The Shanghai Connection By Libby Fischer Hellmann

Libby Fischer Hellman: Hi, Reds. Wonderful to be back with you! Thanks for including me.

MAX’s WAR: The Story of a Ritchie Boy is my just-released historical thriller about a true but little known story from World War Two: the Ritchie Boys. They were a group of 2300 German Jews who escaped Hitler’s Germany, emigrated to the US, and joined the Army to fight the Nazis. 

As you can probably surmise, I did intense research on the time period. While doing so, I discovered even more stories that haven’t been widely told. One of those stories, which I included in the novel, follows. 

You know that during the Holocaust the Nazis tightened restrictions on Jews. Many Jewish families were desperate to flee Germany and the Occupied countries. But as restrictions for them at home mounted, so did restrictions in the countries willing to accept them. Quotas limited the number of immigrants Europe and America would accept. America was especially stingy. In 1938-1939, over 400,000 Jews applied to emigrate to America. Only 27,000 received visas. 

In MAX'S WAR Max’s German girlfriend, Renée, and her family were lucky. They capitalized on one of the only paths open to Jews—if they were prepared for a dramatic change. They emigrated to Shanghai, China.

Shanghai 1920's

Why escape to the other side of the world? The exodus was in large part made possible by a heroic Chinese diplomat in Austria, Feng-Shan Ho. Often called the “Chinese Schindler,” he risked his job by issuing thousands of visas to German and Austrian Jews.

The other stroke of luck for Jews was Shanghai’s reputation as an "open city." Much of it was controlled not by the Chinese but by foreign powers – including France, Britain, and the United States. Customs officials were “tolerant” of Europeans who flocked to the city, and often “neglected” to check passengers’ papers carefully. Altogether about 20,000 Jews fled to Shanghai, and most of them survived the war. 

Shanghai in the 1930s was the most sophisticated city in China, but life in the Far East was still a shock, as Renée “reports” in a letter to Max.

There are tall skyscrapers everywhere, and the harbor lies directly in front of them. But once you get ashore, there are hordes of people packed into small spaces. Rickshaws operated by young men pull people all over town. You can see the veins on their legs popping out. There is also a glut of bicycles but only a few autos. 

From a distance it looks very Western, with electric signs and buildings and trolley cars. But up close, I noticed that the streets are not well maintained, and the odor is insufferable. I gather there is little indoor plumbing unless one lives in an affluent neighborhood. There are a proliferation of stalls selling food and drink, but we wouldn’t think of eating anything off the street. 

Even so, they tell me Shanghai is truly an international city, the largest in China. It is responsible for over half the country’s imports and exports, and everyone here is in the business of making money. They call Shanghai the “Paris of the East, the New York of the West” because aside from legitimate trading, Shanghai is notorious as the center of criminal activity in China. Opium is a huge export, and some of the wealthiest Europeans here run those businesses.

While most Jews recognize the difference between Ashkenazi (Western European Jews) and Sephardic Jews (from the Middle East, Spain & Portugal), Renée discovers a branch of Sephardic Jews in Shanghai who were new to her.

A few weeks ago we were invited to Shabbos dinner by the Sassoons, who are probably the most prominent Jewish family here. They are Bagdadi Jews, a branch of Judaism I confess is new to me. They come mostly from Iraq, Basra, and Aleppo, and other Arabic-speaking parts of the Middle East. They’ve been in Shanghai for decades, and are extremely wealthy. The family does most of their trading with Britain, and they all speak English. They are so central to Shanghai’s wealth that no one would dare to impose any antisemitic decrees. So different than Germany. 

Renée’s father was a successful jeweler, and her parents found a home in the upscale neighborhood of Jefferson Park. They assimilated into Jewish life—Shanghai had its own synagogue, Ohel Mosheh. Later there was a school and an active life for young Jews. Renée found the Chinese people generally friendly and supportive.

