Ralph Mannheimer, 85, is part of the living legacy of Jews who fled Nazi Germany and found refuge in Shanghai.
Mannheimer, a retired insurance agent who now lives with his wife in Los Angeles, traveled with his parents by ship to Shanghai in 1937, with only 40 marks in their pocket. He was 8 years old.
"My family and I had no choice but to leave Hitler's killing fields," he said in a phone interview.
"It shaped my whole life and made me a champion of freedom of choice."
The family spent eight years in Shanghai, eking out a living at times by buying and selling clothes on the street. Some Chinese residents in the city also befriended them, offering help when needed.
"The experience made me vow never to be hungry again," Mannheimer said, his voice choking as he remembered conditions in those years.
An estimated 20,000 Jews sought refuge in Shanghai during World War II. After the Japanese invasion and occupation of the city in 1937, their lives became more restricted. Aid flowing to them from American humanitarian organizations stopped after 1941, and by 1943 most Jews in the city were forced to live in Hongkou District in what came to be known as the Shanghai Ghetto.
Living conditions were harsh for both the Jews and for Chinese residents living under Japanese control. That created a common, if often silent, bond between both groups.
"I still remember the first night my parents, my sister and I arrived in the Hongkou District," said Mannheimer. "We were frightened by the rats in the shabby apartment provided to us by a Jewish organization in the city."
Mannheimer said his father had a small business buying linen and selling it to Catholic convents where orphans who were abandoned on the doorsteps embroidered the linen for church use.
Before the Japanese occupation, the family managed to rent an apartment in what was then the French Concession. They had a refrigerator, stove and indoor toilet. Living conditions improved a lot, Mannheimer recalled.
"A Chinese woman often gave food to us when she could spare it," he said.
Mannheimer said he and his sister played with local Chinese children and the children of Russian immigrants. They communicated in broken English and tried to learn the Shanghai dialect.
After the Japanese invasion, the Mannheimer family was forced in 1943 to move to the ghetto, where they were relegated to shabby accommodation again. Their toilet was a honey bucket and they had only charcoal for cooking.
Mannheimer's father, whose spirit and enterprise weren't broken by the deplorable conditions, hawked underwear on the streets with Ralph to earn a little money to keep the family going.
The ghetto, along with the rest of Shanghai, was liberated on September 3, 1945. The Mannheimer family emigrated to the United States in 1947 with the help of the local Jewish community and relatives living in the US.
Mannheimer returned to Shanghai in 1987 and 2006. He visited his former neighborhood in Hongkou.
"It had changed a lot," he said. "I looked at our old residence from the outside, but as a tourist I really couldn't go in."
Though memories fade with years passing, Mannheimer said he has always retained a strong gratitude and respect for the Chinese people.
"Had it not been for the Chinese people providing a sanctuary for my family, I would not be alive today," he said.
