CHAPTER 27

HONGKEW 1942–1943

From the battlefields in Europe to the Pacific, the probing tentacles of war are spreading, stretching outward to find the refugees who have sought in vain to escape its grasp. We pray that the Americans will free us, but hope diminishes rapidly.

The strain of daily life in this atmosphere shows on everyone’s face. People on the street are always in a hurry these days, even more than usual. They seldom take the time to stop and chat. Coffee houses are often empty and Stella has told me that her business is suffering.

Our business, though, is doing quite well, as people always drown their worries in liquor. Any night a Korean soldier may pull a knife from his boot and slice the air just near a Japanese man in uniform. Many times Poldi has to insert himself in the centre of a free-for-all. He is short and slight but that doesn’t stop him. He often has a bruise or cut from the most recent fracas.

“What a business this is!” I say to him, tending to a swelling over his eye.

“Not quite what we had in mind, is it, Nini? Still, the money is coming in and I think we can make a go of it. The war will end one day, Liebling, and we’ll have a better life. I still believe it.”

“You’ve always been more optimistic than I have. Look, your eye is a red balloon and you talk about a better life. War planes are spinning over our heads and you think about peace.”

“Ahh, that iodine stings like the devil!” He winces as I dab at the cut over his brow. “Nini, remember where we are, always keep it in mind. That’s what I do to keep me going. I know we have managed, by our wits and not much more, to endure it all – the hostility, the poverty, the food rationing, the shortages, the disease, the homesickness.…”

“Yes, all that and more,” I say, interrupting his list. “But now we’re seeing similarities to Europe, right here. The newspapers have started to carry anti-Semitic articles demanding our expulsion. Every time I read something like that I shiver. It’s a repeat of the Nazi propaganda.”

Until now we have been treated the same as any other Europeans. The Jewish refugee community has given the Japanese army no trouble, making our way in obscurity, not embroiled in the political strife within China, not creating any new disturbances. As always we are reminded of the ancient shtetl saying, “Shtill zol zein” – be quiet, unobtrusive, blend into the background, and the worst will pass. Surely, despite the war in all its fury, the world is vast enough that a few thousand Jews might be allowed to live in peace, asking nothing but to be left alone.

Preserving our routine is the only solution we have to the whirlwind whipping the whole region into a frenzy. The war is encroaching upon us and still we have to put one foot before the other and carry on. We head out in the evening to the bar tugging our coats close to our bodies for warmth against the December wind and walking arm in arm at a quick pace, down the familiar streets to Marco’s.

He is always there ahead of us and opens up. We turn the key in the lock and latch it from inside, calling out our greetings to Marco, who is seated as always on his stool by the radio. The cash register is checked, the liquor supply is inspected, and the doors are unlocked for the customers to come in. Marco then leaves us to tend to business and saunters in his usual rolling gait towards the private office at the back of the building. He always bolts himself inside and stays there for most of the night. From the beginning of our relationship with him we have been aware of his secretive ways and just recently he has come to trust us sufficiently to confide in us about his activities. Apparently, he has a short-wave radio concealed in his small room on which he receives news from the Jewish underground.

We have been sworn to respect his privacy and never question him about his involvement with the organization. This has worked satisfactorily for us all. He tells us when there is some news that he is prepared to impart and we demand nothing more of him.

Usually Marco does not make a further appearance until near closing time but tonight, despite the customers seated in the booths, he comes out and rumbles towards us, his breathing laboured, his face sweaty and flushed. Poldi and I are concerned with his sudden emergence from his office and his obvious anxiety. Standing behind the counter, we watch him approach and I get him a glass of water. He plops down on his stool and takes a drink, sighs deeply, then leans towards us.

The Japanese soldiers, already inebriated and still downing more liquor, are laughing raucously. We look around to make sure that no one is interested in our discussion and move closer to Marco to hear his words.

“Things are heating up, my friends, not good this time, not good at all,” he says, wiping a large white handkerchief over his face.

I am wearing a woollen cardigan and Poldi is in a long-sleeved shirt with a knit vest, but Marco is apparently as hot as if it were a summer day.

