Friendship-Book of Edith Karpeles

The Karpeles were an Austrian Jewish family who, like numerous German and Austrian families in the 1930's, sought refuge in the Far East from Hitler's hordes. The Chinese port of Shanghai, a city with a decidedly cosmopolitan character, afforded thousands of Jewish refugees sanctuary. With the Japanese invasion, the Jews were herded into what became the Hongkou (or Hongkew) ghetto and yet despite the insecurity of the situation, vibrant Jewish communal life continued. At its height, this multi-ethnic Jewish community - Baghdadi, Austro-German, Russian, Lithuanian - numbered some 25,000 souls. At War's end, the Shanghai ghetto emptied, its inhabitants relocated to the West, and what had been an exotic episode in Jewish history, came to a close. Our charming little friendship-book, belonging to a young girl, replete with inscriptions from well-wishers of all ages, friends, relatives, and a few beaus, is a most touching microcosm of the global upheaval of this era. The earliest inscriptions from 1938-39, are datelined Vienna - especially poignant are the farewell wishes from "Grosspapa David Karpeles" who sketched a grandfather holding a handkerchief to his tearful eye, while the Italian ship S.S. Contee Rosso approaches the Chinese shore. Many of the later Shanghai inscriptions make reference to the "S.J.Y.A. School" [Shanghai Jewish Youth Association School], also known as the Kadoorie School. As sort of a postscript, on the final page we have two inscriptions to Edith from her "Mutty" and "Papa" datelined "Wien, 24 Mai 1957." Thus, the story of this one Jewish family ends in the city where it began - Vienna. (See EJ, Vol. XIV, cols. 1293-4).