Hermann Goldfarb was born in Munich, Germany, in 1919. His parents had emigrated there from the Austro-Hungarian empire in the early 1900’s. In 1923, the youthful Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the German government in Munich in a revolt known as the “beer hall putsch.” Fearing for their safety, Hermann’s parents, Selig and Miriam, sold most of their belongings and emigrated to Argentina.

Upon arrival, Selig received a small piece of land and a small house from the Jewish Colonization Enterprise, an organization that encouraged such emigration. But the house was extremely primitive and the land too small to cultivate. So Hermann’s father got a horse and buggy and began selling items to farmers in the area. When Selig began suffering from severe asthma attacks, Miriam finally convinced him that this was not the right place to raise children.

In 1925, the family sailed back to Europe to join Helene, Miriam’s sister, who was living in Chrzanow, Poland. Hermann’s brother, Eric, was born there in 1925. The next year, the Goldfarbs moved to Berlin, where Selig had found a job as a salesman. Hermann was enrolled in a boys’ school run by the Jewish community; his younger sister, Sonja, also started school.

“When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, life for us changed even more dramatically,” Hermann says. “We lived in constant fear. Jews were beaten, and some were picked up on the streets and disappeared. They were never seen or heard from again.”

In 1934, Hermann graduated from high school and became an apprentice in cabinetmaking at the Rudolf Klein furniture factory in Berlin, an old, established firm owned by a Hungarian Jew. Soon after that, Hermann’s father died, at the age of 55. The family had to move to another apartment. “My mother tried hard to get us out of Germany while there was still time,” Hermann says. “But no country was willing to accept a widow with three children.”

“Nowhere to Go!”

In Late October 1938, Hermann was at work as usual when he was called to the phone. “It was my mother telling me that the police were looking for me,” he says.

He was the victim of a grim Catch-22. “German officials were rounding up all Jews born in Poland and sending them to a barren strip of land between Poland and Germany,” he says. “Even though my parents had lived in Germany since 1902, the Austro-Hungarian area where they were born had become part of Poland after World War I.

The German government considered us to be Polish citizens. Even though I was born, raised, and educated in Germany, the German government considered me a Polish citizen since children took on the citizenship of their fathers. They were looking for me to expel me to Poland.

“My mother told me to go into hiding until the action was called off. I left work immediately and stayed for two weeks with friends. Luckily I was still in hiding during Kristallnacht, which occurred less than two weeks later. It was the beginning of the horrors that would follow.”

When Hermann emerged from his hiding place, he went back to work. The following March 28, 1939, he received a letter from the police, ordering him to leave Germany within 24 hours. “It was impossible,” Hermann declares. “Nowhere to go!

“I went to the police and tried to get an extension. When it was granted, I tried to get a permit to enter England with the help of my Zionist youth group, but they couldn’t do anything for me. On June 15, I received another letter from the police, informing me that I had until June 30 to leave or I would be arrested. I knew what that meant.

“My mother and I went to all the organizations that were supposed to assist us—without any results. Then, at a meeting of a Jewish women’s organization, she met a woman who promised to help: She had booked passage on a Japanese ship going to Shanghai, China, and she was willing to give her ticket to me. The woman had connections with the travel agency and could get another ticket for herself a month later.

“Since China was one of the few countries that  Jews could enter without any immigration papers, many were trying to go. But all the passages were sold out. I was very fortunate to be offered a ticket; I accepted it. The Japanese ship was scheduled to leave from Naples, Italy, on July 2. I had only eight days to take care of all the formalities and pack, but by June 29 I was ready to go.

My mother and my younger brother, Eric, took me to the train station in Berlin, where I boarded the train for Rome and Naples. I was 19 years old and did not know when—or if—I would ever see my family again.”

As the train headed toward the Italian border, all the passengers were afraid of what might happen. “There officials checked our passports,” Hermann recalls. “Then the customs officials arrived: ‘Are there any Jews here?’ they asked. We had to get off the train. They conducted a strip search on us and also searched our suitcases. By the time they finished, we had missed the train to Rome. But we managed to catch the next one, and crossed the border into Italy! I had left Germany on time! My sister and brother also got out. Sonja went to England; Eric went to a children’s home in France on a Kindertransport.”