“What has happened?” Poldi asks.

Whispering, he answers. “Hitler has dispatched one of the top Nazis over here to Shanghai, a Gestapo Colonel Josef Meisinger. They say he’s one of the cruellest of Hitler’s thugs. The word is that he is after the Jews that got away.”

I feel the blood draining from my face. I slip a cigarette from the case in my skirt pocket and pull a lighter from the drawer. Poldi takes one too and we begin to inhale. We take another look around but no one seems to be paying attention to us.

“What else, Marco? Do you know more?” Poldi asks, breaking our usual code of no questions.

“Only this. He is coming to meet with the Japanese high command to discuss the ‘Jewish problem.’”

“That’s enough, isn’t it?” I say, more nervous that ever, the cigarette in my fingers trembling as the end forms into grey ash.

“God-damned Krauts,” Marco says in a louder voice, “won’t let us live in peace, not even here. They’ll bust their way in, shoving and stamping, those bloody goose-steppers, you know what they’re like, broomsticks up their spines, and who will be safe then?”

“Shh, Marco,” I say, worried that his words will be understood.

“They want cooperation from the Japs or they will remove their support for the Pacific war effort. Grim reapers, every one of them, and here we sit, caught again.”

“Are you sure of this or could it be just a rumour?” Poldi asks.

“As sure as I can be. We’ll know soon enough. But what can we do about it? I just don’t know. I wanted to tell you. After all, we are like family, right? Keep it quiet though, just for now. I’m going back to see if there’s anything else.”

We watch him walk slowly towards the back room, his head down, his usually good-natured mood blackened.

It is early morning when we make our way home, talking all the way about Marco’s story. We hope that it is just a crazy rumour, but we discover we are not the only ones who have heard the news of Meisinger’s arrival and his upcoming talks with the Japanese authorities. Soon the Jewish community is reeling from the news that the enemy is once more on our trail.

That evening Willi drops by. “The Germans are coming here,” he says. It has become his habit to visit us on his way home from work before we have to set out for the bar. “What in the world can we do?”

Even Poldi is finding difficulty in coming up with any words of encouragement. We all take cigarettes out and pass around the lighter. “Well,” he says at last, “maybe the Yanks will get us out of it this time.”

“Are we cats with nine lives?” I ask. “Or are we doomed this time?”

“Who can say?” Poldi shrugs in a gesture of resignation. “But at least the Americans have been angered enough to get into the fight after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. If the Allies win, well, maybe we’ll get out of here.”

We go to Jewish community meetings where we often meet Dolu and Eva, who are involved with the Russian segment. As in Europe, the Jewish refugees have divided themselves into separate and distinct groups by language and religious affiliations, but when the Nazi wolf prepares to attack, we lambs join together. We listen as the speaker announces some new plans. He is apparently Orthodox, a grey bearded middle-aged man, with glasses, wearing a black hat.

“Things are changing rapidly here, since Pearl Harbor, as you all know,” he begins. “In good times – and when you might ask, did we have good times?” He pauses as there is a sprinkle of laughter, then goes on. “Splinter groups were fine enough then, but now we need a united front to present to the Japanese, a group that will represent us all.”

He tells us that a group has been put together with the rather unwieldy name the Shanghai United Jewish Committee on Communal Representatives. The group will represent everyone’s interests – the Ashkenazi, Sephardi and German communal associations. He has been entertaining but, more importantly, informative, and we leave feeling better. However, what effect this committee might have on Japanese policy still remains uncertain.

The Japanese are besieged on all sides when the Americans enter the war. As occupation troops in China, they are in hostile territory. With ambitions to dominate the region, they appeal to their allies, the Germans, to come to their aid, but the Nazis have another agenda, a preoccupation with the existence of the Jews that extends beyond the shores of the European continent.