Jewish Refugee Museum

However, there was an existential threat to immigrant Jews: the Japanese. Again Renée “writes” to Max:

Did you know the Japanese bombed Shanghai in 1932? They occupied Manchuria but Chinese students protested (as they should), so the Japanese broke up the protests with bombs. They are so aggressive they almost make the Nazis look pacifist.

In 1937 the Japanese captured Shanghai. For the most part, they left the Jews alone. But after the Americans entered the war in 1941, things changed. They were, after all, allies with Nazi Germany.

They forced us to move into the ghetto in Hongkou, which is a horrid slum. They also treated the Chinese—well—as badly as the Nazis treated Jews. They had big plans. They thought they would conquer the world. 

Girls of the Shanghai Ghetto

Over 10,000 Jews were crammed into space for half that number. There was no indoor plumbing, heat, stoves, or garbage collection. The conditions were barely tolerable. Illness swept through the ghetto, and many died. Still, there was no incarceration or torture of Jews by the Japanese. The Japanese treatment of the Chinese was a different matter. 

After the war, not many Jews returned to Europe. Many went to Israel and the US. What about Renée and her family? Did they move back? Did she and Max ever see each other again? 

The answers are in MAX'S WAR.

Reds and Readers, did you know about the exodus of Austrian and German Jews to Shanghai? 

Jenn: I didn't. Thank you for sharing this story with us, Libby. I am looking forward to reading Max's War!

 

Compare and Contrast in the latest Billy Boyle WWII Mystery by James R. Benn

JENN McKINLAY: I am absolutely delighted to have the brilliant (and fellow SCSU alum) James R. Benn here today to talk about his latest work in the Billy Boyle World War II mystery series, which comes out TODAY! 

JAMES R. BENN: Compare and contrast . . . 

How many times have you seen those words in a school assignment? 

Comparison analyzes things that are similar, while contrasting discusses things that are different. A compare and contrast essay analyzes two subjects by comparing and contrasting both. It’s been a while since my last college English class, but the phrase kept popping into my mind as I was writing Proud Sorrows, the eighteenth Billy Boyle WWII mystery (Soho Press, September 5, 2023).

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There are several components to the plot of this novel, but two disparate groups stood out in my mind as prime candidates for a good, old-fashioned compare and contrast. 

The first group is the Ritchie Boys. Ever heard of them?

Most people haven’t. 

I’d heard the name but had only a vague understanding of who they were until I delved into their story. As I researched the plot for Proud Sorrows, I thought this could be the book in which to include them. The more I learned, the more certain I became. Here are the basics:

The Ritchie Boys were a secret Military Intelligence Service program created to interrogate German prisoners of war. Over 15,200 servicemen were trained for these duties at Camp Ritchie in Maryland, and that name ultimately became the moniker of the highly classified project. The men who participated in these specialized interrogations were sworn to secrecy and for decades remained silent about their experiences.

A class at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, 1943.

GIs who trained at Camp Ritchie were not actually called “Ritchie Boys” during the Second World War. That name was popularized after German filmmaker Christian Bauer released a documentary called “The Ritchie Boys” in 2004. 

Some writers use “Ritchie Boys” to refer to all the soldiers who were trained in intelligence at Camp Ritchie beginning in 1942. Others use the term only to refer to the 2,200 German or Austrian Jewish refugees who trained at Camp Ritchie after having immigrated to the United States to escape Nazi persecution. And who often arrived in the States as young children without their parents.

As natural-born German speakers, their expertise in the language and understanding of German behavior made them highly valued, and very effective, interrogators. These men often found themselves interrogating rabid Nazis, the very kind of men who had abused them when they lived in Germany. Extracting intelligence information to save Allied lives and shorten the war was their best revenge.

Martin Selling had endured three brutal months in the Dachau concentration camp before finding haven in America. Ultimately, he trained at Camp Ritchie and served in Military Intelligence. Here he is questioning two recently captured SS soldiers.

