The Wolves at My Shadow: the Story of Ingelore Rothschild / Ingelore Rothschild; Edited by Darilyn Stahl Listort and Dennis Listort
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THE WOLVES AT MY SHADOW The Story of INGELORE ROTHSCHILD Our Lives: Diary, Memoir, and Letters Social history contests the construction of the past as the story of elites—a grand narrative dedicated to the actions of those in power. Our Lives seeks instead to make available voices from the past that might otherwise remain unheard. By foregrounding the experience of ordinary individuals, the series aims to demonstrate that history is ultimately the story of our lives, lives constituted in part by our response to the issues and events of the era into which we are born. Many of the voices in the series thus speak in the context of political and social events of the sort about which historians have traditionally written. What they have to say fills in the details, creating a richly varied portrait that celebrates the concrete, allowing broader historical settings to emerge between the lines. The series invites materials that are engagingly written and that contribute in some way to our understanding of the relationship between the individual and the collective. SERIES TITLES A Very Capable Life: The Autobiography of Rocks in the Water, Rocks in the Sun Zarah Petri Vilmond Joegodson Déralciné and John Leigh Walters Paul Jackson Letters from the Lost: A Memoir of The Teacher and the Superintendent: Discovery Native Schooling in the Alaskan Interior, Helen Waldstein Wilkes 1904–1918 Compiled and annotated by George E. A Woman of Valour: The Biography of Boulter II and Barbara Grigor-Taylor Marie-Louise Bouchard Labelle Claire Trépanier Leaving Iran: Between Migration and Exile Farideh Goldin Man Proposes, God Disposes: Recollections of a French Pioneer My Decade at Old Sun, My Lifetime of Hell Pierre Maturié, translated by Vivien Arthur Bear Chief Bosley The Wolves at My Shadow: The Story of Xwelíqwiya: The Life of a Stó:lō Matriarch Ingelore Rothschild Rena Point Bolton and Richard Daly Ingelore Rothschild, edited by Darilyn Stahl Listort and Dennis Listort Mission Life in Cree-Ojibwe Country: Memories of a Mother and Son Elizabeth Bingham Young and E. Ryerson Young, edited and with introductions by Jennifer S.H. Brown THE WOLVES AT MY SHADOW The Story of INGELORE ROTHSCHILD edited by DARILYN STAHL LISTORT and DENNIS LISTORT Copyright © 2017 Darilyn Stahl Listort and Dennis Listort Published by AU Press, Athabasca University 1200, 10011 – 109 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8 ISBN 978-1-77199-061-5 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1-77199-063-9 (PDF) ISBN 978-1-77199-064-6 (epub) DOI: 10.15215/aupress/9781771990615.01 Cover design by Natalie Olsen, kisscutdesign.com Interior design by Sergiy Kozakov Printed and bound in Canada by Marquis Book Printers Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Rothschild, Ingelore, 1924–2006, author The wolves at my shadow: the story of Ingelore Rothschild / Ingelore Rothschild; edited by Darilyn Stahl Listort and Dennis Listort. (Our lives : diary, memoir, and letters) Issued in print and electronic formats. 1. Rothschild, Ingelore, 1924-2006—Diaries. 2. Rothschild, Ingelore, 1924–2006— Childhood and youth. 3. Jews—Germany—Diaries. 4. Jews—Japan—Diaries. 5. Jews, German—Japan—Diaries. 6. Jewish refugees—Japan—Diaries. 7. Japan—History—Allied occupation, 1945–1952—Personal narratives, Jewish. 8. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)— Biography. I. Listort, Darilyn Stahl, 1949–, editor II. Listort, Dennis, 1946–, editor III. Title. DS134.42.R68A3 2017 943’.0049240092 C2017-900948-6 C2017-900949-4 The photograph in the background of the Part Two opening pages was taken by I. R. Tomaskiewicz and appeared in a 1899 publication under a Russian title that can be translated to Great Path: Views of Siberia and Great Siberian Railway. Assistance provided by the Government of Alberta, Alberta Media Fund. This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons License, Attribution– Noncommercial–NoDerivative Works 4.0 International: see www.creativecommons.org. The text may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the original author. To obtain permission for uses beyond those outlined in the Creative Commons license, please contact AU Press, Athabasca University, at [email protected]. In loving memory of my mother. I miss you. ~ Dari Contents Acknowledgements ix Preface xi Part One We Sail to America 3 I Begin 5 The Calm Before the Storm 15 Deception and Dismay 21 My Birthday 29 Dark Clouds are Everywhere 37 Conditions Worsen 45 Sand Falls Through the Hourglass 55 Everything Worries Me 61 We Say Goodbye 69 Part Two On My Own 79 Together Again 85 Seven Hundred Kilometres, More Goodbyes 91 A Major Catastrophe 99 A Bad Situation Becomes Worse 111 The Truth is Revealed 123 Our Secret