I was not quite four when the war broke out. I lived in Poland where I was born into a large Polish Jewish family. Poland was attacked by Germany on Sept 1, 1939 and by the Soviet Union some three weeks later. Poland surrendered and the western part was occupied by Germany and the eastern by the Soviet Union.

My father, who was a journalist following the Polish army, wound up in Vilnius the capital of Lithuania, now in Soviet hands, and sent word to my mother to take me and get out of Warsaw. No other members of the family were willing to go so she packed a little valise and we set off for Vilnius in early winter and travelled by cart, freight trains and on foot. One night we crossed into Soviet territory and eventually met up with my father.

We settled in Vilnius in early 1940 and lived among several thousand Polish Jewish refugees who also escaped from German occupied Poland. The goal of the refugees was to find passage out of Eastern Europe. But to where? The Germans were in the west and the Soviets, barely hospitable, were all around us as occupiers. Eventually by early 1941 a plan to get us out was formulated by a Japanese diplomat Sugihara and a Dutch consul Zwartendyk. Sugihara, on his own initiative, worked tirelessly to provide visas to the refugees. He was one of a few diplomats in the world who foresaw the looming disaster and took action on his own initiative. With these visas we could transit Russia. The visas would permit several thousand refugees to travel through the Soviet Union as long as they had someplace else to go. The go to place was Japan from where we were to travel with Dutch visas to Curacao in the Caribbean. Sugihara’s action saved the lives of over two thousand refugees.

We set off early in 1941 taking a train to Moscow where after several days we boarded the Trans-Siberian railroad. After a trip of fourteen days we arrived in Vladivostok, a port on the eastern end of Siberia. From there a tramp steamer took us to Japan, where we were settled in Kobe with many other refugees. I have photos of us in Japan; it was spring and the cherry blossoms were in bloom. From the photos it looks like we were tourists, not refugees.

In June of 1941, while we were in Japan, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, occupied vast territories and proceeded to annihilate Jews everywhere. The Jewish population of Vilnius was eradicated. Luck and timing saved us. Had we remained in Vilnius, we would have joined the other victims of German ethnic cleansing. We sought passage out of Japan, to anywhere: Australia, Latin America, the United States, Palestine, but no suitable destination was identified and passage and entry to these destinations was not possible. In October the refugees were informed by the Japanese authorities to leave Japan and the only available destination was Shanghai, a city on the coast of China which did not have any visa requirements.

We arrived in Shanghai in late November and were staying in a hotel when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and bombed parts of Shanghai. The Chinese authorities surrendered the city leaving the Chinese people there, as well as citizens of colonial powers and many other Europeans, at the mercy of the Japanese.

I became six in January. We lived in one room in a flat occupied by a French family. We shared the room with a man who was a partner with my parents in the business of manufacturing artificial honey from sugar, caramel, and vanilla. He and my mother were chemists. I eventually became a biochemist, having had early training. They had a problem weighing out the right amount of honey into containers until I solved the problem for them once they let me talk and explain how to do it.

The manufacture of artificial honey had to be curtailed in 1943 when the Japanese required all the Polish Jewish refugees to move into a ghetto where many German and Austrian Jewish refugees resided. These refugees left Germany and Austria in 1937-1939 before the war started and immigrated to Shanghai. The ghetto was not exclusively for refugees as many Chinese lived there as well.

I was enrolled in a school taught by refugees. The school was co-ed. Instruction was in English, sanctioned and encouraged by the Japanese- and we were also taught arithmetic, geography, mythology, but no history or Japanese. On one occasion when the district military commander visited our school, we had to appear scrubbed and neat. He delivered a speech, in English, on how important it was to obey our parents and teachers. When he appeared we had to stifle our giggles as he was quite short, wore an elaborate uniform almost clownish, and had to mount special steps to deliver his talk. We lived in half of what had been a café; the toilet was an outhouse the contents of which were emptied every morning by a Chinese man who came by with a tank on a cart and who used or sold these collections as fertilizer. Water was available from a faucet but had to be boiled before it could be drunk.

Mornings I would go to a Chinese shop and have our thermos filled with boiled water. Our cook stove and source of heat was a pot-bellied device into which you placed a formed charcoal briquette. Water was heated in a pot that sufficed for cooking and washing. Once a week we had showers in a public bath. Food was available, even plentiful, but many could not pay for it and were it not for a community soup kitchen they would have gone hungry. Medical care was available from European doctors and a dentist lived down the street who was well equipped. He had a ceramic filter to purify water without having to boil it. What a luxury. When my baby teeth started to come out he pulled a few but for some reason left one. That one fell out several months ago having hung on for over 70 years.

By 1944 air raids by the Americans became more frequent, sometimes every night. I could get dressed in seconds but it would not have mattered as there were no air raid shelters to go to. Life went on. There were shortages. Electricity was limited; we used carbide lamps at night. People were beginning to have doubts that the war would ever end and were becoming despondent. There was no news, and what there was likely was rumor. Most people had a frail appearance and seemed haggard. Most had but one meal a day.

