Memory is Everything

By Faith Ann Goldman

A strange name for a reunion, you say? The words "rickshaw reunion" might seem peculiar for a reunion if you knew what a rickshaw was and even more odd if you didn't. Basically, the rickshaw was a means of transportation. Mind you, there were no real rickshaws at the Foster City reunion - just pictures and memories.

From Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, and other countries, Jewish refugees fled by train through Siberia via Kobe, Japan to China, some by plane as my late husband's family did from France to Thailand and then China, and some by foot over mountains to get to mechanical transportation. These refugees, numbering 18,000 to 20,000 became known as the Shanghailanders. For many refugees, like my husband, many, many years passed before he could verbalize about the life in Shanghai.

This is why these remaining Shanghailanders have reunions: To share their past via educational media such as documentaries, books, speeches, and pictures, and to share their families with each other. These refugees have come together from all over the world for many years and since 1991 they are called formally THE RICKSHAW REUNION. The name was chosen by Sylvia and Robert Lange of Philadelphia, PA. The name was then adopted by the chairperson for the reunions, the late Walter Silberstein.

My late husband, Robert Goldman, was born and raised in Shanghai from 1940 - 1958. Why he left so late after the war ended will be described in the book I am writing called "The Slow Boat from China." About two years before Robert's untimely death in Sept. of 1994 at the young age of 54, he began writing down his memoirs. Robert had never wanted to go to the reunions as most of those attending were in the older generation. And his life there was painful, lonely, and isolated for 18 years. In l940, there were just 64 births from those 18,000 refugees. In 1958, when Robert and his father, Noah, left, there were 84 Jews remaining in Shanghai. Everyone he knew had gone to other countries before them. However, after I gave him a surprise birthday party, with the theme from Steven Spielberg's movie "Empire of the Sun", he opened up on his Shanghai experiences and we started searching for his old classmates. His heart stopped, cutting him off from further investigation, but his energy still beats in me everyday.

I've now attended two reunions, the first as a stranger in a new land and the second as a welcomed visitor. At this past reunion in April of 2002, I was proud to be a presenter with a six-foot long poster story about my Robert. On the left was a family tree dating back to the mid 1800's. The center was a time line of Robert's life in Shanghai from 1940-1958. The 18 years were broken up into two parts-the first eight years, when his small family was still in Shanghai, and the last ten years, when he and his father were there by themselves. The right side of the poster had Robert's years in the United States, 1960-1994, including his Army days, and a small section about my life now without him and pictures of our children, Naomi and Sam. A second poster had photos of the interviewees, both as children in Shanghai and at present.

The reunion highlights were different for each individual. For me, sharing Shabbat with Cantor Hans Cohn on Friday night was truly a miracle. With Robert's schoolmates, Fredy Seidel, Renee Nir, Judith Lavitt, and Sonja Muehlberger, lighting the candles gave me a glow that continues to warm my heart. The Cantor chanted the melodic blessing over the ceremonial wine with perfect diction despite recently having had a cancer-related oral surgery. As we broke bread with a prayer, one woman at our table told us that she still has a piece of challah that her mother gave her before she left Shanghai 54 years ago. Saturday evening, at the gala dinner, I delivered a tribute to the late Walter Silberstein and presented a plaque to his wife Nancy. The keynote speaker for the evening was Michael Blumenthal, former Secretary of the Treasury under President Carter, also is a Shanghailander. I also spent one entire day with Rob's long-lost best friend, Fredy Seidel, touring San Francisco on our own. Eating real Chinese food, jumping on trams, and searching for places Fredy used to live and work, I almost felt I was in Robert's shoes - a déjà vu. I know that Robert's friends are now my friends and they want to get to know my children. I truly felt I went away from this reunion more understanding of my husband and his life in Shanghai.

I have completed 40 interviews of Shanghailanders, both of Robert's age and older. Through pictures, archives, the internet, the websites, and old fashioned chutzpah, I have gathered valuable information and tear-stained stories. Locating and meeting almost a dozen of Rob's classmates, six of whom stayed in Shanghai through 1957, has been an awesome experience. Just this very evening, a gentleman both Fredy and I had been looking for called and said "Here I am!" His name is Benny Levy and he lives in Los Angeles, practically in my back yard. Now I am ready to put pen to paper to continue this project by incorporating my new findings.

The Nobel Peace Prize Writer and Humanitarian, Elie Wiesel, has a wonderful quote that motivates me on a daily basis: "Memory is everything. It is a passion no less powerful or pervasive than love. It is the ability to live in more than one world, to prevent the past from fading, and to call upon the future to illuminate it."

And so I must write.

The cover of my book is completed, the title enhanced with a beautiful woodcut print done by the famous Shanghailander artist, David Bloch, who, at 90, continues to paint in his Mt. Vernon, NY home.

Mrs. Goldman's email address is faithnamdlog@aol.com