CHAPTER 28

SURVIVAL 1944

We are aware of our imprisonment now more than ever before. Even here in Shanghai where thieves, pimps, drug peddlers, and murderers walk freely in the streets, subject to no laws or restrictions, we, as Jews, are condemned. Outside of Hongkew we are required to carry a blue card that can be demanded by any Japanese soldier. The exits are guarded by armed military patrols that restrict our movements.

“Did you see that grotesque little man at the gate,” I ask Poldi, “swaggering around in his uniform, barking commands at us, treating us as though we were inferior life forms?”

“That’s Goya,” he answers.”

“Like a Japanese Hitler,” I say, with disgust. “Just what we needed.”

“As long as we’re under Japanese occupation he will make sure to cause trouble for us.”

I see the anger spark in his eyes as he says, “Nini, I hate this whole thing, begging him for favours just to get the food in our mouths. What have they made of us now – beggars, prisoners, not free men any longer.”

“Never mind him,” I say, trying to settle him down. “We’ll keep out of his way.”

To make certain we adhere to their rules, the Japanese have installed a commander in Hongkew, General Goya, who has proclaimed himself “King of the Jews.” His office is here, and each of us soon becomes familiar with this short, skinny man in military uniform strutting among us, always with taller soldiers for his protection at his side. His face is pockmarked and broad, propped on a short, spindly neck and looking like a misshapen melon perched shakily above his narrow shoulders. He is bitter and cruel, revelling in his position of power over the struggling European refugees who must beg him for the favours that he withholds without reason. He is prone to fits of rage, irrational bouts of anger when any of us may feel the weight of his hand on our cheeks. His disdain for us is tangible. Some say that he detests the women most of all, and that he enjoys physical abuse, his face twitching with obvious pleasure at the chance to personally and brutally punish anyone for an infraction of his many rules.

Goya stands on a podium raised above us as we approach, caps clutched in our hands as a sign of humility and respect, to beg for a day pass out of the ghetto. In order to leave to seek work or to carry on any trade, we must apply for special permits that have to be renewed each month. Early in the morning the queues have already begun. Standing in the wretched heat or fierce cold, we look up eagerly anticipating his appearance. He purposely forces us to wait, never arriving before noon, so those at the end of the line have to come back another day. He refuses to see everyone who’s standing before him. At any moment, he may turn his back on those waiting for work permits, the only means of freedom from starvation, and declare the day done.

He seems to detest us all. It is not uncommon for him to strike anyone, young or old, with an unprovoked slap across the face.

“Go home,” he commands, a smile of contempt twisting his face, “I will see no one else today. You have tired me with your pathetic complaints and endless badgering. Come tomorrow, and arrive early if you want your family to eat and don’t tell me of your misery. You wretched beggars are getting what you deserve.”

Poldi stands in line once a month with the others to beseech a stamp on his pass. Each encounter is an ordeal because he’s risking so much. He might be beaten or worse, and if his pass is denied we will have no food, but he has to go into Shanghai to make a living in whatever way he can. He has decided on a reasonably good enterprise of buying and trading, getting what he can from wholesale suppliers and then carting desirable items aboard the vessels anchored in the harbour. He trades with various nationalities and finds his facility in languages useful. Always a skilled negotiator, Poldi manages to barter for goods such as cigars and brandy that are in demand by the servicemen. If he finds a deal on souvenirs that the sailors will buy to take home for girlfriends or family, he picks those up too. Mostly he is on the look-out for American cigarettes, which are scarce and highly valued. He hustles about on a bicycle to factories in the city and then takes his finds on to the ships at the dock. He has made arrangements with the captains, who are not above taking a cut, to let him come aboard. In this way, Poldi is able to bring some money home each day, if only enough for basic necessities.

We go about our lives despite Goya’s cruelty and the deprivation we have come to accept. In Hongkew we all trudge about in a fog of worry, concentrating on how we will supply the next meal. One day, as I am trying to purchase some wilted greens from a little Chinese vegetable stand, I notice a woman beside me, bent over to inspect some of the scraggly produce in the cart. She seems familiar, but I cannot quite place her. I finally draw her attention to me and as she turns her face, I can see it is Herta Weinstein from the ship. She glances at me but doesn’t smile or betray any recognition. She seems so different. Her pale blond hair has been dyed to a wild orange red and her make-up is thick and hard-edged. Her cheeks are garishly rouged and the lingering smell of her perfume is strong and potent. I notice her fingernails and cuticles, still bitten to raggedy bits. She tries to hide her hands when she sees me examining them.

“Herta,” I say, “is that you?”

“No, you are mistaken,” she replies nervously. She pays her money to the vendor without looking directly at me and turns to hurry away.

I watch her scurry into the thick crowd and soon she has disappeared, but I cannot forget the harshly outlined contours of her face nor the dull downcast eyes. Herta is not the only Jewish woman in Hongkew who has descended into prostitution. Poverty, hunger, and fear have forced many to make a living in this way. Her obvious shame at the position in which she has found herself saddens me. Within the ghetto there is little chance for anonymity, and I see Herta many times after this encounter, accompanied usually by Japanese soldiers, their arms roughly draped around her shoulders, as they weave drunkenly through the street. Herta has found a way to survive and I will not judge her, but she never greets me and I try to look away quickly when I see her, knowing she is ashamed of her situation and that my glance in her direction will cause her more pain.