I don’t remember becoming aware that the war in Europe had ended or whether the Japanese announced it. The war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945. You know it as VE Day. The killing ended, but the suffering and dying would continue for years. By the summer of 1945 air raids became more frequent and we were also being bombed during the day. We had a sense that the war was ending and that the Allies were getting closer.

One day about noon a droning sound was heard that became louder and louder. It was a large air raid. We heard the shriek of falling bombs which sounded closer and closer. Our house shook as never before and we hugged each other certain that we would die. Eventually, the all clear sounded we went out of the house. There was a crater in the middle of our street. Many Chinese and some refugees were killed

About a month after that raid we heard that a large bomb had been dropped on Japan. And a few days later another. Then the Japanese were not to be seen. The war ended, VJ day. We again heard the drone of airplanes. This time they weren’t bombers but cargo planes. One flew so low that someone was standing in the door of it waving to us. We waved back. Soon the sky was filled with parachutes from which were hung large packages. Food, medical supplies, clothing dropped down. We were introduced to K-rations, instant coffee, Hershey bars and Baby Ruth and spam.

Soon after the United States navy came to town, sailed up the Wangpoo River and berthed across from the Bund in Shanghai, the financial district on the waterfront. Just like fleet week. The city enjoyed a carnival atmosphere with men in white sailor uniforms and others in grey pants and shirts. The city was festooned in white sausage shaped balloons. I became friendly with one of the sailors. His last name was Schwartzkopf and I wondered how someone with a Germanic name could join the US navy. He visited us in Hongkew where we lived and brought me a box of Juicy Fruit chewing gum in bright yellow wrapping. He also gave me an American football which no one could use as it bounced all over, it would not roll predictably when kicked and could not be thrown by boys with the hands of nine year olds. Schwartzkopf however heaved it down the block and we stood in wonder watching it fly.

But the joy of peace was tempered by the news of what would be known as the Holocaust. Adults were in mourning; children my age barely understood. My parents would not speak of it, not then, not ever. No one could believe that whole families towns, and villages had disappeared. A sister of my father’s survived Auschwitz. It’s another story.

One Friday evening my father returned from the synagogue with two American officers, medical captains in the United States Army Air Force. We shared a meal with them and the following week they arrived with a jeepful of stuff including a catcher’s mitt that dumfounded me. One of the officers, Captain Jack Lomas from Los Angeles, came frequently and a solid bond developed. When he was about to depart for home, he promised to help us get visas for America. It took about two years and in July 1947 we arrived in San Francisco at night. What a sight, all lit up. We docked the next morning, disembarked, went through customs and were provided with a hotel room.

Several days later my father traveled to Los Angeles to get lodging for us while my mother and I stayed in San Francisco. I haunted the spots on Market Street and one day I asked my mother to let me try out a shooting gallery. After one set of shots I talked her into buying another round. This time I knocked over an entire string of rabbits. A sailor happened to be watching me. He came over, congratulated me for my skill, removed his marksmanship medal from his blouse and handed it to me. Positive reinforcement has future consequences.

We settled in Los Angeles and through Dr. Lomas and his wife we made a lot of American friends. We were introduced to barbeques. I noted that while we had to cook with charcoal in Shanghai, Americans wanted to cook with charcoal. We had our first Thanksgiving with the Lomases and I had a turkey drumstick that would not end. I went to junior high school and then high school. My parents presented me with a younger brother, because, the story went, we could not be departed if we had an American member of the family. In high school I joined the ROTC unit. Following a routine orientation which required me to shoot a target rifle, the sergeant in charge of the proceedings asked me to join the rifle team. We won most of our matches in the city. I became a marksman and am still proficient shooting targets with a variety of firearms. While in the ROTC I became a member of the color guard, raised the flag every morning at school, and in that capacity we were invited to march in numerous parades where I, not yet a citizen, carried the American flag. I eventually became promoted to Cadet Lt. Col. of my ROTC battalion, and still not a citizen led my class in the pledge of Allegiance at graduation in 1952. My parents and I became Naturalized citizens on November 11, Veterans Day, 1954 at a swearing in ceremony at the Hollywood Bowl.

When people hear what I’ve just told you they remark how lucky I was. Yes, luck certainly played a part. Beyond luck, I am indebted to many individuals, some of whom I know and can name: certainly my parents who had the prescience to get out of Warsaw; Sugihara and Zwardendyck, the two consuls who created the visas that allowed us to transit the Soviet Union; Major Jack Lomas of the USAAF who brought us to the United States. I am especially indebted for my survival and rescue to the millions of Allied military who fought and the millions who died during that terrible war. Memorial Day in America commemorates our war dead; 300,000 combat deaths in WWII. To fully grasp the scope of sacrifice you need only to visit battlefield cemeteries in North Africa, Normandy, Pearl Harbor, New Guinea, to name a few. I have done so.