Farewell to Shanghai and on to Australia

The war is over and business is good, but the Americans are leaving and new threats emerge.

Yes, China and Shanghai was a good place to stay for the rest of our lives. I personally was enthusiastic about the Chinese culture, and Chinese achievements, of which I shall say a few words later on. But only one fact I wish to mention now. This old nation of philosophers and scholars despised the profession of the soldiers, despised aggression, despised war and murder and killing. In contrast, Germany for instance considered the profession of the soldier as the most honourable of all professions. In short, they admired, in contrast, the killings and the killers for aggression and aggrandizement. In China therefore only the bandit, and the crook went into the army and the main thought was loot from their own nationals. And soon, when Chinese armies began to enter Shanghai, we got a taste of this. They would enter houses of Chinese, threaten and blackmail them, rob and even shoot. At the same time it was clear that the new nationalism of China would not allow the existence of the International Settlement any more, as well as the so-called French concession. Consequently we felt that threats and dangers are already coming to us, the foreigners. And sure enough after 4 months of peace, the Chinese government wanted to lay their hands on Japanese property and did so. Most of it would, of course, go into the pockets of generals and civil servants. After that they laid their hands on the businesses and properties and villas of German and Italian nationals, and then why, of course, the Jews. Aren't they also German nationals? We shall take their property and deport them back to Germany. ^{(SS 210-69)}

That was terrible news indeed, and I saw that we would not stay there. As soon as the war was at an end, I had, contacted my cousin Karl in Sydney Australia, and was happy to learn that he and his wife Mary had now a daughter Carol one year old. Of their mother, my aunt Hermine, however, there was no trace. Later we learned that she had been exterminated in Riga. The youngest son of her, Willy in England was safe and sound too, had married a girl from Wales and ^{(SS 210-69)} was a soldier with the British army in Germany. They too wanted to come out to Australia. Now, Karl's sister Paula and her husband Kurt, I and Claire we cabled Karl to try to get for us entry permits as quickly as possible, because of the danger. It took almost half a year, and we suffered agonies in the meantime. I personally was worried about the money I kept hidden in the house, and also whether or not I shall be able to get it out of the country. Meanwhile all the refugees made ready to go back to Germany and Austria, or to Israel, or to the U.S.A. and the refugee organizations promised them that their ship tickets will be paid by the welfare fund. Should we too wait until we get a free ticket to Australia? No, I said, the danger is too great. Let's take the very first steamer and get out. The tickets cost $240 each and I paid gladly. Paula and Kurt decided to do the same, and so we had berths on the American steamer Pioneer Star. But what about the money? You may be rest assured that I invented ingenious ways to transfer my money and Kurt’s money at least in part to Australia. But we had much more, and so I devised hidden places in our belongings where we concealed the money. For instance, a favourite hiding place, (one which I used during the post war years after the first world war, when travelling through Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.) was the inside of my guitar and mandolin. We did the same now. In addition I would buy a few large rolls of plastic surgical tape, and would roll it out carefully and back again with flat 100 dollars notes in grease paper rolled into. Even if a custom official would try to unroll the sticky bands, he would find after some yards that the roll contains only plastic surgical tape and nothing more. ^{(SS 210-70)}

What is going to happen to us when we try to board the ship? Perhaps drunken soldiers and custom officials would “confiscate” our suitcases on one pretext or another. With great apprehension did we board the ship on the 1st of July 1946. Then the ropes were cast away and we drifted slowly down the Whangpoo. I stood on deck and saw the tall buildings of the Bund recede into the blue of the horizon, and I thought back of the 6 years I spent in this fascinating city. I liked it from the very beginning, because it was so exciting and so exotic. It opened up a new world for me. I read many books on China and was fascinated by many cultural and even technological achievements. For instance, the simple wheelbarrow is far superior to the European and American wheel barrow where the wheel is on one end, thus making half the load rest on the arms of the pusher. The Chinese wheelbarrow instead has the wheel right under the bucket, that is, right under the point of gravity. Consequently a Chinese could carry up to 8 people on his wheel- barrow, because all he had to do was to give the initial push. The load would rest on the wheel, and not on his arms. Or take the abacus, which I, the only foreigner had learned to operate. It was “backward” for the foreigners, but I challenged everyone to multiply 4695 x 9859 in the usual European way with paper and pencil, whereas I would work it out on the abacus. I always won. In the banks I have seen Chinese clerks calculating quicker with the abacus than the calculating machines. As to the cultural achievements, the Chinese is extremely tolerant. For instance, a Chinese could be a Confucianist, but at the same time he would embrace Buddhism, and even if a friend introduced him to say Christian Protestantism he would join this religion too, or Roman Catholicism. Why not? These are all good religions. In our lands it is simply impossible for a Roman Catholic to become a protestant too and vice versa, but the Chinese don't mind. And then, what about the Jews? ^{(SS 210-70)}