"Life in an Alien City"

In Rome Hermann changed trains for Naples. The next day he boarded a 10,500-ton ship, the "Hakozaki Maru", a combination freighter and passenger ship carrying about 80 passengers, most of them German refugees. They sailed to Port Said, where they entered the Suez Canal; it took twelve hours for the ship to get through the canal. On July 22 they reached Singapore; six days later they passed Hong Kong. On July 31—after sailing for almost a month—Hermann reached Shanghai.

Shanghai, then a city of about four million inhabitants, is located in the Yangtze River delta and is one of the world’s greatest seaports. But the city was overcrowded and filled with unsanitary quarters. Even so, many refugees fled there because they didn’t need visas or any other papers to enter.

“We arrived at the Shanghai-Hongkew Wharf, and from the dock I could see tall and beautiful buildings along the Bund, the famous street that lines the waterfront,” Hermann remembers. “I was assigned to stay in Pingliang Road Camp for single men, which had been a cement-block factory. As I walked through strange and dirty streets, carrying a small suitcase and wearing a suit that was too heavy for the hot weather, many Chinese stared at me. By the time I arrived, my clothes were wet from sweat.

“About twenty young men welcomed me. Inside, there was a large hall with 200 bunk beds, as well as a washroom and showers. The toilet was a trench along the wall of a big room—no stalls or seats! In the dining room I received a tin cup and bowl and lined up for my first meal. It was rice with plums, and tasted awful! That night I tried to sleep, but it was unbearably hot and humid. Even worse were the mosquitoes, a severe problem around camps. I told myself, "Hermann, if you want to go on living, you just have to get used to everything, no matter how hard and unpleasant things are."

Shanghai’s streets were drab and dirty; there were ruins everywhere, but the European refugees had begun to rebuild houses, stores, restaurants, and cafés. Chusan Road came to be known as Little Vienna, with its coffeehouses and bakeries. Life started to bloom out of the ruins. At night the streets were filled with Chinese sleeping on bamboo mats on the sidewalks, because it was too hot in their houses. Every morning, city workers picked up the dead bodies wrapped in straw mats that had been put out onto the streets during the night because people had no money for proper burials. For the refugees from Europe, these things were horrible to witness.

“Illnesses also made life terrifying,” Hermann says. “You could not eat raw fruits or vegetables; everything had to be cooked, and water had to be boiled to prevent dysentery. Thousands of refugees were stricken, and hundreds died from it. Others caught typhus and cholera.”

But there were pleasant times as well. “After crossing the Garden Bridge, where Japanese soldiers were standing guard, you were in the International Settlement,” Hermann recalls. “The Broadway Mansion, a large modern building, was very impressive. The city was very different here. There was the Bund, with its beautiful buildings, fine stores, hotels, and theaters. There were interesting jetties and ships along the waterfront. And there was a beautiful park, the Shanghai Public Gardens.

“And there were also dozens of prostitutes in front of Wing On’s department store, but the saddest thing was seeing mothers offering their young daughters to men.”

The weather continued to be brutal—hot and humid in the summer, with temperatures often higher than 100 degrees and no relief at night. In the winter, it was cold and rainy. When a typhoon raged, the water level in the river rose dramatically, and dirty water would back up through the open sewer system into the streets, flooding them and the houses.

Despite these hardships, life in the refugee camps became more normal: Since everybody was in the same boat, a bond developed between the refugees, making life easier to bear. Schools were established; a hospital opened at the Ward Road Heim; synagogues provided services; a refugee orchestra gave concerts, and several newspapers were published. 

By August 1939 the refugee population had grown to more than 18,000 people. Then Japan (a German ally) invaded China. After taking control of China, the Japanese restricted the entry of Jewish immigrants. Those seeking entry had to deposit 400 U.S. dollars in Chinese banks and register with Japanese authorities. These measures slowed immigration to a trickle. “I was lucky that I had arrived when I did,” Hermann says.

"Adapting, Always Adapting"

Finding work seemed impossible, especially in Hermann’s profession, cabinetmaking. The Chinese were not used to seeing a white man perform any manual labor; according to British colonial policies, they could be bosses only. So Hermann tried his luck selling things, but, he says, “I was no salesman. One day I heard of a job in a cabinet shop. It was far away—a three-hour commute each way—and offered low wages. But I took the job anyway, and rented a small room. After three weeks I had to quit, because I was exhausted. Disillusioned, I moved back into the camp. Then, in May 1940, a couple from Vienna opened a knittingwear factory. They were looking for a supervisor, and I got the job.