We hear rumours concerning the talks taking place between the two Axis nations. The Japanese have tolerated us as a means to ensure economic strength, for the Jews in Shanghai have proven their worth for many years, and the refugees, even within the short time we have been here, have become an asset. In order to rationalize our destruction, the Japanese will need to understand how it could benefit them. We have noticed the similarities of the Japanese and German methods of segregating the Jews. It is apparent that the Germans have explained their methods. It would not be difficult to show that the wealth of their war machine and the personal fortunes of senior Nazi officers have come in great part from plundering Jewish holdings in Europe, without consequence. Perhaps the Japanese will understand this manoeuvre, having ravaged property throughout China as they moved into occupied territories. If they first destroy the European refugees and loot whatever comparatively small assets they possess, the enormous wealth of the old Jewish money in the Far East may eventually lie at their feet. Although the Germans and Japanese have a distrust of one another, they are united in their goal of world domination. As time moves forward, we begin to believe they may succeed. As always, we wait.

Many things changed after Pearl Harbor. All foreign-owned businesses are now supervised by the Japanese. They have frozen bank accounts, and except for limited withdrawals for basic necessities there is very little cash to be had. Gasoline is disappearing quickly and buses have stopped running. The massive traffic jams of the city have been replaced by the slower pace of pedestrians and coolie-pulled rickshaws and carts. Bicycles are the main means of transportation even for the wealthy.

Early in 1943, Poldi and I have to go into the city to the area of the previous International Settlement, now under Japanese control. We have come here to discuss liquor delivery with a supplier who has been unreliable lately. We want to be sure there will be no further disruption of service. We are good customers, paying our bills in cash, so we believe our deliveries should arrive promptly, as promised.

We are walking along the Bund, talking about the meeting, when we hear a commotion and see a crowd gathering. As a first small step into domination here, the Germans are making their presence known. Their troops are putting on a show of strength, flaunting their military might by marching through the main street.

I shudder in disbelief as Nazi soldiers, in their characteristic stiff-legged march, parade down the Bund of Shanghai. But to their amazement and ours, they are suddenly surrounded and disarmed by swarms of Japanese soldiers, who have no intention of surrendering one fraction of their expanding empire to outsiders, allies or not. This is their realm, and they are obstinate and proud enough to thwart any attempt at control.

The representatives of Japan and Germany face one another for an awkward moment. The Japanese soldiers are much shorter than the Germans, but they have their bayonets drawn and their numbers are far superior to the European intruders. The Germans, awaiting orders from their superiors, have come to a stop in the middle of the street.

“This is not your territory,” one of the Japanese officers shouts in German. “You will turn around and return to your barracks. Otherwise, we have been ordered to shoot.”

The German officer grimaces, seeming to recoil with disgust at the little Oriental man barking orders. However, he thinks better of the confrontation, looks around at the gawking people on the sidewalk, salutes the Japanese soldier, and commands his men to retreat. The crowd disperses and we know that there will be rumours again regarding the outcome of this encounter.

It appears that the Germans are contemplating a takeover of Shanghai but that their allies, the Japanese, are just as fierce in their own tenacious hold on the territory. We are merely spectators in this game although our lives are in grave risk through the slightest change in command or policy. We know that the Germans are exerting pressure for our destruction. The Japanese who, we can surmise from what we have seen, have been unwilling to kowtow to the Germans have however struck a compromise with their persuasive allies.

Poldi learns of it when he heads out for his usual noonday trek for the newspaper; today he’s also to get some supplies, cigarettes, coffee, a tin of evaporated milk, tinned sardines, and bread. He is agitated when he arrives home. Pacing our small room, he shows me a flyer he has torn off a post in the city. “Decrees like this are tacked to every pole in Shanghai and blared on the radio,” he explains, waving one of the notices. “Every newspaper is carrying the same report, repeated again and again. All ‘displaced persons’ – meaning Jews – are ordered to be moved into a designated area.”

Memories of the past flood into my mind. I remember the Nazi proclamations at home that caused us finally to flee. I remember the horrors of Kristallnacht and once again my heart flutters in apprehension.

I take the ripped paper and read the edict:

“Due to military necessity, places of residence and businesses of stateless refugees in the Shanghai area shall hereafter be restricted to the under mentioned area in the International Settlement. East of the line connecting Chaoufong Road, Muirhead Road and Dent Road; West of Yangtzepoo Creek; North of the line connecting East Seward Road and Wayside Road; and South of the boundary of the International Settlement.”