I can understand Herta’s choice, although I am concerned about her path. I am aware of the violent beatings that prostitutes are known to endure and the exposure to venereal diseases that have already debilitated and killed many. Still, I understand. Death is our mutually sworn adversary. In this battle, each survivor has succeeded in staying alive by a strong will, determined to defeat our foe by whatever means available. We have become hardened in a way we never believed possible. We have been able to watch horror upon horror unfold before us, able to turn away from corruption, bloodshed, and injustice and still to go on. Adversity has fuelled our hunger to survive.

Herta has no family, and that has made the difference between her and me. Without the support of a husband or any relatives, she has had to rely only on herself, and who can blame her for that? For us it is different, we have one another. Mama believed that family was of the greatest importance and the only thing to count on. We cling together and derive sustenance from our proximity to one another. We have escaped as a unit, and there is an unspoken belief that we need each other to exist, each member a remnant of our lost home, each one incomplete by himself.

Our food consists mostly of boiled rice, soya beans, and scrawny greens that look like weeds and are tasteless. We no longer expect three meals a day, and just like the other refugees, we manage to exist while in a condition of perpetual hunger. This is a time of great desperation. Within the maze of twisting streets of Hongkew, Jewish refugees have no shoes, improvising with rags bound to their feet. Daily, thin fingers scoop bowls of rice into mouths, as our Chinese neighbours do, trying in vain to stop the relentless ache within our bellies.

We are prepared to sell all the scant belongings we still possess. Japanese soldiers, revelling in their position of superiority, purchase for miserly sums whatever the impoverished refugees have salvaged. Precious pieces of jewellery, winter coats that will be sorely missed when the wind howls, anything that can be spared is bartered. The gloating grins of the soldiers and the sadness of the Hongkew inhabitants tell the story. Poldi has found a way to bring razor blades into the ghetto and to sell them for a few pennies each, but the money is hardly enough for us both to subsist. We can scarcely afford enough food to live from day to day. Cigarettes have become a rare luxury, and each puff is inhaled and expelled in slow wafts, shared and smoked down until the very last whiff of tobacco has filled our lungs. We have reached a plateau of destitution and poverty not much different from the beggars scrounging in the street for scraps.

Sometimes I find myself staring off into space, no tears left to shed, no feeling but the hunger rumbling inside. Then an image of Papa, faded and out of focus, but recognizable all the same, comes to me. He looks at me gravely, but I can’t hear any words of encouragement or hope. He has nothing to tell me now, now that we are poorer than any soul he ever met or could imagine, and his advice of offering charity rings hollow and forlorn. There is nothing to give, I think, nothing for us nor for anyone else. This is a situation he did not foresee, that we, his children, might come to a condition of such devastation that we must ask for handouts, stand in line at a soup kitchen for the most meagre sustenance simply to survive. I feel ashamed and degraded.

Many times Poldi has taken his mother’s gold watch from its hiding place and rubbed it gently, caressing the smooth round contours and running the long chain through his fingers. One day, at the time of our greatest hunger, he asks, “Do you think we should sell it, Nini?”

“Never!” I reply without hesitation. The small shining disc in his hands has become a symbol for me of the family dignity that existed before this horrendous time. As long as we have it, I still can preserve some shred of hope that we will return one day to that former state, to become whole again. If we lose that hope, we will truly be finished.

“Somehow we will find enough to eat,” I say, finding some of my old defiance that I thought was gone, “but that is all you have left of her. We cannot sell it. Imagine how you could live knowing that one of those Japanese bastards was carrying her precious watch, touching it with his fingers. No. Never.”

Poldi holds me close to his chest and I feel his heart thumping in quick rhythm against me. I close my eyes as tears trickle down my cheek. His pain is mine and mine his. We infuse one another with the strength to continue in our daily battle of endurance.

We often share our simple supplies with the family, but there is never enough to satisfy our stomachs. Tonight, however, there is to be a special celebration, and we are eagerly anticipating a dinner with meat. Erna is cooking a fine beef tongue that she has been able to purchase with money earned at the Catholic Convent where she is still teaching her needlepoint skills to Chinese children. Goya has reluctantly given her the necessary pass to leave Hongkew every day, having been pressured by the nuns to do so. Mother Laula herself had to come to see him to persuade him to allow the daily release.

We are invited to Erna and Fritz’s flat where we will share the long-anticipated delicacy. The Japanese have erected a radio transmitter in Hongkew, and next door to that is where they live. The area is considered the most secure in Hongkew as it is protected fiercely by the Japanese. There is even a residence there for a number of Jewish families that we call “The Safe Place.”

“I’ll go over to Erna’s to see if she needs help,” I say to Poldi on my way out. He is working on some repair job as usual. “Remember we are going there tonight for dinner, a real dinner with meat.”

