Oswald “Valdik” Holzer arrives in Shanghai, China, July 5, 1939

RARE EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT  IN OLD LETTER DETAILS

MY FATHER’S ARRIVAL IN SHANGHAI, CHINA 80 YEARS AGO – JULY 5, 1939 

After escaping Hitler’s growing threat in his occupied Czech homeland, and traveling nearly 10,000 nautical miles from Marseille, France, Oswald “Valdik” Holzer, on July 5, 1939, reached Shanghai.  My father was a 28-year-old physician in a very foreign land.

(Watch award-winning MY DEAR BOY book trailer here.)

During 1937-1941, some twenty thousand desperate European Jewish refugees arrived in Shanghai.  While traveling the globe as an author for research and speaking engagements, I’ve learned this illustrious Shanghai history is well known among Holocaust scholars but little known to others.

Echoing the immigration turmoil of today’s world, during the late 1920s and 1930s, in the shadow of a global economic depression and the threat of war, many countries, including the United States of America, refused to increase their visa quota numbers. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Holocaust Studies, Shanghai took in more Jewish refugees than Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, and South Africa combined. This little known truth makes “Shanghai” synonymous with “haven” and “rescue” in the narrative of the Holocaust era.

On this 80th anniversary of my father’s arrival in Shanghai as a Czech Jewish refugee, I share my dad’s eyewitness account via a letter he wrote (preserved with a carbon copy), to a close friend, Frantisek Schoenbaum, trapped with his wife Andula and young son Honza (John), in Prague under Nazi-control. The letter from the Holzer Collection was translated in 2008.

Shanghai, 7-20-1939

Franta, don’t be angry with me that I am bothering you, I have had no news from home for a month already. Please call my family and tell them to write to me airmail at Hong Kong POB 370 c/o Leo Lilling as that is my address. If something would happen, God forbid, with the family, write it to me, please, so that I can possibly help them somehow if it would be possible.

I am also including a letter for {Pavel} Koerper. He wants to come here, so I must work him up a little so that he would not be surprised. If some of you are in a lousy way perhaps, come here, it is better here, despite all that misery, than in Prague or in Europe in general. Notably, one can work here, and I will be already sitting {meaning probably in a place with medical practice} by that time so I could help you. Eventually, one would not stay here forever, and a man can get to some other place somewhat easier from here.

Thank you for your lovely letter.   In the meantime, you received undoubtedly my chattering from the ship.   We must stay in writing contact all the time.   You have no idea how happy you made me with that letter of yours.  You know, when a man does not hear that dialect of ours anymore, at least one can have something for enjoyable reading again.   To tell you the truth: that distance is not so big, and it does not seem so huge, but I am damnably homesick for all and for everything, mainly when a man is almost entirely without news and when he does not know when, and if at all, he will return. Such thoughts would develop in your head only after some time.   Do not be angry that I am responding to your cheerful letter with such sentimental jabbering, but it is called here “S’ai depression,” and supposedly everybody is going through that during their first time.  After all, you know that is not my nature.

I hope that in your literary ass {meaning: forgotten area, away from the center of action}, you will also mention the good physician Osvald who left his mother country to treat poor little Chinese.  In order for you to elaborate on this topic better, I am sending you the following contribution:

So already for three days, I have been partially pummeled with malaria. I caught it someplace in Saigon, such an idiotic French Indochina, but it is better than tuberculosis.   Hey, one must always be content.   I am curing it by myself, chiefly with whiskey, which is dreadfully cheap here (1 liter 7.-Kc [crowns]).   Otherwise, it is possible to catch in this beautiful but strange country everything from measles to leprosy.   Hey, so that I won’t forget, if you happen by any chance to talk with my family, do not tell them anything about these lovely things, they would be unnecessarily afraid.  It is not so bad.

As you had read “Chuan in China,” approximately 20% of it describes things well; otherwise, everything is yet crazier by far.   In a week here, you set aside all European social prejudices, you let yourself ride in a rickshaw, you are cursing Chinese, in Czech of course, you start to booze.   In short, you become a white shadow; it is somehow a matter-of-course situation.