To my utter amazement I learned from several books that Jews lived in China throughout the last 2000 years. They came with Alexander to India and some continued to China where they formed separate communities. A number of Chinese Emperors gave them special charters of tolerance. Anti-Semitism and pogroms were simply unknown. It was known only in the Christian world and today my opinion is that anti-Semitism has its root in the false belief that the Jews murdered Christ. In contrast, the predominant Chinese religion Confucianism is no religion at all, but only the teachings of Master Kung-Fu-Tse, a way of life in which honesty and friendship and mutual cooperation and ethical rules of conduct is all the “religion” without any dogmas without any god, without any stupid legends of immaculate conception and all that. I met in Shanghai a Chinese Jew. Through 2000 years of intermarriage, he looked like any other Chinese. But he showed me an old prayer book in Hebrew and told me that he observes the fast of Yom Kippur and other Jewish rites. This too means China to me, and because of this I loved this people and this country. ^{(SS 210-71)}

And then, there is the greatest achievement of the Chinese: their mode of writing, by which different races, and people and tribes could make themselves understood. Scholars of Chinese culture and history are unanimous in the assumption that it was this universal writing which unified many tribes, races and people into the largest nation on earth. Every invader soon learned to read the Chinese script in their own language, and thus became “infected” by Chinese wisdom, and so the invading people became Chinese in the end. My idea of a new and modern symbol writing found great appreciation among the Chinese and European communities of Shanghai, and I lectured to groups, and students at the university, to the Rotary Club, and other societies. They all urged me to carry on and write a book about it. They all knew that I was onto a good thing, because they knew that the archaic script of the Chinese nevertheless works beautifully in commerce, in technology and industry, and even in science. I closed every lecture in Shanghai with the words, that “if my modest work could indeed bring mutual understanding to people speaking different languages, then I shall bless the moment when I set my foot on the soil of China.” ^{(SS 210-71)}

Now slowly the soil of China receded before our very eyes. Now we were outside territorial waters and no police launch with marauding soldiers could board our ship and take our belongings. At last we are free. And as we sailed into a beautiful blue ocean Claire and I embraced each other and kissed each other and felt that all the unhappiness, all the waiting, and all the fighting were worthwhile. We had made it, and now we are making our dash into freedom. We sailed on for 14 days without going near any port when at last the coast of Australia came into view. Very early at 6 a.m. we entered beautiful Sydney harbour. The doctor came on board and soon we cast anchor at the Wooloomooloo wharf and there was Karl. and Mary, and my old friend Ungar from Kremenezky and his wife. But before we could go ashore our cabin was invaded by a number of reporters who made frantic notes when I expounded Semantography to them. I did not know that the captain had singled me out as the most interesting passenger and sure enough the afternoon papers brought stories about me and my world writing I was in the seventh heaven. I believed that I and my work will be taken on with open arms by Sydney University. And so in the highest of spirits we felt the soil of Australia under our feet and soon were whisked away over the Harbour Bridge into the North Shore with its beautiful suburbs and cottages Karl had a cottage all for himself alone and his wife and daughter. But we asked to be quartered nearby and so it was. We boarded, with a Jewish family and had breakfast with them, whereas supper we took together with Karl and Mary. Paula and Kurt and baby stayed on with Karl and Mary in their house. During the day I would go to the city, and would be enraptured about the cleanliness of all. There were drink water fountains at many street corners, and I enjoyed the rare experience of drinking cool water from one of these fountains without being afraid of cholera or typhoid. In Shanghai we had to boil every glass of water we drank. And above all, the many European faces in the streets, instead of the Chinese faces we had seen for 6 years made me like Australia very much. And then the masses of beautiful girls who filled the streets in the lunch hours. How wonderful to be in such a wonderful city and with such wonderful people. How wonderful to be free and alive. How wonderful to have Claire with me. In London I have urged many Jewish male refugees who left their wives and children behind to get them out of Germany before it is too late. Alas, tens of thousands of these refugees lost their wives and children in the gas chambers. But I had Claire with me. Moreover, already in Shanghai after the end of the war I had immediately written to Czernowitz and was terribly happy to learn that all are alive. Now, they all will come to Australia! ^{(SS 210-71)}