Holocaust survivors recall sheltering in Shanghai

In 1939, Kracko's parents joined the more than 10,000 Jewish people who sought refuge in Shanghai before and after World War II.

Lindenstraus lived in Shanghai from the age of 10 to 17. He attended a Jewish school with about 600 students and 17 teachers. He learned English, chased girls, and even met his best friend, Gary Kirchner, who was from Berlin.

The boys joined the British Boy Scouts in Shanghai, which became an illegal group after Japan declared war on the UK and the US at the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941.

However, life in Shanghai was not easy. Sanitation was poor and health conditions such as diarrhea were rampant in the Jewish refugee community.

In the cold, humid winter, Lindenstraus' father died of pneumonia four months after the family arrived in Shanghai because of a lack of antibiotics. Following the death of his father, Lindenstraus and his stepmother moved to Hongkew, now Hongkou district of Shanghai.

Kirchner's living conditions were even worse than Lindenstraus'. While Lindenstraus' stepmother was able to manage a small place to live, Kirchner and his parents lived in a big, barracks-like room that lacked privacy.

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, policies toward Jewish communities in Shanghai grew increasingly worse, leading up to the Meisinger Plan, an agenda to kill all Jewish refugees in Shanghai.

In 1941, the Nazis tried to convince the Japanese, who were their allies, to exterminate all Jewish refugees in Shanghai. Two years later, a compromise was reached with the establishment of a "Designated Area for Stateless Refugees".

A ghetto in the neighborhood of Hongkew was built, where all Jewish refugees had to relocate and were strictly isolated by Japanese soldiers. Jews could only leave the area with special permission.