Language was the biggest communication barrier but also a reflection of cultural integration. Jerry, 94 years old and residing in New York, fled Germany with his family to Shanghai in 1939 when he was 10 years old. He had been in Shanghai for seven years. In the character interview in October 2023, he recalled, “Chinese, not exactly an easy language to learn. There was a thing called Pidgin English, which was a little bit of English, some German, and Chinese. The Chinese vendors, the coolies who came to the lanes, they learned a little German. There was one coolie with the bamboo sticks selling water. They used to sell 'Wasser, Wasser' in German.”

Pidgin English was a product of linguistic and cultural fusion. Many of the refugees recounted how they struggled to adapt to the poor life of the Chinese people and gradually came into contact with Chinese culture in the process. Joseph Weber, who was just 17 when he took refuge in Shanghai from Austria in 1939, wrote in his memoirs that to find a job and make a living, he tried to learn Chinese and bought a phonetic textbook (Weber 45). While working as a draftsman in an architectural office, he found that the best way to learn Chinese was to drop in on the workers at the construction site after work. “Good-natured men would instruct me willingly. I developed some friendships and one day asked one of the master carpenters to make me a container for my four pairs of shoes. He used Philippine mahogany and the case turned out so beautifully that Father confiscated it right away to be used as a food container.”

For newly arrived Jewish refugees, however, adjusting to a foreign language was not the only obstacle they faced. Radically different customs and rules were sometimes less than comforting. For example, they had to remember to drink water only after boiling it, to wash fruit thoroughly with a disinfectant, to avoid certain items like radishes grown using human excrement as fertilizer, and to empty the toilet every morning while collecting “night soil” (Weber 37).

Joseph Weber described an interesting event in his family memoirs: he and his wife Tessie had been invited to dinner at their Chinese friends’ homes and attended their weddings. “Dish followed dish, each one a work of art. According to Chinese etiquette, the honored guests (foreigners) were offered the most delectable bits by the hosts, who picked them from the dishes and placed them on our plates with their chopsticks. We tried not to dwell on the fact that the 94chopsticks had just been in their mouths.” (Weber 73) From these accounts, we can picture the great cultural divergence. Using chopsticks to pick up the most delicious part of the food to the guest is the Chinese way of hospitality, but to Westerners, it was obviously unsanitary and uncomfortable, though they fully felt the warmth. Due to the divergence between Chinese and Western customs, Chinese people can seem obnoxious at times. However, this is purely a product of different cultural backgrounds.

The influence of Chinese cuisine is profound, as it remains a symbol of connection for these Jewish refugees to their past time spent in China. Many Jewish refugees continued to visit local Chinese restaurants even after leaving Shanghai. When Joseph Weber’s descendants visited the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum earlier this year, his grandson James Weber told me, “When my sister and I were growing up, every Friday night, we would go out for Chinese food. It was a big family. So we learned to use chopsticks at a very young age. We still use them.”

Wang Zhu, a former Chinese ambassador to Austria recalled, “When I was in Vienna, I often met Jewish refugees who had lived in Shanghai, and they could talk to me in Shanghainese. When I hosted them for dinner, the Shanghai Jews asked for the flat bread, fried dough sticks, soy milk they used to eat in Shanghai, with red curd and pickled melon.” (Wang 216)

After the establishment of the stateless refugee ghetto by the Japanese authorities in February 1943, Jewish refugees and ordinary Chinese people lived together in the Hongkou ghetto and had closer contact. The area around Huoshan Road and Zhoushan Road in North Bund was once known as “Little Vienna,” a settlement area for European Jewish refugees. The terraced buildings on one side of the street are neither the typical Shikumen houses of Shanghai nor traditional Chinese buildings, but rather a blend of Eastern and Western elements: arched windows and doors, decorative columns, blue brick exterior walls with red brick bands, red tile roofs, and triangular gables above the entrances, as if in distant Europe. In fact, many destroyed houses on Zhoushan Road were rebuilt by Austrian Jewish architects, giving the houses a Viennese alleyway look.

At that time, this area housed tens of thousands of Jewish refugees, plus the original Chinese residents, making it incredibly crowded and noisy. Once they adapted to the environment, many skilled Jewish refugees resumed their trades, opening a large number of European-style shops centered around Zhoushan Road, including cafes, bakeries, candy stores, and restaurants, as well as theaters that regularly held performances by Jewish musicians. For example, the White Horse Cafe, one of the most famous daily gathering places for Jewish refugees, was rebuilt to its original appearance based on photos provided by the descendants of the original owners in 2015. Today, the three-story European-style building attracts a large number of guests every day. During the difficult days on the river section, people of the two nationalities helped each other, and it was in this process that cultural exchange began.

In addition to the influence on the neighborhood’s modern architecture, there were many cultural elites among the Jewish refugees who brought advanced culture and technology to 95Shanghai. At least 13 Jewish refugee musicians were hired to teach at the Shanghai National Conservatory of Music, such as the German Jewish violinist Professor Alfred Wiltenberg, who taught at the school until he died in Shanghai in 1952 (Wang 216). Among his students were famous musicians Tan Shuzhen and Huang Yijun.

In May this year, Aaron David Joachim from California, USA, visited the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum. His grandfather’s family elders, Otto Joachim and Walter Joachim, are both Jewish musicians. During their refuge in Shanghai, one of Otto Joachim's most significant achievements was the production of 30 Chinese records. He and the Chinese composer Chen Gexin became friends and recorded Chen Gexin's “Rose, Rose, I Love You.” This song, which they adapted into “Roses Everywhere,” spread abroad and became a classic song. In 1950, the famous American jazz singer Franklin recorded the song in English, reaching No. 1 on the U.S. pop music charts.

After Jewish refugees came to Shanghai for shelter, they made new attempts and modification of arts. Published in a local newspaper “Longevity Hill” at the time, a report The Jewish New Stuff -Puppet Show Is Back In Hongkou vividly described the Jewish puppet show in the Hongkou area at that time (Luo 145-146). The development and improvement of Shanghai’s puppet dramas, as it were, were mainly influenced by the Jews. They played some classics, such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the complete version of Carmen and Faust. Puppet plays also became their means of living.

After World War II, Jewish refugees left Shanghai to live around the world, but they all have one thing in common: they still maintain an emotional connection with China and Shanghai, which is what we call “China complex” and “Shanghai memory.” In 1979, when Michael Blumenthal, a Jewish refugee who was then the US Treasury Secretary, visited China, he made a special trip to Hongkou, to visit his old home. Some Jewish refugees also came to Shanghai to invest and do business in order to expand foreign economic, trade, and cultural ties. Most of the Jews who had lived in Shanghai are deeply influenced by Chinese culture: they like Chinese food, love Chinese operas, can do Tai chi, and have their own Chinese names.

Works Cited

Luo, Zhenguang. Jewish Refugees and Shanghai, Dust-Laden Past. Vol. 3, Shanghai, Jiao Tong University Press, 2015.

Wang, Jian. Escape and Rescue--Jewish Refugees and Shanghai in World War II. Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2016.

Weber, Joseph. The Story of Joseph P. Weber.