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JEWS IN SHANGHAI | Horst Eisfelder: Photographer Recording the Life of His Fellow Refugees in Shanghai Ghetto


25 September 2016 | By Liao Guangjun / trans. Huang Xie'an | Copyedited by Gu Yiqing

English
  • Horst Eisfelder

    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.

     

    Horst Eisfelder became a photographer when he took refuge in Shanghai. He recorded the scenarios of real life in the Ghetto with his camera. He took thousands of pictures bearing witness to the history, including pictures of buildings, daily life activities, and the faces of people 70 years ago in Shanghai. Now these photos are valuable historical legacies.

    H

    orst Eisfelder was born in Berlin in 1925 and came to Shanghai in 1938 as a refugee together with his family during the Holocaust. In 1947, Horst and his family went to Australia and have been settled in Melbourne since then.

    Horst took up photography in Shanghai and took a great number of well-known pictures of real life in Shanghai, especially in the Ghetto. Through them we are lucky to see what life was like for the many who were able to find refuge there. ZDF, a German television channel, shoot a documentary entitled “Photographer in the Ghetto”, and the hero was Horst Eisfelder.

    In 2004, Horst published his autobiography Chinese Exile, My Years in Shanghai and Nanking which includes quite a lot of photos he took during those years. He quoted a Chinese proverb which means virtually “to see is to believe” on the fly page. He also insisted in many places in the book that cameras could make a true, unchanging and accurate record of memory, which is far beyond human memory. The autobiography was based on his personal notes, newspaper clippings, maps, photos as well as his memories of incidents and the actual conditions of life. Of course, he had done a lot of research to make sure he was right. In 2015, we’re amazed by the books and various other records that almost filled his rooms when we interviewed him at his home.  

    First impressions of Shanghai

    The Eisfelders got on board Conte Verde from Trieste, Italy. Horst Eisfelder remembered clearly that he was seasick, which made the journey very much longer than it really was. Moreover, he spent his 13th birthday on the ship.

    On November 24, 1938, after nearly one month, they arrived in Shanghai. Horst was surprised by the first sight of Shanghai at the dock. He had barely known anything about this oriental city, or even China, when he was back in Europe. He had expected to see small huts made of bamboos or mud, because such images were printed on the chinawares sold in Europe. The buildings lining up on the Bund were clear evidences of modernity and the Western influence on this far eastern city. Then, Horst took the first photo of Shanghai: in the center was the Broadway Mansions, and the Astor House was also there on the right. This was his very first impression of Shanghai.

    First home in Shanghai

    They were picked up by the International Committee for Granting Relief to European refugees (IC) at the dock, and every family was given a provisional shelter with the address written on a small piece of paper. The Eisfelders got the paper and hired a cab to their first “home” in Shanghai at No. 3, Lane 125, Wayside Road. When they got to Wayside Road, it was dark and the cab driver couldn’t find the right location. Because of the war, the area was basically ruined, so there were no lamps or signs. Finally, with the help of a kind Indian policeman, they found the shelter. The landlord was an old Russian woman.

    Then, the Eisfelders bought some necessities at a nearby Russian grocery store, and ate their supper at a Russian restaurant. But when they got back to their home, they were embarrassed to find that there was virtually nothing on the bed, no sheet or covering. So they had to take out everything possible from the suitcases like coats and even raincoats to be covers. They spent their first night in discomfort. Horst Eisfelder had photographed their first home and the photo is also included in the book.

    Café Louis

    With a thousand US dollars they received from an uncle in the USA, Horst’s father opened a café in a rented house on Bubbling Well Road (now West Nanjing Road). With the help of their friends, the café was really open on February 11, 1939, selling mainly European cakes and hand-made chocolate, as well as drinks. They hired one Chinese and one Jewish woman as waiters. The café was very successful. Sometimes there would be over 30 customers from over 20 countries. Horst’s parents got on very well with their Chinese employees. They would visit their Chinese employees at home from time to time and celebrate some important days together.

    The good days did not last very long, however. On February 18, 1943, the Japanese military occupiers declared the Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees in Hongkou, the Ghetto, and Jewish refugees arriving in Shanghai after 1937 were forced into the Ghetto. So the Eisfelders sold their café, ending the good life their rebuilt in Shanghai. Not long after a meeting with the Japanese, Horst’s father had a heart attack and was hospitalized.

    Later, as he didn’t have enough money, Horst’s father found a partner to reopen Café Louis in the Ghetto. On September 28, 1943, Café Louis was open again on Ward Street and a lot of their former customers came. Due to the strict control on the use of electricity and gas in the Ghetto, Café Louis could not serve meals like before.

    Photography as a hobby

    The income from Café Louis was enough for the Eisfelders to live a comfortable life in the Ghetto. Horst’s elder brother also worked in the Café. After the family settled down, Horst, the youngest child of the family, entered the Shanghai Jewish school. After some time, Horst told his parents he wanted to quit since he had not learned very much there. His parents agreed.

    After leaving school, Horst entered a Swiss export and import firm. His mother asked almost every customer in the café to help find a job for Horst, and one of them secured the job for him. Later, he left the Swiss firm and worked for a factory producing caffeine from tea for some time. On May 27, 1944, Horst left the factory, as he did not like the job either.

    As Horst said, he had to think about his future after leaving the factory. He found he had a great interest in photography, so he decided to find a job using this art. Then, he started to learn photography from a Mr. Bild from Poland. At the photo studio, where Horst worked from mid-1944, most portrait images were taken in the studio. Again, due to the strict control over electricity use, they could not use electric floodlights. So they used mirrors to deflect outside light onto the faces. Likewise to enlarge photos, the enlarger was connected by tubes and mirrors to outside sunlight. The studio was located in the same lane 24 in Ward Road, to obtain photographic papers, films and chemicals. Thus he needed a Pass to leave the Ghetto. So he had to face Ghoya, the dreaded Japanese governor of the Ghetto, to apply for the pass. Ghoya was known to often beat or humiliate pass applicants for no reason. No one else in the family had applied for the pass. They had stayed inside the Ghetto almost all the time. As any refugee having a pass must wear a badge visibly, Horst also had one, a red badge. He showed it to us when we visited him and agreed to let us bring it back to Shanghai to make duplicates.

    Horst Eisfelder had taken thousands of photos in Shanghai, including pictures of buildings, street scenes and activities of various people here. It is even more remarkable that he had also shot quite a lot of pictures in the Ghetto which are treasurable evidences of the special history. For example, the pictures of Roy Roof Garden and Chusan Road, which we now see quite often, are all photographs taken by Horst. An interesting photo is his girlfriend Gerda on the crowded East Yuheng Road among the Chinese in long gowns and cheongsam. This picture has very often used in publications and for making posters.


    Farwell to China

    On May 28, 1947, the Eisfelders left Shanghai for Australia. Just one hour before getting on board the ship, Horst took a walk along Chusan Road. He said he would never forget the scenes on the road that day.

    Horst told us, “Things were not perfect in Shanghai at that time. But it provided us Jewish refugees with a haven. It saved our life. This is the most important of all.”

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    Press Contact

    SISU News Center, Office of Communications and Public Affairs

    Tel : +86 (21) 3537 2378

    Email : news@shisu.edu.cn

    Address :550 Dalian Road (W), Shanghai 200083, China

    Further Reading