This is one of those books that I should have read years ago. Published in 1987 and a copy has been sitting on my FIL’s shelf since then. I’m sure he went to the book launch as he’s known the author for a long time. I saw it in passing and decided to pick it up. I’m glad I did.
This is a novelisation of Kohn’s parents’ story. They were born and married in Vienna prior to WWII. In trying to escape the encroaching danger they got to the border of Belgium when the border guards took them back to the Germans. Eventually, they managed to get to Shanghai. After the war they went back home, then to Israel and before going to Australia they spend a bit more time in Vienna. They lost their child in Israel, a tragedy to top off other tragedies.
Shanghai was a haven for about 18,000 European Jews. For a number of years Shanghai was a Treaty Port, meaning that you didn’t need to have an entry visa in order to come in. All you needed was to get an exit pass from Europe and a berth on a boat. When my FIL talked about Shanghai he made it seem like a utopia, but Rachel’s Chance gives far more details and explains some of the hardships people suffered. When we visited in 2019 we saw how some people living in what was described as the ‘Ghetto’ are still living in the same way, with whole families sharing three small rooms on one floor while other families are housed on different floors. A three storey house had three different families, and they shared the one kitchen. The buildings were built next to each other and each floor was rather small, the main room we sat in was probably about the same size as my office, the other rooms were smaller.
There are a number of passages which talk about how hard it is to abandon family to the horrors of the Holocaust. How they should do duty by Rachel’s grandmother and stay by her. But she waves them off and sends them on their way. They make a new home in Shanghai expecting to be able to go home to Europe in a few months and find their family waiting for them. The reality is much worse as the Holocaust lasts for years and many people are taken to the death camps.
Kohn gives us a chance to understand the smells of Shanghai. He writes about toilet buckets. People don’t have indoor plumbing, they have a bucket and a man comes round to empty them.
Some of the passages were so beautiful. I stopped and made a note of just this one passage to put here for you.
Rachel watched the raindrops run their crooked paths down the window-pane, breathed dispritedly at the glass, staring at the meandering trails cutting through the murky patches.
I have watched raindrops wandering down glass so many times. I’ve never been able to put into words what I’m seeing, but here they are. I feel this paragraph could be a metaphor for someone’s emotions and life. We meander through life, taking chances and finding out way. At this stage Rachel is back in Vienna after losing her child in Israel. She hasn’t yet found a way out of the morass of emotions that come when losing a child.
I would certainly recommend this book if you’re studying the Holocaust, or WWII. Maybe you’re wanting to know more about Shanghai and how the Jews survived? This will help give colour and some idea of the smells. I found myself warming more and more to the book as I read. Yes, a definite recommendation.
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