Shanghai Diary: A Young Girl’s Journey From Hitler’s Hate to War-Torn China - Bacon, Ursula. M Press, 2004. 280p. $24.95, Hardcover. ISBN 1595820000. 951.1 Bacon, Ursula. World War, 1939-1945—Personal narratives, Jewish. World War, 1939-1945—Jews—Shanghai (China).

One of the lesser-known episodes in the history of the Holocaust concerns the Jews who fled Europe and found refuge in Shanghai, a city that did not require a visa. Approximately 18,000 Jews, many from Nazi Germany, were the “stateless” members of the Shanghai ghetto. Despite hardships, Ursula Bacon and her parents were among the lucky ones to survive the trauma of living in a totally different culture under dreadful sanitary conditions during the Japanese occupation. She recounts adventures in Shanghai from 1939 to 1947, when she, her husband and her parents left for America.

Bacon writes well, with a quality of dreaminess, as she relates a young person’s perception of what was taking place. Her work would have benefited from more careful editing. For example, on page 122 she defines shiva, the initial period of mourning in Judaism, as lasting eight days, when it is seven days. There is no documentation, always a problem in this type of memoir, regardless of the author’s writing ability.

In the foreword Bacon mentions that other books have been written on life in Shanghai during this period and that she relied on one book, Shanghai Refuge, by Ernest Heppner, for certain facts. Ernest Heppner was a member of Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation until his death in 2004, and his work probes more deeply into the historical and personal aspects of the events that took place. Reading both books gives the reader an idea of what middle class German Jews endured and how they survived. Those interested in the history of the Jewish presence in Shanghai will want to see references on www.rickshaw.org, a site for survivors of the Shanghai ghetto.

Evelyn Pockrass
Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation
Indianapolis, Indiana