“But why?” I ask, horrified. “I thought they didn’t concern themselves with us. We’ve mostly been ignored until now. What harm can a group of poor civilians do against their strength?”

Willi is at the door. “Have you heard the radio broadcast?” he asks, his face ashen.

“No, the radio is at the bar, but Poldi just brought home this pamphlet.” I draw him into our apartment by his arm.

“These aren’t just rumours any more,” Poldi says, his face reddening with anger and frustration. “The Germans have really made an impact on the Japanese and we are targets again. Bastards! We’re going to be herded into a ghetto.”

I am frozen in shock. A ghetto is as good as prison.

“How could this have happened?” Willi asks, distressed.

“News has obviously reached Berlin that a community of Jews is surviving and prospering in Shanghai,” Poldi says, lighting a cigarette. “I can only imagine that it must have driven Hitler into a rage. He wants us all dead. What other explanation is there?”

I pull the last cigarette from his pack and draw the smoke into my body, deep, deeper into my lungs and feel a slight relaxation of my limbs, but my overall state is panic.

Unceremoniously and without warning, the Japanese, on February 18, 1943, urged by the Germans, have ordered us into the Shanghai ghetto called Hongkew, a cramped section of about one square mile where all of us, some 18,000 people, are to be relocated in May. This is to be a more stringently regulated and heavily guarded enclosure, the new Restricted Area. In what we fear could be a first step towards our demise, we are ordered to give up our quarters to Oriental families who have been living in the still shabbier section, and to trade places with them.

We go over to the Café de Paris where Stella and Walter are sitting at a table, coffee cups and an ashtray overflowing with stubs before them. When they see us come in, Stella jumps up and rushes towards us.

“Can you believe what is going on?” She is distraught and grasps my hand. “Why don’t they leave us alone? They are planning to take over everything that we have, the shop, the apartment, everything.”

Poldi and Walter shake hands, chairs are pulled up for us, the others move to make room and soon we are drinking coffee with them. None of us can think of what to say. Finally Walter, rubbing his hand up and down his cheek, says, “You know, do you, that we have three months, to move into this designated area?”

Three months, I think, that’s all we have before we go into the enclosure. In that time, we have to close up our business, pack all our belongings, and make arrangements to exchange our apartment for one in Hongkew.

Poldi adds, “We need permission and approval from the Japanese for any of these transactions. That’s part of their decree. And anyone who arrived after 1937 is to move. We’ll be separated from the rest of the Europeans, those who were here before.”

“But Hongkew is so small,” Stella says. “And there are thousands of Chinese there. How will we all get in?”

“A squeeze, my dear,” Walter answers, “a tight squeeze.”

Not long after this, we begin to see queues at the offices of real estate agents in Frenchtown. The Shanghailanders want to list properties for immediate sale, apartments and businesses that have taken penny-by-penny savings and ceaseless labour to establish. Now we will have to take any offer just to get out.

Most of the purchasers are Japanese. The plan is that we are to trade places with them. The Japanese who lived in the dismal and neglected dwellings of Hongkew will abandon them and move into our nice clean homes, homes where we have managed to install indoor plumbing and telephones, furnished with things we dragged across the ocean from Vienna or purchased here.

Gleeful Japanese citizens are already mounting the steps into vacated homes. They offer the most paltry sums for our best china or pieces of treasured jewellery, hidden from the Nazis at risk of death. At the same time, now that the United States is an enemy, American aid has dried up. Relief funds, including supplies from private American Jewish agencies, which have been a great source of help to us, can no longer enter occupied China. We will have to sell anything of value just to feed ourselves.

The bitter truth is underscored by an item Poldi reads to me from the newspaper. “It’s all here,” Poldi says, folding the pages back with a noisy flourish. “There are 811 apartments, divided into 2,766 rooms that are outside the designated area. In addition there are 307 businesses owned by the stateless refugees. These will now be exchanged by official order of the Japanese Authority for homes and locations inside the designated area. The move is to be completed by May 18, 1942. Those who do not comply will face severe punishment.”

