A new organization, the Committee for the Assistance of Jewish Refugees, is established. This time the refugees themselves will decide what is to be done. You do not feel as angry as Victor Sassoon, Silas Hardoon, and other Sephardim as some of the people, but you understand their desire to have a say in their own future; therefore, you join with them.
With few relief funds coming in from outside the community,
survival is often desperate. You must scrounge, beg, borrow, and
plead for any help you can find. You and the others try to help
everyone, but you pay particular attention to the needs of widows and
orphans. After all,
you say, if we cannot remain faithful to the
biblical mitzvot, we really won' t be Jews very much longer.
Somehow everyone manages, although not easily. The relief situation improves in 1944 when the United States allows Jewish organizations to send money to China; it becomes easier when the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek drive the Japanese out of China. You cannot believe that you survived the war, but it is true. You stop at the synagogue to bench gomel for your safe passage through this terrible time. However, you feel that it would be in your best interests to leave Shanghai with its memories of difficult times and start a new life elsewhere. You decide to go to Indonesia.