They studied and played for fun and for sure,

To show the world you don’t give up,

You weather the storm you fill the cup.

One by one from beginning to end,

To describe their plight is to sew and to mend,

For each one her turn by birth and by right,

They have done their part through darkness to light.

TO CONCLUDE

As we have mentioned, Helen was born in Vienna, as a child with her parents escaped to Shanghai, where she spent 10 years, then lived for a year in Israel and finally lived the bulk of her years in Canada, where she now resides.

When you speak to her about the various locations her life experiences directed her, she assesses her thoughts regarding these events thusly.

She went back to Vienna, on my suggesting and convincing her to do it, admits to loving the city, for it’s culture, history and intellectual background, but can’t bring herself to forgive the people, she loves Israel, it goes without saying, as a Zionist and passionate Jew- she considers Canada her adopted home-country now and is a true patriot – but overall, - she truly states she holds a strange but strong attachment to Shanghai, which was the place that saved her life.

AFTER NOTE

When anyone has an experience, especially a traumatic one, in most cases at some point they seek closure – well, I’ll tell you, in this case of the Shanghai experience, there will never be a closure, for reasons of defining circumstances.  The Chinese people saved the lives of many Jews from extermination, under the Nazi regime.  Why? For the very nature of their culture and their civilization.  They are the only people who have never threatened or harmed the Jews for reason of race or religion. They were tolerant of the newcomers and showed no anti-Jewish feelings.  That’s why this reunion, in Shanghai, will be imprinted and indelible in the minds of second and third generations of those who spent the war years there.  Consequently, when these Jewish refugees left after the Communist takeover, they went on to rebuild new lives, bear children, to help ensure the continuity of the Jewish people.  That’s why it is so important that the ensuing generations attend the reunions to see with their own eyes, minds and hearts the whole experience in the real.

While I expressed some thoughts at the dinner, I concluded with a toast, dedicated to the Chinese people who had the courage to care.
 

                                                 Let there be Shalom, Simcha u’Brocha

                                                 Peace, Harmony and Blessing between the

                                                 Chinese and Jewish people for all time.