By April we have lost our business. Marco’s Bar is under new management; a Japanese man stands behind the counter. We shake hands with Marco when we meet at the bar for the last time. It is disconcerting to see the sadness in the big man’s fleshy face. He manages to say a few words to us. “I am going to Harbin tonight. I have approval from the authorities to stay with my brother there for now. After that, I don’t know. Will you stay here?”

“Our family is here, Marco,” I say. “Besides, we have no documents to travel. We have no choice but to move into Hongkew. We’ll miss you.” Sadly, we say farewell.

Our apartment, which we have been renting, has been accepted by a Japanese couple, and we have been assigned an address in Hongkew where they lived and where we will have to move. They have offered us a small sum of money for the few things we have managed to accumulate so we sell our rug and bits of furniture to them. After all, how could we carry it all with us? We look with consternation at the money we are given for our valuables, a pittance that will buy little more than cigarettes and a few bags of rice. The rest, including my precious skis, is packed into our big trunk, the one that we salvaged from Vienna, and we arrange for coolies to carry it along to our new location.

Because the Russian and Sephardic early settlers are exempt, Dolu, married to a Russian, is allowed to remain in the French Concession. He has never done a thing to help us although he was always in a better financial situation. Now that we are at our lowest point, there is no word from him. I resent his selfishness and say as much to Poldi. “Leave it to your brother,” I say grimly, “he always manages to look after himself above all.” Poldi shrugs. He loves his brother but has never expected help from him and would not ask.

Heavy-hearted, we bundle up our few possessions in bags and suitcases and carry them with us to our new home. A Japanese soldier, a rifle slung across his shoulder, stands at the entrance to the ghetto. We don’t understand his language, nor he ours, but he makes himself clear with rough commands and signals, and once again we have no choice but to obey. We show him our documents, duly stamped and signed. Poldi and I, with two coolies who are burdened with the weight of our trunk, make our way to the address we have written on a small scrap of paper.

We trudge along until we arrive at a dilapidated area, abandoned and desolate except for the poorest Chinese in Shanghai, and homeless vagrants seeking shelter wherever they can. Poldi and I wander through the warren of streets looking for signs and asking other refugees for help in locating our new address within the makeshift settlement in a bombed-out ruin. We make our way through the rows of ramshackle tenements, flimsy structures that remain hardly standing, with shingles torn off roof tops, windows cracked and broken, loose planks hanging by rusty nails. Within the patchwork of streets that is Shanghai, this is the lowliest part. We are within the burnt remains of a ferocious conflict between the Chinese and their invaders, the Japanese army.

Hundreds of Jewish refugees plod with us through the barren waste, grim and frightened. We are in what is called Lane Housing, a collection of shaky shells of dismal one- and two-storey shacks, lining both sides of a maze of narrow alleyways.

Poldi and I continue through the broken streets in search of numbers or some indication of the location we are seeking. Finally, “Here, this is it,” he calls and we head into the crumbling structure. This is where we must live, in the rubble left from the violent door-to-door combat. Looking at the squalor that surrounds us, I mutter sadly, “Thank God Mama didn’t live to see this. Her heart would have broken in two at the sight of this misery.”

In the entrance to the building, we find a ragged Chinese man sleeping in a curled lump. A passing Japanese soldier shouts at him and gives him a hard kick. The man rouses from his sleep and stumbles away, yelping like a dog.

We head up a flight of rickety stairs and at the top we find just one small, dingy room that is ours. The smell of mildew welcomes us into the hovel, dank and musty, without ventilation, dark, and oppressive. It is the middle of winter and the weather has turned icy cold. There is no heat, and the wind is howling through the cracked windows and crevices in the walls. We wonder whether our family has fared any better; they have given us addresses for where they will be settled so that we might find one another.