“That’s how I met Else Ruben, a German Jew from Berlin who was working there. She lived with her mother, Betty, a widow, on Baikal Road in a house owned by her uncle. Many of her relatives from Germany were living there. Since I needed a place to live, Else invited me to stay in a small, partitioned area of the room which she and her mother shared. I was invited to have meals with them as well. The arrangement worked out beautifully.

“I worked at the knitting factory until 1941, when I heard that ORT (Organization for Rehabilitation Through Training) was opening a trade school to train adults for jobs when they resettled. I was hired to teach woodworking. My salary was $15 a month—a pretty good wage.

“Then, on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. America declared war on Japan and American support was cut off. Local organizations took up the slack, but there was no money for teachers at ORT. They asked us to work without pay. (We were never reimbursed!) 

“I continued living with Else and her mother and began doing some embroidery work at Else’s factory to earn extra money. A year later, the Japanese moved all stateless refugees into a ghetto in Hongkew, a crowded area where it was hard to find housing.

To help out, SACRA, a relief organization, bought some empty warehouses and remodeled the interiors, making single rooms available. Else, her mother, and I decided to apply for a room together. We got a tiny room with a bed and table; a common washroom and toilet were located in the corridor. We were not allowed to leave the ghetto under threat of severe punishment. We needed a special pass to leave. The situation there was hardly good, but we had many friends. Our life was as pleasant as possible.

“When the war in Europe ended, in May 1945, the Japanese erected machine-gun bunkers around our ghetto. We were sure that they’d kill us if the Allies landed in Shanghai. Luckily for us, that didn’t happen.

“Then the U.S. began to bomb in the Shanghai area. We hid under beds and tables, hoping the bombs would not fall near us. On July 17, 1945, bombs fell on Hongkew, and thirty-two refugees died.

Many others were wounded. Houses collapsed from the shock waves. We were fortunate to escape. The next few weeks were very tense. After the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered. “We had made it!”

"A New Life"

Hermann managed to find a job as a carpenter with the U.S. Army. More lucky things occurred: The Red Cross posted notices from Jewish refugees who were looking for family survivors. Hermann found a notice from a woman named Miriam Goldfarb Medvediff from London.

“Since she was looking for her son, I thought right away it must be my mother,” Hermann says. “She must have remarried. I sent her a message through the Red Cross. . I received an answer. She  was my mother! She had emigrated to London before the war on a domestic permit. There she had married Nachman Medvediff. My sister, Sonja, also in England, had married an Austrian refugee. My brother, Eric, was living in France; he had fought with the French Resistance. Even my Aunt Martha, who had been sent to a labor camp in Russia, was alive. We were fortunate that so many of us had survived. We had not communicated in almost eight years.

“Else and I married and hoped to emigrate to America. In the meantime, I opened a woodworking shop with Bruno Schleich, a former pupil.” 

On April 30, 1947, Else gave birth to a daughter, Helen. Soon after, Else’s mother left to join her brother in New York City. Then the Communist forces of Mao Tse-tung moved toward Shanghai. Hermann and Else had to depart by December 31 or their visas would expire. There was little space available on airplanes. But they packed so they would be ready.

“On December 16, 1948, at exactly 9 a.m., the telephone rang. We had to go to the airport immediately,” Hermann says. “We didn’t even have time to say good-bye to the family.

“We arrived in San Francisco on December 18, 1948, after flying for thirty-four hours. Eventually we settled in Rochester to be near my parents and sister, who were in Toronto. Life in Rochester was good to us. Eventually, my parents, my brother, Eric, and my Aunt Martha moved to Toronto. Our family was  united again. But my aunt Helene and Fanny and Fanny’s son, Heniek, were missing. They had been killed in Auschwitz.

“In 1954 we became American citizens. That was the  highlight of my life. Since that time my mother and my sister passed away. In 1986, Else tragically died from cancer. The following year I began dating Senta Schlesinger, the widow of a family friend; we have decided to spend our lives together. We enjoy our families, travel a lot, and we are very happy.

“Aunt Martha is now the matriarch of our family. Eric and I are next in line. But the future belongs to my daughter, Helen; my granddaughter, Lisa Michelle; and my nieces and my nephews and their children.”

Excerpt from "Perilous Journeys: Personal Stores of German and Austrian Jews Who Escaped the Nazis" written by Barbara Lovenheim and Barbara Appelbaum