“How could I forget? I can’t remember when I last ate meat.”

Squatting by her Chinese stove, Erna is trying in vain to get the stubborn flame to catch.

“It’s no wonder the Chinese are so thin and dying of starvation,” she says, wiping away the sweat of frustration with the back of her hand, her hair sticking in moist strands to her forehead and the nape of her neck. “They can never get their stoves to light.”

I smile at her joke but she doesn’t notice and continues to wave the bamboo fan in a rapid upward and downward motion until the coals finally begin to glow red hot.

“Look, Mama is cooking on the flower pot stove,” Lily says, pointing at her mother, who is straining to master this primitive cooking method. We all laugh and agree with the child, that the stove does resemble an inverted planting pot.

Having successfully lit the flame at last and set the pot boiling for hours to soften the meat, she turns to prepare the table for us all. “I’ll be back later with Poldi. Do you have everything you need?”

“Yes, Nini, it’s all fine. We’ll have a good dinner tonight for once.”

When everyone arrives later in the evening, the delicious smell is almost too much to bear after such a long deprivation, and we glance longingly at the big metal soup pot, steaming and bubbling, rocking gently from side to side on the flimsy cooking device. We try to ignore the rumbling complaints from our stomachs and to have patience.

“This feast is worth the wait, you’ll see,” Erna tells us. “I chose the juiciest, fattest beef tongue in the butcher shop and spent all the money I had put aside for this one dinner.”

“When will it be ready?” Fritz asks. “I think I could eat it raw after waiting so long for a bit of meat again. I can taste it already dipped into the mustard sauce you’ve prepared.” He laughs as we all groan at the anticipation he is building up.

“Soon, soon, it’s almost soft enough. After all this time we can wait a little longer to make sure it’s just perfect.”

Fritz used to be a husky man, fond of good food and in his best mood after a plentiful meal. In Vienna we shared many dinners and his round freckled face always beamed with pride at his young wife’s ability to provide a satisfying repast. But since we have been in Shanghai, he, like the rest of us, has suffered deprivation and grown thin. We all miss Fritz’s contented chuckles and good humour after one of Erna’s special feasts. Tonight will be one of those occasions again.

We are gathered together, cramped into the small space, squeezing, elbow to elbow, on the extra chairs we have brought along. The table is tiny but there is a plate for each of us and we are in the cheeriest spirits since we moved into the ghetto. Conversation is lively, and laughter ripples through the air once more.

All of a sudden, we are shocked by the sound of a howl and screech. We jump up in alarm and rush to the cooking area, just outside the door on the little open porch. We stop in disbelief at the sight before us: the steaming water has been tipped and splashed out of the pot, and a huge stray cat from the alley, obviously starving and attracted by the tantalizing aromas of the cooking, has plunged its paw into the scalding water, managed to extract the whole tongue, and run off with the prize clenched in its jaws. Erna, her apron flapping around her, a ladle clasped in her fist, chases the culprit down the stairs and through the lane, distraught and screaming wild abuse at the terrified animal: “If I catch you, you demon from Hell, you’ll go into the pot with the tongue! Come back, you ungodly creature, you stupid black monster!”

Although we are famished and disappointed, we explode in uncontrolled fits of laughter. We can’t resist the sight of the scrawny wayward cat, its teeth tight around the hot beef tongue, driven by a hunger more fierce than the pain in its scorched paw or the fear of being caught by its enraged pursuer, and Erna chasing it wildly down the street. We watch them as they race in and out of doorways, and under lines of flapping wash hung on ropes strung from one post to another. Our neighbours, eyes wide in amazement, peer out their windows, taken abruptly from their duties by the sounds of commotion, and even grimy Chinese workers stare in wonder, fingers pointing at the sight and laughing uproariously.

“There it goes!” Willi shouts. “Look, it’s gone behind the vegetable cart! Run, Erna, run, you’ll get it back.”

“And then,” I say, turning to my brother, “do you expect us to eat what the cat has had in its mouth and dragged through half of Hongkew?”

He shrugs, but is intent on watching the chase.

We wait, standing bunched together by the doorway as they vanish around a corner. Fritz, with a white napkin still tucked under his chin, and the rest of us in various states of anxious dismay are straining forward to see whether Erna has been able to retrieve the piece of meat. We’re arguing about the possibility of boiling it again so that we might still have something to eat. At last we see her trudging sadly towards us and we know what has happened.

“I’m so sorry,” Erna says, out of breath when she finally returns, shaking her bowed head in frustration, her face flushed and damp, “I couldn’t catch it and our dinner is gone.”

We try to comfort her as Fritz leads her back into the house with his arm around her shoulder, his fingers brushing a few stray hairs back from her face. We return to the table at last, and begin to eat our ever-present bowls of plain cooked rice. This time, however, the discussion is animated, interjected with bursts of merriment, and we don’t grumble about the miserly fare before us. There will be another night of aching stomachs when we go to bed, but the tale is told again and again, eliciting the same hilarity each time. In some ways that is better nourishment than the meat might have been.