Ernest was one of three children born to a Jewish family in the city of Breslau, . His father owned a factory that made matzah, the unleavened bread, used during the Jewish holiday of Passover. Ernest was 12 when Hitler took power in 1933.

In February 1939, three months after (the “Night of Broken Glass” ), Ernest and his mother fled to , one of few havens for refugees without visas. His father and sister stayed behind in Germany; they perished during . A brother Ernest G. Heppner escaped to England. Holocaust Survivor

“It was a . It was surrounded by barbed wire. And we were “And if it really got bad, he under a volunteer would send you for one night service called the into the bunker [punishment Pao Chia, under the Polish Refugees in barracks]. The bunker itself Japanese, um, uh, the Shanghai Ghetto was a death sentence, one supervision. Uh, self- night. Because the bunker was defense...kind of self- full of typhoid. Typhoid. Uh, if protection. Um, they you got out of the bunker the Ernest Heppner wore armbands and next day, it would take about they had to be at the a week or two before you got ghetto exits and entrances, to guard against anybody ill, and...but everybody knew leaving who was not authorized. And, uh, uh, at already you have about two that time, conditions were such that the ghetto was weeks to live.” governed by a very brutal, sadistic Japanese named USHMM Polish Jewish Refugees in the Ghoya. He was paranoid, he was a psychopath, and Shanghai Ghetto & Ernest G. Heppner he called himself the “king of the .” oral history Shanghai Ghetto

About 20,000 refugees, including Ernest and his mother, settled around the , Heppner was self- in an area called the Restricted Sector for reliant, energetic, Stateless Refugees but more commonly and clever, and known as the Jewish Ghetto. The 2.68 his story of finding square kilometers, or about a square mile, niches for his which was cordoned off by the Japanese skills that enabled who controlled the city, also was home to him to survive in a 100,000 Shanghaiese. precarious fashion is a tribute to In 1945, after the liberation of China, human endurance. Heppner found a responsible position with the American forces there. He and his wife, whom he had met and married in the ghetto, arrived in the in 1947 with only eleven dollars but boundless hope and energy. Shanghai Refugee (Amazon)