"I've carried it with me all my life -- Harbin is my hometown,"
said 74-year-old Isaac Shapiro, who returned to revisit his happy
childhood in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang
Province.
???
Although 70 years have passed since he left Harbin, Shapiro still
remembers clearly his good days in Harbin as a boy. "In my
childhood memory, Chinese people were all around: in the candy
store, in the shop and in my grandfather's factory," Shapiro
said.?
"I grew up surrounded by so many kind-hearted Chinese people,
and I never felt I was a foreigner," said Shapiro. "We spoke
Chinese and Russian, we had traditional Jewish food and Chinese
dishes, and Chinese kids could also be seen in the Jewish
school."?
In the late 19th century, large numbers of Jewish people began
moving to Harbin to avoid harsh discrimination in czarist Russia
and in some other European countries, said Li Shuxiao, deputy head
of the Jewish Studies Center affiliated to the Heilongjiang
Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.
???
The number of Jewish people living in Harbin topped 25,000 in the
1920s, the largest Jewish community in the Far East at that time.
They developed a complete social system of their own and they were
called the "Harbin Jews," Li said.
???
Harbin and other Chinese cities such as Shanghai also became home
to Jewish people fleeing Europe's Nazi Holocaust. In recent years,
more than 100 Jewish people came to Harbin to find the roots of
their families and pay their respects to their ancestors each year,
Li said.
???
Shapiro is one of them. He said he has many sweet memories of his
childhood in Harbin, especially during traditional Chinese
festivals, when he and peers went to see colorfully dressed people
performing acrobatics and walking on high stilts.
???
Shapiro said even after his family moved to the United States, his
mother often spoke of the old days in China. "My mother told me
that the Chinese people had always been friendly toward Jews and
had never stopped helping Jewish people, even though they
themselves were in a national crisis," Shapiro recalled. "My mother
said Chinese people are admirable."
???
Following the Japanese invasion and occupation of China's northeast
regions in 1931, anti-Semitic activities supported by Japanese and
German fascists became rampant. Robbery of Jewish stores and
schools, destruction of synagogues and kidnapping of Jewish
businessmen happened frequently in Harbin, which was once a safe
shelter for Jews.
???
Shapiro's mother often spoke to him about the "Kaspe Incident" of
August, 1933. Simon Kaspe, son of a Jewish businessman and a
talented pianist, was kidnapped and murdered on his way to meet his
girlfriend, who later became Shapiro's mother.
???
The "Kaspe Incident" ignited protests against Japanese invaders in
northeast China by Jewish communities in Harbin and Shanghai.
Thousands of Chinese also joined Jewish people in demanding that
Japanese authorities punish the murderer.
???
With discriminatory activities escalating in Europe, more Jews came
to China and settled in Chinese cities. Shanghai alone hosted more
than 30,000 Jewish refugees coming from Europe between 1933 and
1941. By December 1941, there were still about 25,000 Jewish people
in Shanghai. The number of Jewish people accepted by China was more
than the total received by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa and India.
??
Wang Jian, deputy head of the Jewish Studies Center affiliated to
the Shanghai Municipal Academy of Social Sciences, said almost all
Jews in China survived the war thanks to the support given by the
Chinese people and Jewish people in other parts of the world.
???
The Jewish people have not forgotten their Chinese friends,
neighbors and those who had helped them at that harsh time. Today,
Jewish people who formerly lived in China and now live in other
parts of the world have set up many organizations to commemorate
the old days in China and friendship with Chinese people.
???
In June 2004, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert paid
respects to his grandfather's tomb in a Harbin Jewish Cemetery.
Hesaid, "Thank you for protecting the memory of our family and
restoring dignity into the memory of those who were part of this
community -- a reminder of a great Jewish life which was part of
Harbin."
???
"I feel comfortable just like returning to my childhood," said
Shapiro. "You can walk around where you lived and the synagogues
are still there. In the cemetery I recognized many names I knew as
a boy."
???
In the minds of "Harbin Jews" and their descendants, who now live
in all parts of the world, Harbin is a place of rebirth and a
hometown, just like what famous Israeli Photographer Sara Ross
wrote in a photo album she presented to Harbin: "Harbin enriched
our childhood, gave us hope and happiness in our youth and
guaranteed us the greatest dignity."
???
Harbin has extended great attention to protecting the Harbin Jewish
Cemetery, which covers 836 square meters and consists of about 600
tombs, the largest of its kind in the Far East. The city government
has spent one million yuan (US$120,900) in repairing and preserving
the tombs of Jews and has established files for owners of the
identified tombs.
???
The Shanghai government erected a monument to the World War II
Jewish refugees who lived in the city's Hongkou District.
???
Li Fangbin, a worker at the Harbin Jewish Cemetery, said that each
year at the Qingming Festival, also known as the tomb-sweeping
festival in China, cemetery workers would clean every tombstone
with Hebrew and Russian inscriptions carefully, and lay bundles of
flowers in front of them.
???
The tomb-sweeping festival is one of the few
traditional Chinese holidays that follow the solar calendar,
and it always falls in early April. During the festival, Chinese
people tend the graves of and pay respect to their deceased
ancestors and relatives.
(Xinhua News Agency May 2, 2005)