Scholars enlighten museum visitors on ‘Jews of China’
By Polina Olsen
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More than 50 people packed the “Jews of China” panel discussion held Dec. 9 at the Oregon Jewish Museum. Professor Steve Hochstadt and Rabbi Anson Laytner, both of the Sino-Judaic Institute, provided background and insight into the museum’s current exhibition, “Ludwig Salzer, Man of Letters.”
Based on the letters and diary of an Austrian Jew who fled to Shanghai from Vienna during Hitler’s rise, the discussion included Jewish history in China, Jewish life in pre-war Vienna, the Shanghai Jewish ghetto, and the experience of one fascinating man.
Hochstadt focused on Jewish refugees in Shanghai and how to interpret oral histories. He interviewed Salzer in 1999, and used this and Salzer’s diary as a guide.
Like many survivors interviewed for Hochstadt’s “Shanghai Jewish Community Oral History Project,” Salzer’s family was “super patriotic about Vienna” before life abruptly changed.
“I ride my bike through all of Vienna,” wrote Salzer after Kristalnacht. “Shops are looted in the suburbs. Cans of sardines are distributed to the mob. Some throw them back; the majority takes everything they can get. All are on a rampage against the Jews.”
Losing his job 10 days after Nazis moved into Austria, Salzer sought visas from every foreign embassy in Vienna without success. But, Shanghai was an open port, no visa was required. He bought a ticket on a luxury liner, packed his bags, and never saw his family again.
Wealthy established Baghdadi Jews set up camps to help new immigrants settle. Forced to live in Shanghai’s Hongkew ghetto, Salzer remembered his first day:
“When we got to the camp in Hongkew, I felt that all, all was lost. We were crammed 18 men to a room which measured 6x6 meters. The small suitcases were put under the bed, the larger ones alongside the wall.”
“It was 5pm by now, an egg, tea and bread. It tasted of disinfectant and rancid oil. I barely managed to run outside before I vomited behind the mess hall.”
“It was bitterly cold and we could go to bed only fully clothed. Eighteen men, two wash basins; the bathrooms were depressing as well. Dirt, and wherever you looked, excrement.”
Shanghai Jews had schools, synagogues, cemeteries, boxing, scouts and chess. Still most lived in terrible deprivation and poverty. After the war, most countries still didn’t want them.
Laytner talked about Jewish history in China including the “five ripples of Jewish immigration.” Far more ancient than most people realize, he said, settlements may date to 200 B.C.E.
First, Persian Jews traveling on ancient trade routes came to Kaifeng and other coastal cities. Baghdadi Jews came with the British to Hong Kong and Shanghai around 1865. After the revolution, Russian Jews came to Harbin; Austrian, German and Polish Jews fled Hitler for Shanghai. Finally, Jews are immigrating to China right now, looking for economic opportunity, he said.
The audience included Chinese and Japanese Portlanders as well as a Jewish survivor from Shanghai. Gerry Schindler’s family lived in Shanghai from 1939 to 1948.
“We were some of the last groups to leave Germany,” he said. “The British and French had parts of Shanghai. They wouldn’t let [our] ships disembark in the British section.”
“What do Kaifeng Jews look like?” someone asked.
“Like other Chinese people,” Laytner said, since intermarriage and polygamy were common.
Lauren Pressler, the exhibit’s creator, answered questions about her grandfather, Ludwig Salzer. The exhibition includes her own paintings of his life in Shanghai.
Salzer eventually settled in the United States, but never forgot his Shanghai experience.
“Breakfast with cornflakes, which used to be ludicrously expensive, is still not taken for granted by me,” he wrote in his diary after the war. “I appreciate it every single day.”
Ludwig Salzer, Man of Letters runs until Jan. 13. For details, contact the OJM, 503-226-3600 or www.ojm.org. For more information on the Sino-Judaic Institute, visit www.sino-judaic.org.