is Safe 135 Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow 147 A Token of Friendship 159 The World of Garlic 173 vii Part Three Japan is on the Horizon 185 The Earth Moves 199 Nature’s Violent Display 211 The War is Coming 233 The Americans Strike 245 The Emperor Speaks 261 Occupation 267 The Time of My Life 273 Fate Intervenes 283 Another Story Begins 295 Epilogue 299 Bibliography 305 viii Acknowledgements We extend our sincere thanks to all those who assisted. Readers and reviewers at various stages of the book’s planning, development, tran- scription, research, and editing were of tremendous help to us. We appreciate the efforts of Linda Carlucci, Stephen Duffie, Allison Duffie, Teresa Listort, Cynthia Listort, and Ray Engineer. Additional support and guidance came from Tom DeAngelo, Therese Paff, Amiel Tokayer, M.D., Gail Campato, Mark and Louise Stahl, and Steven Silverman, M.D. Thank you to George Nicholson at Sterling Lord Literistic and to John Brenner at the State Historical Society of Missouri for their encourage- ment. We appreciate permission granted by Cole Smith from Atlantic Fleet Sales for the photograph of the Marine Falcon. The entirety of special regard, gratitude, and recognition is conveyed to Marjory Allen Perez, genealogist, for her painstaking and tireless labour. To my sweet sister-in-law, Chery Duffie, who unexpectedly passed away at the age of fifty-eight, thank you for being our most passionate cheerleader. At Athabasca University Press in Alberta, Canada, we thank Megan Hall and Karyn Wisselink for their editorial work. Also, we would like to extend our gratitude to Pamela Holway, senior editor at Athabasca University Press, for all her efforts, for believing in the manuscript from the first time she read it, and for her constant encouragement. We could not have done this without her. ix Preface On Monday, 8 June 1936, the day before her twelfth birthday, my mother, Ingelore Erna Rothschild, received a diary as a gift from her parents. They were in a café at an impromptu party in the Siberian city of Irkutsk in Eastern Russia. Over the next two years, my mother regularly recorded her memories and reminiscences of her remarkable journey from Berlin, Germany, across half the world to Kobe, Japan. In April 1938, during a severe rainy season, which caused one of the deadliest floods on record in Japan, a mudslide tore through Ingelore’s family home in Kobe and destroyed her diary. Eight years later, while sailing from Japan to America she began to record her story once again, on a pad of paper given to her by her father. In 1948, after settling in Queens, New York, Ingelore enrolled in a summer secretarial course. To practice her dexterity and her Eng- lish she translated and transcribed all her handwritten recollections, typing them onto onionskin pages. Although her handwritten remem- brances are lost, what remains are the dozens of memories she typed, single-spaced on the backs of scrap paper. In 1999, my mother gave me a box. “Here,” she said, “is a part of my life.” It was not until years later, after her death in 2006, that I opened xi it. Inside were three hundred and forty-two unbound typewritten pages. I wish she had told me at the time that that box would reveal a fascin- ating, heartbreaking, and at times joyous and humourous story of her experiences and travels as a child and as a young woman. Had I known, I would have gathered those pages up immediately, carefully read every word, and then sat down with her to hear more of her story. After her death, I pored over those delicate sheets. What I learned from those pages about the first quarter-century of her life is something I cherish. But I also feel a vague sense of nagging emptiness. I feel fool- ish that her account was there for the reading while she was still alive. Although I had missed her since the day she died these pages made me miss her even more. My mother kept a fairly detailed record of her journey. Like many of her generation, those who lived through the Great Depression and World War II, she chose not to talk much about the times, strange places, and difficult learning experiences that, for better or worse, shaped her values and outlook. Through her writing, I was able to see her as a child blossoming into a young woman. I know so much more of my mother now. Suddenly I could picture my mother’s father, Kurt Rothschild, my grandfather, a man who died the month after I was born. He had come to life for me and I sensed a bond with him in a deeply personal way. My grandfather spent his entire adult life working for the J. Gerber Company. The company supplied textiles, raw materials, high quality processed fruits, vegetables and other foodstuffs, and ingredients for the food processing industry, as well as protective clothing and safety items for use in industrial environments to international markets, govern- ments, institutions, and corporations.