Charles settles in Shanghai and works to get Claire across the USSR.

Charles sets up a photography and movie making business, where most of his customers are British or Americans. While trying to make money to survive he is frantically trying to get Claire to Shanghai.

My cousin-in-law Mr. Kurt Beck had a man's wear shop in 463 Bubbling Well Road, the continuation of the main thoroughfare Nanking Road. Next to him was another refugee, a Mr. Koenig who had a stamp shop. On top of it was a room divided into two small rooms which he had empty, and which he was willing to rent out for $10 per month. However, he demanded that I pay him 5 months in advance. There went $50, and I had a place where to work and to sleep. But I realized that Claire might need more money. I therefore bought only a chair, a desk, and a few things for cooking, and a cheap mattress, which I put on the floor and there I slept. Now began another hectic activity, first to get Claire over to me, and then to start a business, as a photographer and a moviemaker, using my two small cameras which I brought over with me. Claire was the most important matter, of course. And it appeared that new obstacles had arisen, which made her coming almost impossible. For instance, the German consul in Athens would not let her go to Shanghai. Why? Why not go back to Germany? Afraid to death she withdrew with some explanation. She could get the Russian transit visa in Athens through the American Express, but she could not get the transit visa through Manchuria, which was a Japanese puppet state with a consul in Berlin. All this was informed me by cable and also whatever information she could get from the travel agencies in Athens. Almost daily I would cable to her, and pay for her answer. I remember a number' of times cabling her in desperation not to believe what those idiots are telling her in the travel agencies. I advised her not to send her passport to the consul for Mandschukuo in Berlin. I was too much afraid. There was another consul in Rome, but Italy was already at war with Greece, so this too was out of the question. What to do? What to? I asked myself, almost crying in sleepless nights. Then I began to interrogate refugees who came from Europe via Siberia, and from them I learned that those who had no Mandsohukuo transit visa when they arrived at the Russian Mandsohukuoan frontier, would get the transit visa in Harbin. Immediately I cabled Claire this good news, but learned later from her that the American Express people demanded more money from her, on account of whatever those scoundrels would think of to get out of the pocket of a frantic woman. There was also the possibility that she would not be able to cross Greece for Turkey, so contemplating her desperate situation I took all the money I had and paid it in at the American Express in Shanghai for immediate cable transfer to Athens. Only $10 remained in my pocket. It was not easy for me, but then all my efforts, all my thriving were directed towards one aim: to rescue Claire from the war in Europe and to get her over to me. Whatever now comes, I said to myself, I had done what I could. Now only God can help, as the saying goes. ^{(SS 210-60)}

That additional money I sent her during the foregoing days proved then indeed the help she needed. Those crooks at the American Express grabbed it, and let her have only $30 in travellers cheques, and put her on a train to the Turkish frontier. She had made friends in Greece, and she left with them whatever belongings she could not put into two small suitcases, and a rucksack. She had a terrible train journey, pressed between Greek soldiers and travelling all the time in darkness because of the war blackout. They got a spy in the train and shot him. Imagine the poor woman alone in war-torn Greece and now stranded at the Greek-Turkish frontier, with no prospects when a train would go to Istanbul. Claire told me that she saw a man, who turned out to be an Englishman on his way to Moscow. She addressed him in English (she had learned it diligently in Czernowitz) and begged him to allow her to stay with him. “I am not your enemy” she said, “I am a refugee with a German passport, but I am Austrian, as you can see from the passport.” The man was touched by her helplessness, and together they arrived in Istanbul. It was not a day too late, because the Russian transit visa was set to expire the next day, all owing to the delays in Athens. She went to the Russian consulate and got a new transit visa, then they boarded a steamer for Odessa, and then travelled the long road to Moscow. There she got the foreigner treatment, was locked into her hotel room and all her questions were not answered nor heeded. She gave the man of the Intourist the money for a cable to me, but he never sent it off. And then in the middle of December, with hard snow covering all of Russia, she was escorted to the Siberian railway station and put on the Trans-Siberian express. Luckily, there were other refugees from Vienna on board, so she felt not alone. ^{(SS 210-60)}

For seven long days and nights she would travel across Siberia. Little did she see of the landscape, and this was dismal. She had little opportunity to talk with Russians. One Russian teacher was friendly, but her companion warned her not to mix with foreigners. Claire was full of apprehension about the transit visa through Mandschukuo. At last they arrived at the Soviet frontier. Imagine her with her heavy rucksack on her shoulders and the two suitcases in her hands. There were no porters and she had to step down in bitterly cold weather and sank into the snow up to her waist. So she had to battle until she reached the station with the others. Then they boarded the other train and in Harbin she would be taken off by the local Jewish welfare organization and boarded in the local Jewish home for aged people. At least it was well heated. Next day, she got speedily her transit visa and then off to the port which formerly was called Port Arthur, but now Dairen, I believe. There she was told that there is no steamer available, except a troopship tramp steamer. She had to accept this, and sitting on the floor of the deck among Japanese soldiers she travelled two days across the Yellow Sea and at last arrived at the mouth of the Yang-Tse-Kiang. ^{(SS 210-61)}