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Eternal Strangers
Ursula Bacon's impassioned memoir Shanghai Diary has touched the lives of people around the world, recounting the story of her youth in China. Eternal Strangers finds the author recounting events before Shanghai Diary begins, with the meeting of the author's parents and their escape from war-torn Europe to the safer harbors of Asia. Inspiring, thought provoking and starkly honest, Eternal Strangers will be a book discussed for years to come.
- GenresHistory
288 pages, Paperback
First published June 20, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 22, 2012
I'm reading this book because Bacon's Shanghai Diary was so mesmerizing. In Diary she wrote about Marienhall, her family home in Breslau, and her idyllic childhood in this enchanted place. I had to know more about what her life had been like before Shanghai.
I'm on page 158 of Eternal Strangers. It's 1919 and Martin and Irene, Ursula's parents, have just gotten married. 158 pages of setting the stage. And the writing - it's more Harlequin Romance than biography. I keep reading, tolerating what is obvious padding to make this a book rather than a magazine article, hoping in the final 120 pages to read about Marienhall. And why, since Hitler's intentions toward the Jews were clear years before he took power, didn't this Jewish family leave Germany earlier when visas to America and elsewhere were obtainable? Albert Einstein saw the handwriting on the wall and left Berlin for Princeton when Hitler became Chancelor in January 1933. He saw the future. Why didn't Martin?
I'll update this when I've finished the book. Have to return it to the library Wednesday.
The last 120 pages were worth the wait. Marienhall, the family's country estate an hour from Breslau, was indeed a fairytale kingdom. Ursula's nanny had her reading before she was 4 and her governess taught her French and English, and she was not yet 9. Proof that home schooling is superior to govt schools.
And the question of why Martin didn't remove his family to safety until one minute before midnight is also answered. By 1938, the Nazis had taken away the Jews citizenship, professions, businesses, and possessions, including their homes. When Martin had nothing left, he removed his blinders and acknowledged that Hitler's goal to exterminate the Jews from Germany was a reality and that the Good Germans would not overthrow him. The day after his business was confiscated by the Nazis in 1939, he told Irene, "I must have believed I was going to be the exception."
His good friends the Seidenbergs sold their home and factory in 1933 and left for America, urging Martin to do the same, but Martin decided to wait and see. In mid 1938, Irene reminded Martin that 5 more couples, close friends of theirs, had left "and we are doing nothing". Martin then looked into emigrating.
The week before leaving for Shanghai, Martin had been arrested, beaten by the Gestapo, and retrieved by his family naked in a burlap bag. In March 1939, the family left Germany with 1 suitcase each, penniless, Irene's jewelry having been confiscated by the Nazis the week prior, and boarded the ship bound for Shanghai.
All the terrors of the Nazi years and 8 years of poverty, filth and disease in Shanghai could have been avoided. He had the connections and the means to have left Germany years before he did with all of his wealth and none of the humiliations and bitter memories and started a new life in America or elsewhere. But instead he lived the good life at Marienhall and ignored politics.
This is a cautionary story. For Martin and many other Jews, horrific consequences were the result of the Wait and See policy. The last 120 pages are worth reading and rereading. I've increased the rating from 2 to 3 stars.
I'm on page 158 of Eternal Strangers. It's 1919 and Martin and Irene, Ursula's parents, have just gotten married. 158 pages of setting the stage. And the writing - it's more Harlequin Romance than biography. I keep reading, tolerating what is obvious padding to make this a book rather than a magazine article, hoping in the final 120 pages to read about Marienhall. And why, since Hitler's intentions toward the Jews were clear years before he took power, didn't this Jewish family leave Germany earlier when visas to America and elsewhere were obtainable? Albert Einstein saw the handwriting on the wall and left Berlin for Princeton when Hitler became Chancelor in January 1933. He saw the future. Why didn't Martin?
I'll update this when I've finished the book. Have to return it to the library Wednesday.
The last 120 pages were worth the wait. Marienhall, the family's country estate an hour from Breslau, was indeed a fairytale kingdom. Ursula's nanny had her reading before she was 4 and her governess taught her French and English, and she was not yet 9. Proof that home schooling is superior to govt schools.
And the question of why Martin didn't remove his family to safety until one minute before midnight is also answered. By 1938, the Nazis had taken away the Jews citizenship, professions, businesses, and possessions, including their homes. When Martin had nothing left, he removed his blinders and acknowledged that Hitler's goal to exterminate the Jews from Germany was a reality and that the Good Germans would not overthrow him. The day after his business was confiscated by the Nazis in 1939, he told Irene, "I must have believed I was going to be the exception."
His good friends the Seidenbergs sold their home and factory in 1933 and left for America, urging Martin to do the same, but Martin decided to wait and see. In mid 1938, Irene reminded Martin that 5 more couples, close friends of theirs, had left "and we are doing nothing". Martin then looked into emigrating.
The week before leaving for Shanghai, Martin had been arrested, beaten by the Gestapo, and retrieved by his family naked in a burlap bag. In March 1939, the family left Germany with 1 suitcase each, penniless, Irene's jewelry having been confiscated by the Nazis the week prior, and boarded the ship bound for Shanghai.
All the terrors of the Nazi years and 8 years of poverty, filth and disease in Shanghai could have been avoided. He had the connections and the means to have left Germany years before he did with all of his wealth and none of the humiliations and bitter memories and started a new life in America or elsewhere. But instead he lived the good life at Marienhall and ignored politics.
This is a cautionary story. For Martin and many other Jews, horrific consequences were the result of the Wait and See policy. The last 120 pages are worth reading and rereading. I've increased the rating from 2 to 3 stars.
February 13, 2016
This is the prequel to "Shanghai Diaries" and I really wish I would have read this one first, but I didn't know about it then. Shanghai Diaries would have been more meaningful although I liked it a lot. This book was slower, especially the first half of the book and it was O.K., but I would give it a flat 3.0
September 4, 2010
This book is about her parents lives prior to their fleeing Germany for Shanghai at the outset of WWII. It's more of a fictionalized account then Shanghai Diary, which was her own account of her experiences. It's not the best writing but it's worth reading to learn about her family's experiences.
March 2, 2009
Another amazing book from Ursula, Reliving the story of her parents' beautiful long-distance courtship across the dangerous WWI and once finally living a philanthropic dream, enduring the horrible circumstances leading up unto the diastrous WWII in Germany.
April 18, 2007
Yep—thanks work.
May 22, 2011
Great prequel to Shanghai Diaries.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews