Editor's Note: During the World War II, more than 30,000 Jews, under attack by the Nazis in Europe, fled to Shanghai, China and 16,000 of them took refugee in this city. Meanwhile, the local Shanghai people were also in an abyss of pain inflicted by the Japanese invasion.  Though the time was difficult, gratitude and mutual friendship lived on in the heart of the Jewish and Chinese people. The Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum and Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) launched a initiative early this year to present those touching stories in Chinese, English, German and Hebrew. This is one of the selected stories in the project to commemorate the history of Jews in Shanghai.

uring WWII, Lin Daozhi was headmaster of a church school in the Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees. Mr. Lin was a very kind and generous man. During that period, he received a number of kids from poor families, including Jewish kids, on the gratuitous basis. 

Around 1943, a Jewish school headmaster called Carl who was a refugee in Shanghai entrusted over 1,000 books in English, German and Hebrew to Mr. Lin, believing that Mr. Lin was totally reliable. On the eve of returning to Germany, he told Mr. Lin that he would come back for the books. Mr. Lin had kept his promise. He had taken very good care of the books through the hard times. Carl, however, had not come back since then. Mr. Lin died in 1981, and his family and children took over his job of keeping the books. They’ve also kept his promise for over 70 years.

Ms. Pan Lu, Mr. Lin’s daughter in law, is the second generation of the book keepers. She still remembers the kind acts of her father in law towards the Jewish refugees, especially their kids, during the difficult years. She also remembers that Mr. Lin hired a dozen people to transport the books to their old home in Huangyan, Zhenjiang Province, to keep them safe in the war against the Japanese. Their home in Shanghai was very close to an arsenal of the Japanese army on East Seward Road, so they were very vulnerable to fire. They transported the books on a ship, but they met with gangsters just before they arrived in Huangyan. The whole family, together with the boatmen, used all their muscle to raise the sail and row the boat upstream. They had a narrow escape and hid the books in their village house. After the war was over, thinking that Carl might come back for the books, Mr. Lin took the books back again to Shanghai, kept them in their home at 805 Ease Seaward Road, and waited for Carl. 

Twenty years later, during the Cultural Revolution, they met with a new threat. Hearing the report that the Lins had a number of books in foreign languages, the Red Guards, mostly fanaticized students, came and took the books away. They carried the books to a square and announced to burn them in front of a big crowd. Mr. Lin Daozhi and his son Mr. Lin Shangyi knelt down before the Red Guards to beg for mercy. The books were their “life”. After all, they had just taken great pains to save the books from the war, and it meant a great deal for their dignity to keep the books safe for their foreign friend. It was lucky that a storm came just before the Red Guards set fire on the books. The plan was put off and Mr. Lin had time to visit quite a few government departments and pull some powerful strings behind the scene. At last, the books survived.

In 1981, when he came to his final moment, Mr. Lin Daozhi again and again told his children and grandchildren, “He said he would come back, and I am sure he will be back.” After he passed away, his son Lin Shangyi, his daughter in law Pan Lu and his grandson Sun Lide (son of his daughter) took over his duty. They kept the books in an attic room. As the old house was vulnerable to termites, they used a special material to seal the attic room. So after so many years, the books are safe, except that they look older and yellowish. The color printings and pictures are still very clear.

One day, the Lins found several letters and postcards from Germany when they went through the legacies of Mr. Lin Daozhi. They could see the pictures of Car and his wife Paula, and most of all they found an address of Carl in Schwerin. As so many years had passed, they could not verify the address, so they put their request on the newspaper hoping to get in touch with Carl’s children, if there were any. The Foreign Affairs Office of Hongkou District responded to the request immediately and called the Consulate General of Germany in Shanghai to help.

The news was picked up by the German press and spread in Germany very quickly, too. ZDF, one of the biggest TV stations in Europe, covered the story which impressed the German public for the integrity of the Lins and mobilized a great number of volunteers, including German and Chinese, to look for Carl or his offspring. They hoped to give the story a satisfactory ending. The volunteers included Ms. Yang Meng, a volunteer of Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum and Sonja Mühlberger, a former Jewish refugee in Shanghai. Ms. Yang turned Carl’s address-bearing documents, photos and letters into electronic files and sent them to Sonja who spread them as clues for an extensive search. The address had disappeared since so many years had passed and the old town of Schwerin had been redeveloped and streets had been renamed. Undeterred, Sonja went through the name list of Jewish refugees in Shanghai, and found Carl. The information showed that Carl was born in October 1898, and once worked as an apprentice before he escaped to Shanghai in March 1939 as a refugee. Later, Sonja visited a few former Jewish refugee associations and connected with several people who had some touch with Carl. They pieced up the information of Carl after he returned to Germany and finally Sonja found Carl and his wife’s tomb in Schwerin.

“This was at least a relief.” Hearing the report from Germany, Mr. Sun Lide, the third generation of the book keepers, felt disappointed at first, and then he came back with relief. Now it is impossible to return the books to their original owner, but the Lins have honored their promise. Their faith has withstood the test of the great war and subsequent domestic unrests.