By
Rachel Schick
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Claude Spingarn was a teenager when he fled Nazi Germany in search of a better life in the Orient.
Spingarn, one of 18,000 refugees who lived in Shanghai during the German occupation of Europe, spoke Saturday to about 25 people at the Hillel Foundation of his journey from his German homeland to the foreign land of China.
Shanghai was one of the few cities that welcomed refugees in the 1930s - a little-known fact, Spingarn said.
Foreign, strange and far away to most Europeans, Shanghai would become one of the only countries to give the Jewish people a happy ending, he added.
"What was it like? It was the best of times and the worst of times. It was hell, and it was paradise. It all depends on how you look at it," Spingarn said, borrowing a line from Charles Dickens.
Spingarn said living conditions in Shanghai were bleak, comparing them to life in impoverished India. In his home, a bucket substituted for a toilet.
"Human life wasn't worth more than a pack of cigarettes," Spingarn said, quoting from a passage he had written earlier about the living conditions and class divisions in Shanghai.
Jan. 30, 1933, proved to be a major turning point in the lives of Spingarn and his fellow German Jews, when Adolf Hitler became Germany's chancellor. Jews who had lived in Germany for generations and considered themselves German before anything else were suddenly "only Jewish," Spingarn said.
Spingarn and other Jewish children were kicked out of their public schools and sent to all-Jewish schools. Every day, after school, a Nazi gang would wait for Spingarn and other Jewish students outside, ready to beat them up, he said.
In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were passed in Germany, which excluded Jews from all public opportunities. Jews had to limit practices to exclusively Jewish clientele. Large and thriving businesses were ruined, Spingarn said.
While many Jewish families never considered the idea of leaving their home country, Spingarn and his family applied for visas and packed their belongings.
"I can still picture ourselves sitting in our living room with suitcases packed," Spingarn said.
Buying round-trip tickets because there was no guarantee the ship would be allowed to dock and traveling first class because those were the only tickets available, Spingarn and his family sailed for the distant shores of Shanghai.
"I still remember all the places we stopped at," said Spingarn, who saw the Straits of Gibraltar, the Red Sea, Singapore and Hong Kong on his way to China.
Upon arrival, Spingarn's family was greeted by cattle trucks waiting to transport the refugees to the city. Spingarn said he remembered his mother, a woman of class, being astonished and ashamed.
The astonishment only grew as the Spingarns viewed their new home. The streets were filled with beggars, prostitutes and disease. Refugees could not eat many foods or drink the water because it was unsanitary, Spingarn said.
His family, after borrowing money from a relative living in Shanghai, was fortunate enough to buy a one-room apartment in a housing area called "Hongkew," or End of the Rainbow. The only other alternative would have been to live in a refugee camp, Spingarn said.
Many Jews in Shanghai became dependent on charity - usually about 10 cents a day - that came from the United States.
In time, refugees began to open their own shops, hospitals, schools and even synagogues. Normalcy for the Jews began to return, Spingarn said.
After the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, however, hardship increased dramatically.
Nazi official Josef Meisinger, also known as the "Butcher of Warsaw," visited Shanghai in 1942 to "educate" the Japanese occupying the area about the Jews. Meisinger had decided that because they were allies with the Japanese, they should have the same enemies, Spingarn said.
Meisinger suggested that on Rosh Hashanah - a High Holiday marking the first day of the Jewish New Year - the Japanese herd all the Jews in Shanghai to the open waters and drown them, Spingarn said.
However, the Japanese did not agree to Meisinger's strategy. Instead, they established a Jewish ghetto - called a "restricted area."
This area was one square mile in dimension, and Jews were forced to live in conditions far worse than before, Spingarn said.
"By 1943, we experienced one of the coldest winters in memory," Spingarn said. "And, by the way, the apartments and housing did not have central heating."
By 1945, the U.S. military established their presence in the city. Soldiers occupied a city outside of Shanghai and began routine daily bombings of the airfields in China.
By mistake, the Americans bombed part of the refugee community, killing many, Spingarn said.
Max Johns, a World War II U.S. Air Force bomber sitting in Saturday's audience, said errors like this were difficult to control.
"We're flying at 10,000 feet, and if those bombs drop anywhere near the airfield, it's sorta lucky," he said.
That same year, two Air Force pilots arrived at the Jewish camp to liberate the refugees. Spingarn remembered the children laughing as the pilots gave out candy.
"It was a good feeling," he said.
Spingarn said he regrets that his mother, who devoted her life to stepping foot on American soil, did not survive the Shanghai years. Spingarn, though, arrived in the United States in 1947, where he met his wife and raised three children.
