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, Jewish refugees managed a hard life in Shanghai, but their Chinese neighbors were even more difficult. It may be strange that a Jewish refugee exchanged their rice and bread for the coarse foods of their Chinese neighbors. Well, it was a change of taste for the Jews but a good chance for the Chinese to improve their nutrition.

Here is an account of a Chinese called Li A-hao. Li was born in 1927 and lived in an attic room on the second floor of a house on Xinjian Road (Singkeipang Road) in Hongkou. Life was hard then for the family as well as for other Chinese people there, so their main food was so-called six-grain (actually corn) flour pies and tofu residues. As his younger brother was too little, he could not eat tofu residues which was coarser, his mother often made six-grain pies for him. They had a Jewish neighbor, a couple who could afford rice but would rather exchange their rice as well as bread for our six-grain pies. They insisted, or pretended, that the six-grain pies were delicious. Li could not understand that, because in his eyes rice and bread were certainly much better than their six-grain pies. Now, in retrospection, he can understand it better. Maybe the Jewish family just wanted to help their Chinese neighbor and at the same try a new taste.

Li had a small business. Every day, he would push a cart carrying an umbrella, a table and two benches to the street. He sold milk in the morning, coffee in the afternoon, and toast bread, milk and coffee in the evening. Sometimes, when these foods did not sell well, he also sold carrots, onions, cabbages and potatoes. The Jewish refugees loved red carrots and sweet potatoes very much, but they would just buy a couple of them. Li did not charge them much, but rather he would accept whatever they gave him. And the Jews had never bargained, either. There were rarely any conflicts between the Chinese residents and the Jewish refugees.

There was a Jewish couple living at No. 38 of the same lane. They had a lovely little daughter called Maya. The husband had dark skin like a Pakistani. He was once arrested by the Japanese and no one knew where he was taken to and no one had seen him again even after the war was over.

The wife struggled for life with her daughter. Later, she had a boyfriend whom she brought home once in a while. Her boyfriend was very handsome. She often went out with her boyfriend at night and came back the next morning. Therefore, she would ask Li and his wife to take care of Maya for the night. Once Li’s wife went to their home, and didn’t find any basin when she was about to help Maya wash her face. She came back and took one from their home. The next day, Maya’s mother both apologized for her negligence and thanked Li and his wife again and again. Although they spoke different languages and followed different customs, both families got on rather well with each other.

Li had another Jewish neighbor, a couple with a little son living opposite to them. It was said that he had used to be a physician but Li had never seen him practice medicine. He depended largely on the aid of the Jewish community. Once, Li’s wife had a stomachache, feeling so painful that she thought she was dying. But they did not send for the doctor. A Chinese neighbor who was working as a translator noticed it and brought the Jewish physician to Li’s home. After a careful examination, the Jewish physician asked us to go to the hospital for an operation. He said it wasn’t simple digestive disease. As he was poor, Li hesitated. Seeing this, the Jewish physician went back home and brought a big black pill and asked Li’s wife to swallow it. Afterwards, Li’s wife fell asleep. The next day, the Jewish physician visited Li again and reassured him that it was much better and gave him another black pill. He came again the third day. He said, “It is OK now. She will recover soon.” So he was really a physician, a very professional physician, but he was unable to practice medicine since he was restricted in the Ghetto.

The lanes in the Ghetto had Chinese and Jewish residents, and according to Li the Jews were easy going and friendly, and the Chinese treated the foreigners without discrimination.