Preface

On Monday, 8 June 1936, the day before her twelfth birthday, my mother, Ingelore Erna Rothschild, received a diary as a gift from her parents. They were in a café at an impromptu party in the Siberian city of Irkutsk in Eastern Russia. Over the next two years, my mother regularly recorded her memories and reminiscences of her remarkable journey from Berlin, Germany, across half the world to Kobe, Japan. In April 1938, during a severe rainy season, which caused one of the deadliest floods on record in Japan, a mudslide tore through Ingelore’s family home in Kobe and destroyed her diary. Eight years later, while sailing from Japan to America she began to record her story once again, on a pad of paper given to her by her father.

In 1948, after settling in Queens, New York, Ingelore enrolled in a summer secretarial course. To practice her dexterity and her English she translated and transcribed all her handwritten recollections, typing them onto onionskin pages. Although her handwritten remembrances are lost, what remains are the dozens of memories she typed, single-spaced on the backs of scrap paper.

In 1999, my mother gave me a box. “Here,” she said, “is a part of my life.” It was not until years later, after her death in 2006, that I opened it. Inside were three hundred and forty-two unbound typewritten pages. I wish she had told me at the time that that box would reveal a fascinating, heartbreaking, and at times joyous and humourous story of her experiences and travels as a child and as a young woman. Had I known, I would have gathered those pages up immediately, carefully read every word, and then sat down with her to hear more of her story.

After her death, I pored over those delicate sheets. What I learned from those pages about the first quarter-century of her life is something I cherish. But I also feel a vague sense of nagging emptiness. I feel foolish that her account was there for the reading while she was still alive. Although I had missed her since the day she died these pages made me miss her even more.

My mother kept a fairly detailed record of her journey. Like many of her generation, those who lived through the Great Depression and World War II, she chose not to talk much about the times, strange places, and difficult learning experiences that, for better or worse, shaped her values and outlook. Through her writing, I was able to see her as a child blossoming into a young woman. I know so much more of my mother now. Suddenly I could picture my mother’s father, Kurt Rothschild, my grandfather, a man who died the month after I was born. He had come to life for me and I sensed a bond with him in a deeply personal way.

My grandfather spent his entire adult life working for the J. Gerber Company. The company supplied textiles, raw materials, high quality processed fruits, vegetables and other foodstuffs, and ingredients for the food processing industry, as well as protective clothing and safety items for use in industrial environments to international markets, governments, institutions, and corporations. My grandfather served in many capacities at Gerber, as salesman, as an office manager, as company manager in Kobe, and as an assistant and resource person to several other management teams and personnel.

My earliest recollection of Doris Chasanowicz Rothschild, my grandmother, endearingly called “Omi,” is of her holding me in her apartment in Queens, New York. She was often called upon to babysit me as a child and as a result I spent a good deal of quality time with her. Eventually, she moved to Jersey City, New Jersey where she died in 1982.

Using my mother’s writings of her early years in Berlin as a point of reference, I understand now something of the time and place of her youth. During the 1920s, most German Jews were accepted as German citizens. At that time, Berlin’s Jewish community was the largest in Germany—there were more than a dozen synagogues in the city. Even as late as 1933, German Jews were largely urban, professional, prosperous in business, and socially integrated. My grandfather, a respected businessman, and his family enjoyed both affluence and social standing. They often attended the philharmonic and the opera, and their home was filled with books, Oriental rugs, interesting curios, art, and strains of music. However, with Hitler’s ascendency, my grandfather knew things would change rapidly. His first concern, of course, was for his wife and child, and he devoted himself to planning their escape to Japan.

After my husband, Dennis Listort, and I dusted off my mother’s box of typewritten sheets and began raking through and then reading the pages haphazardly contained inside, we understood instinctively that Ingelore’s story was remarkable. The flight from Nazi Germany, their journey through the Soviet Union and China to Japan as seen through the eyes of an exceptionally perceptive and thoughtful young girl was unique. We also realized that others would also find her story compelling.

We knew, of course, that Ingelore’s native language was German, but we discovered that she had been tutored for several years in both French and English while still in Germany. During her decade in Japan, she was tutored again in English and she also learned Japanese. When she set down her memoir after arriving in America, she was enrolled in a secretarial course and so she typed her memories, translating them from German into English. In many places, however, it was obvious that English was not her first language. Sometimes the syntax of her sentences grew tangled, perhaps reflecting the sentence structure of her native tongue, and it became hard to sort out the meaning. We can only imagine how difficult it must have been for her to keep the grammar and vocabulary of four languages straight. In cases where clarity was compromised, we edited her original as we thought best and where revisions increased effectiveness or enhanced meaning we did only what was necessary.

Ingelore was reluctant to talk about her childhood. On occasion, and with gentle prodding, she would share some of her story, at times providing information that her journal did not. It is regrettable that she did not speak more often of her fascinating life. My grandmother however would sometimes relate bits and pieces of their lives over dinners and at family get-togethers. And, on at least two occasions, my great uncle, Sieke Chasanowicz, when visiting with my mother and our family in Ossining, New York, also spoke of those times. So as not to lose this oral history, we have incorporated their stories into Ingelore’s written account, as my husband and I recollect them and in our own words. Thus, the story that follows is a blend of Ingelore’s written account, her oral recollections, and those of her mother and her uncle.

Ingelore’s writings also contained a number of vignettes that we felt would only be of interest to immediate family members and to those who knew Ingelore and my grandparents personally. Although to us these tales form an integral part of the intriguing embroidery of Ingelore’s life, we chose not to include them because they strayed too far from the central line of her story: the trials and tribulations of the Rothschilds struggling to stay ahead of the Nazi wolves who were, for so long, at their shadow.

Part I of this book describes the hunt and the chase, as Ingelore and her parents flee the escalating Nazi juggernaut in Germany just prior to the outbreak of World War II. Part II contains her recollections of their journey of escape. Part III recounts the decade that Ingelore spent on the island of Honshu, from her arrival in 1936, through the war years, and during the occupation of Japan by Allied forces.

Every minute of organizing and editing my mother’s journal has been an act of love. I consider her story a revelation, a discovery, and a legacy. I am very thankful it has survived, not only for me, but also for my grandson, Aidan Steinberg, my brother, my husband, and my children. Now they will have the same opportunity I did to learn more about her. It is my sincere hope that other readers will find in her story some measure of inspiration.

Darilyn Stahl Listort
Boynton Beach, Florida
February 2017