Oral History Interview with Warner J. Bergh

Walter H. (formerly Horst) Silberstein was born in Berlin, Germany on January6, 1931. The first eight years of his life he lived in Berlin. For the next nine years he lived in Shanghai, China. His father was a well-known criminal lawyer. His grandfather was a banker in Berlin. They lived a very comfortable life in a non-observant Jewish family and at home they spoke German. After KristallnachtWalter could no longer attend his regular school. In May 1939,warned about an imminent round-up,his family fled Germany. Walter’s two grandmothers, parents and his dog left for Italy on an Italian luxury liner, Conte Rosso. After a two week trip they arrived in Shanghai.

Walter describes his life in Shanghai: his school, his friends and his fairly comfortable life there. Walter belonged to the boy scouts and the Jewish Recreation Club. His father had an import/export store and also spent time on relief work for the Kitchen Fund, which supplied meals to refugees in the Hongkew Ghetto area. The family lived outside the Jewish ghetto area in the French Concession sub-division and did not experience much antisemitism. Walter had his Bar Mitzvah in a synagogue in Hongkew. In 1947, because of a fear of communism, the family left by plane on a roundabout trip to San Francisco, United States. They had U.S. visas under the German quota and they were helped by the Joint Distribution Committee and the Red Feather organizations.

Walter credits his years in Shanghai, living among a diverse population, as having shaped his tolerant personality. He had made many friends there and organized their reunion in 1993 which he called the “Rickshaw Reunion.”

Margaret Eisen, nee Bloch, was born May 20, l933 in Königheim, Germany. In this brief interview, she shares details about how her parents tried to survive before their emigration to the United States and her childhood memories of the difficulty of adjusting to life in America.

She shares a story told to her about how Nazi soldiers marched through the town in April 1933 intent on doing mortal harm to her father because the boycott sign had been taken off her father’s grain shop. A friend helped him escape the mob, but her father was haunted by that incident the rest of his life. She and her parents emigrated to the United States in the 1938, sponsored by a distant relative. Margaret details their arrival and settling in as well as her family’s sorrow at not being able to bring over many extended family members. She also shares her struggles at adapting to her new home, how she was beaten up for being German and other difficulties for the family financially and emotionally. Margaret tells what happened to the rest of her family who remained in Europe, including stories of some cousins who worked in the French underground.