Franta, there are 20,000 emigrants here, 98 % of them without money, so the society gave them housing in a quarter almost entirely destroyed by Japanese shooting, from where the Chinese fled.   And those Jews, Israelis, etc., built from those ruins their houses, opened businesses, coffee houses, even Jewish prostitutes are there.   But of course, who will guarantee them that the bombing of the area would not start tomorrow again?    Those who do not believe in that place and have a little money, live in the French Concession, it is first of all safe.   Like in a circus created for adventurers, you can make so much money here in a day that you don’t need to do anything else in life ever, and in an hour, you can have all of that go into a toilet.   The dollar dropped yesterday, and today by 30 %, that has been talked about here for a week already, so some people became wealthy, and others lost their shirts in the process.   Even the weather is so crazy:  I get out nicely in the morning in a white suit, with a towel around my neck as is a fashion here to have something for wiping when one is sweating like a pig, I sat on a bus and started moving.

However, a typhoon came in the meantime, and I had to get off the bus only with extreme difficulty, then I was running down the street until I exquisitely fell.   For a while, I was rolling in mud, and when I looked around then, I found out that numerous gentlemen are lying there in the same manner and that they have a good time looking at the mess.   So I had a good time, too.   Once in a while, some gentleman crawled over me with the necessary…” sorry.”  Oh, but all of a sudden, there was a loud sound beside me, a roof fell there.  I don’t know where because surrounding houses had none already anyway.   Under the roof, there were lying some rickshaws and an overturned car.    Therefore, I told myself again: safety first, and I slithered with the crowd into a nearest passage-way, where I waited for six hours till it was over.   One cannot distinguish now what was destroyed by Japanese and what by the typhoon.

For me, as a physician, there are some possibilities here.   I have some acquaintances here, and I feel that I would not get lost here.   However, I would not like to stay here as I lack some such feeling of home.  When I make some money here, I will rush farther inland immediately.   Otherwise, one can manage to live beautifully here, for 77 pounds a week, you are a big gentleman.  You can furnish a luxurious apartment for 5 pounds, and for 1 shai. Dollar, you can have a beautiful Miss for a week with everything.  And yet, I envy you those strolls along the river Luznice when there is a sweet fragrance of hay near us…

P.S. Write on airmail paper, you naive man, who are you paying the postage?

Valdik    {Oswald “Valdik” Holzer}

©2008 From the collection of Joanie Holzer Schirm.  Reproduction only with permission from Joanie Schirm: joanie@joanieschirm.com

www.joanieschirm.com

Dad’s story in MY DEAR BOY came to life via revelations from a treasure trove of four hundred letters he preserved after the war. Seventy-eight friends and relatives, along with Dad’s own seventy carbon-copied letters and journals written during his 19 months in China, detail the emotions, circumstances, and revelations encountered by displaced persons along with those trapped behind under Nazi-occupation. Former USHMM archives director, Henry Mayer, called the Holzer Collection “one of the most complete personal collections of WWII correspondence seen in years.”

The timeless letters remind what it’s like to be forced penniless from home, losing native land, family, friends, possessions, livelihood, and identity.  I exist because my father made it to China. My paternal grandparents, Arnost and Olga, and forty-two other relatives were not so fortunate. All hope-filled futures were lost as they perished in the Holocaust. Dad’s only tangible connection to his lost world were these old letters.  He hid them away in old Chinese boxes, moved to America and served as a family physician in Melbourne, Florida. The letters were discovered after his death and in 2008. Upon translation, they revealed a universal, timeless story relevant to today’s world.

MY DEAR BOY: A World War Story of Escape, Exile, and Revelation                        by Joanie Holzer Schirm

Book trailer

Available anywhere books are sold. In all formats: Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook

Through my publisher, Potomac Books, use a discount code 6AS19  https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/potomac-books/9781640120723/

MY DEAR BOY: Lesson Plans soon available at www.joanieschirm.com/teachers

Photos from the Holzer Collection. (Photo reproduction restricted without permission from author Joanie Holzer Schirm joanies@joanieschirm.com )

Now showing at the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education  Center of Florida:
DISPLACED PERSON: Oswald Valdik Holzer’s story with audio, featuring WWII letters, documents, photographs, vintage film, and clothing currently on exhibit. Upon the 2023 opening of Orlando’s new museum —Holocaust Museum for Hope & Humanity—the DISPLACED PERSON exhibit will become a permanent reminder of the ongoing struggles of displaced humanity throughout our world and what together we can do to diminish this plight.

