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Documentary filmmakers Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir Mann tell the story of over 20,000 Jews who managed to make it to Shanghai toward the end of the 1930's. Kristallnacht was a final warning to get out of Germany. The problem was, countries would not accept Jews, so where could you travel if there was no end to your travel? 

Shanghai was one city open to immigrants. This oasis in the Far East had been part of China, but by the time Jews began to leave Germany and travel there, Japan had taken Shanghai and now ruled. One didn't need an enormous amount of paper work to board a ship and enter a new life. You had to buy first class tickets, though. There were three groups of Jews in Shanghai, the British who arrived about 1880, Russians who came about 1917 and the new people, German Jews. 

At first, Jews had to become acclimatized to a land where sanitation was inadequate and people lived in buildings that we would call tenements. Mothers stayed with their children while fathers did whatever work they could to provide for the family. Japanese soldiers were everywhere. News from Germany was scarce, so Jews didn't know the extent of Hitler's deeds.

Eventually, when Japan became friendly with Germany, the Jews were gathered into a ghetto, but still could come and go in the city with permission. A story is told of a Jewish woman who was able to repair typewriters and got a pass to go into the French section of Shanghai for this work. Actually, there was no typewriter work, but she bought and sold goods for profit, hiding everything under the tools in her basket. This got food on the table. Though poor, the Jews didn't suffer as much as the Chinese, who were in abject poverty. 

As the war increased, so did bombing raids and eventually the dropping of the atom bomb in Japan ended Japanese rule in Shanghai. Many Jews were then able to come to America, where there is an occasional reunion of the remaining group. The last meeting was 1999 in Philadelphia, Pa. 

Two Shanghai survivors, Harold Janklowicz and Betty Grebenschikoff, talk to the camera and vividly describe their experiences while children in Shanghai. Harold had to endure weekly beatings from a Russian youth and at the end of the war, Harold gathered his strength, pursued and soundly beat the other boy. Betty tells of the hard work her parents had to do to keep the family together. There was one time when a boy in their building followed a noodle wagon, cutting into a bag at the back of the pile. The noodles spilled out into the gutter, where they were gathered and families went through the noodles, picking out glass and other debris, until the noodles could be cooked and eaten.

Shanghai Ghetto is a strong documentary of survival. It is told at a leisurely pace and could be seen by families. Americans have one viewpoint of the Japanese empire during wartime, but people living in Shanghai during WWII, found them organized and willing to help anyone during a devastating bombing raid. For the Jewish people who escaped Germany to start a new life in the Far East, it was a sort of paradise gained.

Copyright 2003 Marie Asner
Submitted 3/29/03