The coolies take the money we had promised them and mutter some grumbling words. They are glad to set their load down and leave us to ourselves. We remain alone in the gloomy room, looking at the four shabby walls that will be our enclosure. I drop the bundles I’ve been carrying and go towards a wobbly chair in the corner. With my sleeve I brush away some of the grimy surface and plunk myself down. My head lowered in my hands, elbows on my knees, I stare down at the filthy floor. “How can we live here? What have we come to? Were we fools to imagine that the Nazis would allow us to escape? I have felt that they were chasing after us all along, lurking somewhere unseen, ready to smash us to dust.” The words come out in bitter spurts.

Finally I look up to see Poldi, standing by the little window, the glass cob-webbed, cracks forming a pattern of radiating lines and pierced with missing pieces through which the wind is whistling. He is examining it, considering how it might be repaired. I know he will soon become busy as he has done before. He will absorb himself in comforting tasks, hammering crooked old nails to straighten them, rummaging in trash to retrieve bits and scraps that can be fitted together to mend rusty hinges, warped doors, and uneven walls so that the gusting wind will be kept out. Somehow he will manage to put things together and so, by focusing on the little things of normal life, he will be able to preserve his sanity and hope. This is his method of dealing with the succession of demoralizing events. He turns towards me then. “Nini, you know that we have to make the best of the situation. We’ll clean this room and disinfect it and then I’ll find a way to make some money. We will be all right. Don’t give up.”

But as I survey the space that we are to call home, I find no comfort, only disappointment and more cause for distress. Leaving my perch, I walk towards one dark corner where I have noticed something I can’t recognize. Revolted, I have discovered our one toilet is nothing more than a bucket with a lid. “Look at this, Poldi. My God, is this a toilet? In Frenchtown there was indoor plumbing, at least. In my wildest imagination, I never expected a place so vile and low.”

I wander about the cramped space and stop at the window. From our second-storey room, I can see the tangle of alleyways spreading out in twists and turns. Our neighbourhood is a jumble of unlikely residents thrown together to live or to die. The Chinese are obviously stunned by the sudden influx of foreigners, parading into their ramshackle area. The refugees in turn are bewildered and distressed, all their belongings stuffed once more into threadbare bags and battered valises. They gaze up and around in disbelief as they make their way into their quarters located somewhere in this crooked little part of the city into which they’ve been thrust.

“Here we are, Poldi, not so very clever after all.” I’m dejected and fatigued by the latest set-back to our lives. “And I guess the Nazis have won. What did it matter that we could run from them, when they have the might to destroy us anywhere, even here?”

“I don’t know any more,” he says, sadly, “I don’t know.” And suddenly I feel worse than ever. If Poldi has given up, what more is there to do? We have no comfort to give one another. After some time in lonely silence, he comes to where I am sitting by the window and pats my shoulder. Without a word he has brought a little courage back to me.

All the family is relocated in Hongkew and have met the deadline of May 18. Erna and Fritz are a few streets over from us, in a building that is one of the better ones which they were assigned because they have a child. Stella and Walter are in another, and Willi is living with them.

A number of refugees have already been living in Hongkew for years, those who were the poorest of us. Now we will all be together. This latest move into Hongkew for those who were just beginning to accept conditions in Frenchtown has been a mortal blow. Morale has sunk to its lowest level, and many have succumbed to chronic depression complicated by a greater susceptibility to physical illness.

Somehow Poldi and I, and the rest of my family, are strong enough to adapt to our surroundings, and to accept the circumstances we must endure. We believe we are more fortunate than most as we are young and resilient, but youth is our only resource. Despite my despair, I try to believe that we can overcome the obstacles although the effects of this newest dislocation show on each of our faces.

The morning after our first unsettled night here, we are awakened early by a sound that soon becomes as familiar and anticipated as a cock’s crow: coolies pulling a cart that clatters down the narrow winding streets. Going from door to door, they perform their lowly job, and we soon recognize and welcome their daily sing-song greeting that alerts us to rush out with our toilet pails. Into their carts they pour the stinking mess that leaves a trail of putrid brown liquid whose stench attracts swarms of buzzing flies. Repulsed at first, we gradually become accustomed to this routine as we must to so many things, sights that we had never imagined in our home in Vienna.