Joanie Holzer Schirm    joanie@joanieschirm.com   

www.joanieschirm.com     For speaking engagements: joanie@joanieschirm.com

MY DEAR BOY’s World War II story of escape, exile, and revelation is an inspirational account of my Czech dad’s survival during wartime, a cinematic epic spanning multiple continents, a love story, and ultimately a tale with a twist—a nurturing story that will move readers for generations to come.

While celebrating a decade of research, writing, editing, writing and seeking a publisher (thank you literary agent Steve Harris and Potomac Books), I couldn’t forget my time already spent in classrooms which make all this work entirely worthwhile.

Inspired by the heart of my story – the discovery of a treasure trove of World War II stories revealing amazing tales that accompanied my father as a forcibly displaced person traveling through five continents—students went in search of their own family history.  Like a fingerprint, every one of their stories is unique.   Here’s a sampling to show – this is why I do what I do.  We can learn from the past and from what we learn, understand our role in changing the world for a better future:

• A young man interviews relatives to uncover that his great grandmother escaped the Nazi’s by fleeing the country in a coffin, on a ship, that left her in America, alone and alive.
• A teenage daughter interviews her grandparents, who adopted an orphan, her mother, and gave her the gift of family.
• A student interviews her parents to uncover that her great uncle was a POW and escaped war by digging a tunnel with a spoon (sounds like a movie, but it’s real).
• A student translates an old diary and finds out that he is related to ancestors that were a part of the Trail of Tears and also the Gold Rush.
• Another young gentleman interviews his father and grandfather to learn of how his father was a radio celebrity that fled Haiti to avoid persecution for expressing freedom of speech and what being in America means to them.
• One of many compelling stories was a young teenager daughter chronologically citing her own father’s struggle with a nicotine addiction and her own fears of life and death.
• And even the simple stories of the first relative to attend college and change the course of education and opportunity in the family, or a grandmother’s struggle to raise 4 children in a tough world while suffering from a disease, or crossing the border illegally, has helped define character in these students.

The teacher’s quote makes my heart sing:

Little did I know that this project would give me the gift of purpose and meaningful discourse with my students. Mrs. Schirm set out to write her books to share her father’s story because it is one worth telling and reading. Like dominoes, her books have started a ripple effect which will continue to vibrate in these young minds as they grow and continue to revisit their roots, allowing little opportunity for them to get lost or drift aimlessly. Students have started to solve their own puzzles and develop a clearer image of who they are and what they need to accomplish in life. I share much appreciation with them and Mrs. Schirm and would be happy to help any educator start a journey like mine. Nilam Patel, nilam.patel@ocps.net

Vaclav Havel, First President of the Czech Republic

As important today as ever, students can learn similarities and differences by bringing family histories to life in the classroom. With this history they become linked to one another in a unique manner.

The “old-new dangers” that President Havel refers to are cropping up all around us: on our streets, in our homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods, in our sports and politics, and in our schools. What’s up with this?  Hasn’t history taught us there are simple measures, morals, and ethics that we can adhere to that avoid the hazards of hatred, bullying, persecution and war?

Apparently, humanity hasn’t learned the lessons well enough. The old, young and in-between need refresher courses and what better place to start than in high school classrooms for Social Studies and English Language Arts learning that we are more alike than we realize.

The international diplomat Dag Hammarskjold once said “The longest journey is the journey inwards. Of him who has chosen his destiny, who has started upon his quest for the source of his being.” In an attempt to help students recognize and appreciate the unique journeys we all take in life, Dr. Phillips High School English teacher Nilam Patel of Orlando, Florida created an inspiring environment where students chose what aspects they would research to better understand their family pasts.

As a nonfiction author, Nilam invited me into her classroom to share WWII stories of my Czech father and his friends from my book, Adventurers Against Their Will. Described by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as “a brilliant and compelling account of men and women caught in the turbulence of war,” the book uses revelations from a secret historical letter collection discovered after my dad’s death in 2000, to bring their tales to life. The correspondence is filled with the realities of endangered lives of refugees and people caught behind enemy lines. Their stories paint a picture from seventy years ago that echoes today’s migrants and refugees and the demons of hatred and evil that still stalk our world.

Here’s how Nilam described our remarkable learning experience together.

“I am a Center for International Studies Magnet English Teacher at Dr. Phillips High School. I work with freshman. This year we were fortunate enough to be introduced to a wonderful real-world and relevant research project through the inspiration of Joanie Schirm, author of Adventurers Against Their Will.

