By Susan Beardsley, other
In one of the more intriguing chapters of the Holocaust, nearly 20,000 Jews fled Europe to the safety of the exotic city of Shanghai. Dana Janklowicz-Mann was inspired by her father’s memories to document the history of the Shanghai Ghetto. Janklowicz-Mann and her partner Amir Mann assembled the experiences of Harold Janklowicz and fellow refugees Betty Grebenschikoff, Sigmund Tobias, Alfred Cohen and Evelyn Pike Rubin into a remarkable film. Using vintage and contemporary photos and footage, the survivors relive their childhood experiences of fleeing with their families to a strange land. The film, narrated by Martin Landau, took five years to produce.
Under Japanese control by 1938, the port city of Shanghai was the huge commercial center of China. Many Jews had already settled there. The first to arrive were prosperous businessmen and their families who came from Baghdad with the British. They were followed by Russian Jews escaping Stalin’s pogroms.
They all lived in the Hongkew district, a densely populated sector ranging on either side of the Whangpoo River. The area was also home to many poor Chinese living under the hardship of the Japanese occupation. When Europeans began to arrive with little more than the clothes they were wearing, measures were instituted by the Baghdadi Jews to help feed and shelter them. Later the Joint Distribution Committee stepped in.
The five Shanghai survivors tell of their fearful escape from Europe, the luxury of their brief time onboard ships to Asia, and the stress and ingenuity required of living in such reduced circumstances. Despite the language barrier, all their families were able to do business with their Chinese neighbors. In all the years they were in Shanghai, they were never aware of any anti-Semitism from the Chinese.
Each of the individuals spotlighted by the film has a unique story to tell. Their information is augmented by two Jewish and one Chinese historian, and Laura Margolis, who ran the JDC there at that time.
Life for the Jews in Shanghai was making the best of things — finding work, getting food on the table, helping their even less-fortunate Chinese neighbors and trying to get news from home. Eventually they founded theaters, musical cabarets and even published their own newspapers.
None of the immigrants planned to stay in China as long as they did. When the Allies liberated the city, some families had been there for 10 years. It was then they discovered the extent of the suffering of those in Europe. They thought they’d had a rough time of it in Shanghai. Little did they know they had been living in paradise.