We scrub and scour our dreadful little rooms and make the best of it all. We discover the ways of Hongkew, living here, side by side with the most downtrodden of society. They are industrious, never seeming to squander time or money, always rushing from one spot to another with some purpose that will better their own lives or, at least, those of their children. They find uses for everything and nothing is wasted. Groves of bamboo grow quickly and can be found everywhere in the tropical climate. We discover that this magical plant is used for everything imaginable – from long sturdy poles that are stronger and more flexible than steel and are used for construction or for carrying goods slung across shoulders; to woven bamboo baskets for cooking; to food, as the young shoots of the bamboo plant are cooked and eaten with bowls of rice. The soy plant also has a multitude of uses, from a kind of nourishing milk to sprouts, cooked as a vegetable, or compressed into a salty dark liquid that preserves and flavours food at the same time.

A mutual respect is gradually nurtured between us and these strange people, although it may never develop into complete trust. We have heard the Chinese refer to us as “White Devils,” and we have seen their caricatures of the intrusive Caucasians depicted with long pointed noses, round fiery red eyes, and flaming hair. For our part the differences between us are just as frightening, yet we are able to live with them in peace.

We have discovered the primitive cooking equipment set outside the kitchen door. It is a round clay drum, about two feet high, with a square hole cut out at the bottom. Halfway up, a metal grid is welded to the sides. The technique of using it is a baffling procedure that we must master if we are ever to eat again. To start the fire we have to build a little mound of crumpled paper and kindling wood. On this scruffy nest, we place some rough coal briquettes formed from a mixture that is mostly mud with some coal dust added on top. To ignite the fire we use a match to burn a bit of paper or rag that is meant to set the whole mess afire. The flame seems always reluctant to catch, so we take turns squatting by the stove and furiously waving a bamboo fan, trying in frantic desperation to cause the flames to rise and glow red hot. The sight of a flickering ember causes us to shout in fits of jubilation, but more often than not, it is soon extinguished and the entire thing must be cleaned out and the whole task started again.

Nothing is familiar in this place. Everything is new and difficult or frightening. We are terrified of the spread of virulent diseases that surround us in the sub-tropical climate. We learn to wash our hair and bodies in disinfectant, scrubbing our skin raw to rid ourselves of lice and other insects and bacteria that are agents of contagion. Wails of agony filter through the flimsy walls or even out to the street, and we know that it is from the stinging pain of harsh chemicals burning human flesh. We are obsessed with cleansing ourselves, trying with limited success to purge our squalid accommodations of the germs that are seeping into our air, food, water, everything that we touch.

Thousands of us are crowded into this slum. Shouting, sobbing, slamming doors, muffled sounds of pathetic love making, and frustrated cries of despair fuse together to become the discordant song of Hongkew. As I lie awake on our wooden cot, shivering in the cold damp room, my mind slips back again to the verdant hills of Vienna. What is there to do but to add my tears to the many others being shed around me?

Turned on my side, lying in bed next to Poldi, I can see our food storage area lit by moonlight and casting shadows in the corners. Sleep does not settle easily in this hideous place. I listen in the dark to the scraping, scratching noises of cockroaches and watch the black hard-shelled beetles scurrying up and down the greasy walls in search of grains of rice that we have tried so hard to hide in firmly closed containers. My skin prickles at the sight. Mosquitoes are buzzing around my ears and I know that we will have fresh welts in the morning. These mosquitoes can be more than a nuisance as they can carry malaria. I will have to find some netting tomorrow, I think, to protect us.

Sometimes when the night is still, I can hear another sound, the plaintive chant in Hebrew known to every Jew, that I first learned as a child, “Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elohanu, Adonai Ehud.” Other voices join the first and repeat the solemn words slowly, over and over. Poldi is asleep, snoring loudly, overcome by fatigue, but I whisper the familiar prayer in the ugly darkness of our room. Sleep won’t come. My eyes are burning and sore so I lie awake staring into the black space. The ancient words return to me, a desperate prayer in memory of Mama and Papa and of Poldi’s martyred parents, in hope of salvation, in fear of death, in dread of our enemies, and finally in supplication for peace and the slim possibility of rescue and a real life once again.