Mrs. Schirm met with the Media Specialist and me to provide customized lesson plans to make this unit of learning the best fit for our students. She offered a plethora of primary and secondary resources for teacher and student use to make this a personal and educational experience. Mrs. Schirm is entirely dedicated to impassioning young people to learn from their past, value it, and continue to grow and learn about themselves because of it.

She visited the students as we introduced their “Genealogy Projects” and shared her adventure in writing, researching, and communicating with a network of family, friends, and experts to paint a mosaic of incredible stories tied together by documented evidence and first-hand interviews.

As students conducted their research on an aspect of their family history, such as migration patterns, ancestry, health history, love stories, etc., they emailed Mrs. Schirm for guidance and received a response from her with a plethora of ideas and resources to explore. Students spent six months brainstorming, researching, interviewing, collecting artifacts and documents, and building a story to share with their classmates and other faculty and parents. Parents contacted me with appreciation on opening up dialogue in the family with grandparents, great grandparents and family members during the process that led to priceless moments that will be treasured.

Mrs. Schirm also visited our students on the last day of presentations to debrief them on continuing to dig deeper and appreciate the information they are uncovering today. Many students shared their enthusiasm, shock, tears, and curiosity throughout this experience and they look forward to building on this project in future years.

Mrs. Schirm’s commitment and passion have fueled a journey for myself, my students, and others at our school to implement parts of her book and process in their classes to make learning personal, real-world, and relevant. We cannot thank Mrs. Schirm enough for her mentorship of our youth.”

Nilam B. Patel, D English I and II Chair, Dr. Phillips High School Center for International Studies Magnet

As an author who cares deeply about the protection of human rights and dignity, there is no greater joy than seeing my subject matter help students realize how each of our backgrounds involves some form of displacement along the way.  Learning to cope with the trauma of change from different environments allows the students to see their life as a vital link to the future.  My hope is that through education and their understanding of their own family histories, students will not only care but care enough to act when they see others who need help and acceptance and sometimes protection from old-new dangers.

www.joanieschirm.com

The Discovery of a Lifetime

From the moment I read the last letter that my grandfather Arnošt wrote to my dad, I knew it held meaning beyond the four walls of my writing room. Dated April 21, 1942, just three days before Arnošt and my grandmother Olga Holzer were taken from Prague on a Nazi transport to their deaths, the letter introduced me to a grandfather I never had a chance to meet. Now I know the lessons revealed during my seven-year writing journey has led me to this moment of sharing a gift unlike any other.  Discovery, research, and understanding of the past has presented me with an opportunity to change the future.

The news of today is filled with stories of forcibly displaced persons seeking safe haven.  As desperate men, women, and children travel across dangerous water bodies in overloaded rafts, if we listen, we hear echoes from another time in the late 1930s. Chased from their native land because of oppression, prejudice, and hate, today almost daily we hear of refugees who drowned while the world debates what it should do for humanity. We must learn from our past.

In grave danger, these innocents of today reflect what’s revealed in the hundreds of WWII letters my Czech father hid away some seven decades earlier when his refugee status came to an end in America.  From his old letters, correspondents made up of friends and relatives caught in the turmoil of war, desperate human faces emerge.  They cling to the cold WWII statistics from which we teach our children history. Their voices hold great promise today for building empathy among students who will then understand why we must protect human rights and dignity.

There’s a reason why nonfiction stories resonate and help us learn.  The real people of the letters, portrayed in my book Adventurers Against Their Will, speak to us in a different way than fiction characters.  While the actual letter writers describe tumultuous circumstances, we look for ourselves or our loved ones in the images they create.  From their authenticity, we walk in their shoes and understand their pain and dreams for a better future.

Recently, I participated as a guest author at the Florida Council for the Social Studies (FCSS) and Florida Association for Media in Education (FAME). Soon, I’ll appear at the upcoming Annual Conference of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) sharing lesson plans tied to real life stories from past and present.  I’m confident the purpose of my writing journey is unfolding just as it was meant to through shared experiences that matter for today. The Florida Department of Education chose my book for their Recommended Reading List, Grades 9-12. The International Tracing Service (ITS) in Germany is distributing Lesson Plans to German and Austrian educators. American teachers are requesting the lesson plans (prepared by A Pass Education Group) that accompany Adventurers Against Their Will or creating they’re own (Orlando’s Dr. Phillips High School Center for International Studies Program).

From what they experience, feel, and learn in their studies, high school students may become the peacemakers of the future. A true story tells it best.