This article appeared initially in The Kosher Koala, newsletter of the Australian Jewish Genealogical Society, Inc., Vol. 14, No. 1, March 2008. It is reproduced with the permission of the author— Ed.
Sitting at the computer, my wife, Rieke, knew something special had come into the e-mail Inbox and called me immediately. The unknown sender titled the Subject: “Lost Passport in Shanghai,” a topic with which I was familiar, since I had initiated connections to owners of two German passports a few years earlier (see Kosher Koala, Vol. 12, No. 3, September 2005).
This time, however, there was an attachment labelled “Ingeborg Nachemstein,” my mother’s unmistakable name. This was a scan of a section inside a passport, showing the name (Ingeborg Sara Nachemstein), date and place of birth, and some other personal details as well as a photograph. But it also revealed that the passport holder had a child, listing date of birth and name: Peter—Me!
I was absolutely amazed, if not completely surprised. Ever since I heard of the two old German passports turning up at a Shanghai “flea market,” I have thought, “So how many others are there to be found?”
The sender of the message was Thomas Dorn, a German citizen living and working in Shanghai already for six years, having worked in various parts of Asia for many years. In his leisure time, Thomas’ hobby is to roam around Shanghai looking for historical posters and other curios from China’s evolution in recent decades. On that particular weekend, he had ended up at a shop cum museum of Chinese propaganda posters. A fluent Chinese speaker, Thomas engaged in conversation with the museum owner/collector.
After a short while of getting to know each other better and after realizing Thomas’ origins, the owner, Mr. Yang Pei Ming, produced a box containing 19 German passports. From the Nazi swastika (Hakenkreuz) on the cover, Thomas immediately realized their significance and, having lived in Shanghai for a number of years, was also aware of the story of the thousands of German, Austrian and other European Jews who fled the Nazi era and found a haven in Shanghai. As he slowly turned the pages of several passports his “hair stood on end,” realizing the pain, blood and tears that these passport holders had endured through their long journey to Shanghai, the displacement and loss of family, as well as the hardships of refugee life.
Instinctively he was drawn to the need to somehow find the owners or a descendant; Thomas was galvanized into action. Gathering his thoughts, he used his mobile phone to take photos of those passports listing children, hoping some might still be alive and that he could trace them. The first passport he photographed and subsequently did searches on was that of my mother and me. On returning to his computer, he Googled my name—my birth name—and, within 0.16 seconds, found more than ten “hits”’ for me, resulting from my previous publications and lectures I have held on the Jews of Shanghai. Not only did the first link he opened list my adopted name in addition to my birth name, it also gave an e-mail address.
Within 60 seconds of receiving Thomas’ e-mail, I called him in Shanghai, taking advantage of the relatively small time difference. It was my turn to startle him! Not expecting such a quick response, he thought it was his boss calling from Germany. Although his English is fluent, we spoke mostly in German, in which I am also still fluent. I was naturally curious how Mr. Yang came into possession of such a large number of passports. According to Mr. Yang, there are about 100 passports of German-Jewish refugees to China circulating at the moment—another known lot of 5 passports, plus Mr. Yang’s 19, meaning there may be another 75 still waiting to be discovered.
How these passports came to be left behind in Shanghai has so far not been uncovered. The Nazi-issued passports did not serve any further purpose, as the Nazi government was toppled ending World War II, but many of the refugees came away with their original passports. Indeed, I have in my possession the passport of my mother’s sister and her husband, and I know the one belonging to my mother’s sister-in-law exists. One theory is that the passports may have been collected from certain groups of stateless refugees during their post-war emigration and replaced by other qualifying documents for entry into the country of migration.
How these documents have survived and under what circumstances they recently surfaced, there is as yet no definitive answer. In the late 1950s, not long before the start of the Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao, there was mass “dumping’” of records and paraphernalia relating to Shanghai’s Western population. It appears that peddlers, sorting through the rubbish for recyclables and items of value, picked out these documents and sold them to owners of curio stalls rather than as waste paper to be pulped. Thus, the passports may well have spent many years in a dusty corner of one of Shanghai’s many flea market stalls.
Other items have surfaced in similar fashion. Examples are the recently found Jewish tombstones, some complete, some partial, so far numbering about 90. It is known that the tombstones of the four Jewish cemeteries in Shanghai, numbering about 3,500, were pulled up and re-interred outside of Shanghai in 1958. Later they were again pulled out and many broken up or used as paving stones or for other building works.
What to do with these items remains controversial. Apparently some of the passports have been sold. In fact, in 2001, while leading a tour of German medical students, Professor Paul Unschuld came across a stall holder outside of Shanghai who possessed two passports. Unschuld bought them and later proceeded to find the owners and their families.
Both Thomas and I agreed that money should not change hands for the return of my mother’s passport. We explored the possibilities of having it returned, and I decided to contact Mr. Yang directly. His response gave me hope that I may receive it from him. Thomas recently visited Sydney and brought our passport with him. He handed the passport over to me, ‘“on loan” from Mr. Yang, at the Sydney Jewish Museum. A planned reunion of ex-Shanghailanders in June 2008 in Shanghai may be the right forum for the handover of some of the passports to their owners or surviving family members or the Shanghai Jewish refugee museum.
In any case, this is an extraordinary instance in a chapter of Holocaust survivor history that had a fortunate ending.
Peter Nash has spent more than 20 years actively researching his family history and has helped many in their search for family who also found a haven in Shanghai. He has lectured and authored articles on the Jews of China. He is a volunteer guide at the Holocaust-orientated Sydney Jewish Museum.