Ritchie Boys worked at every level, from frontline units to headquarters and POW centers such as the fictional Marston Hall in Proud Sorrows. A postwar intelligence study attributed 60 percent of actionable intelligence in the European theater to the Ritchie Boys using their specialized interrogation techniques.

Their job was not without danger. In the opening days of the Battle of the Bulge, Kurt Jacobs and Murray Zappler, Ritchie Boys attached to the 106th Infantry Division, were captured when their unit was overrun. One of the former German prisoners identified the two men to his commander as “Jews from Berlin.” The commander ordered them to be shot on the spot, stating, "The Jews have no right to live in Germany."

That Nazi officer, Captain Curt Bruns, was himself apprehended and executed after a court-martial in 1945. He was the first war criminal to be executed by the United States Army for war crimes after World War II. 

The more I read, the more I was struck by how dedicated and committed these men were. They joined the Army as soon as war was declared and suffered from both anti-Semitism and bureaucratic confusion in equal parts. They were still German citizens, and it took the Army a while to realize how useful they could be. Once Fort Ritchie was in operation, each class of soldiers marked their graduation by being sworn in as citizens of the United States.

Many Ritchie Boys made it their personal mission to find family members left behind in Germany as the war drew to a close. It was a hopeless search.

There’s a counterpoint to the Ritchie Boys within the pages of Proud Sorrows. Let’s compare and contrast the young men who fled Nazi persecution in the nation of their birth with those Britons who sought to embrace fascism and emulate the Nazi ideology.

British fascists.

Great Britain saw its own fascist movement in the 1930s. Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists was foremost among these, numbering 50,000 at one point. Other groups were smaller, but even more pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic. All were outlawed in 1940 and their leaders interned, including Archibald Leese of the Imperial Fascist League, which plays a role in Proud Sorrows. 

A supporter of the Imperial Fascist League carries their flag at a prewar demonstration.

Although support for these fascist organizations rapidly declined with the start of the war, leading figures such as Mosley and Leese still held to their anti-democratic beliefs. As 1944 rolled around, and with the threat of German invasion a distant memory, most of the British fascist leaders were released from prison. 

One of these leaders was Archibald Ramsay, the head of The Right Club. The Right Club was one of the smaller British fascist parties, organized as a home for those who found the BUF to be not anti-Semitic enough. Upon his release, Archibald Ramsay reintroduced the 1275 Statute of Jewry to the House of Commons. He'd had a seat in the Commons before his detention, which was never revoked. The 1275 statute was the original document put forward by King Edward I which strictly limited the rights of Jews in Great Britain. 

And this is where the compare and contrast assignment comes in.

While the Ritchie Boys did all they could to help their adopted country free people from oppression, the British fascists acted as a mirror image. While they had been born into a free country, they willingly worked to give up that freedom and welcomed the boot heel of oppression.

These extreme right-wing groups favored the Duke of Windsor (the former King Edward VIII), a Nazi sympathizer. Each of the leaders plotted in one way or another to place themselves at the center of a Nazi puppet state, hoping for a German victory early in the war. Meanwhile, the Richie Boys risked their lives to stop Nazi aggression, putting themselves in harm's way.

As I wrote, I was continually struck at how diametrically and morally opposed the two groups were. The Ritchie Boys emerged as victors after much suffering and struggle and have been rightly lauded for their contributions. The British fascists, on the other hand, were imprisoned, their names now synonymous with shame, disgrace, and betrayal.

And as long as we're talking about compare and contrast . . . watch the past to understand the present.

James R. Benn is the author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries. The debut, Billy Boyle, was selected as a Top Five book of the year by Book Sense and was a Dilys Award nominee, A Blind Goddess was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, The Rest Is Silence was a Barry Award nominee, and The Devouring was a Macavity Award nominee. Benn, a former librarian, lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida with his wife, Deborah Mandel.