Lily Toufar Lash of Toronto was one of 20,000 Jews who fled Europe in 1938 to find refuge and safety in Shanghai, China, but not for a life without its own horrors.
Toufar joined author Kathy Kacer during Holocaust Education Week to speak to some 50 young students at the Spadina children’s library about Toufar’s personal experience in Shanghai, which Kacer described in her new book Shanghai Escape.
Toufar, only four at the time, and her family escaped from Vienna on the night of Kristallnacht in 1938, fleeing to Shanghai, where they lived until 1948. She and her family immigrated to Toronto that year and have remained ever since.
“At first, things were not bad for Lily, as Shanghai represented freedom, even though Japan was in control of Shanghai. But, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 when America declared war, the Japanese army rounded up the Jewish refugees (called stateless refugees) to a ghetto in Hongkew,” Kacer told the children.
“The Hongkew ghetto had deplorable conditions, Hongkew was overcrowded, many of the Jewish refugees were starving, and most were not able to leave the ghetto to work without a daily pass from the Japanese.”
“My family was so lucky to have escaped Europe,” Toufar said, “because I soon learned that other families were not as lucky. I feel so privileged to live in Canada, where everyone is free to practise religion.”
Shanghai Escape is the latest of Kacer's children’s books about Holocaust survivors. The author met Toufar through a mutual friend, and wanted to share her story to draw attention to the plight of the Jewish refugees in Shanghai.
“I wanted to share the innocence and confusion of a young girl’s perspective on what happened in Shanghai. Children read and learn more about history when it’s told from the vantage of a child. Most of the children attending the talk knew little about Japan and how they were involved with the Nazis,” Kacer said.
Shanghai Escape describes some of the experiences of young Lily, her parents and extended family that put their lives in danger while they were forced to stay in Hongkew. The incidents include a dramatic account of Lily’s mother being violently beaten by a Japanese official for failing to show a pass allowing her to go to work outside the ghetto.
The book has mystery and drama, as the reader is unsure of the fate of Lily and her family. A recurring passage has Lily’s father stating, “We will always be together, Lily, no matter what,” which comforted the child, no matter how uncertain and dangerous the years in Shanghai were.
Although Japan did not send Jews to concentration camps as the Nazis did, there was speculation in the book that the Japanese were planning to send the Jews in Hongkew to prison camps if the war had not ended in 1945.
When the Toufars immigrated to Toronto in 1948, Lily’s extended family owned a grocery store on Eglinton Avenue before buying a farm in Richmond Hill, north of the city.
In 1958, Lily met and married Jimmy Lash, who survived the Holocaust in the Lodz Ghetto of Poland and the Auschwitz concentration camp. They live In Toronto and have two children and two grandchildren.
“Everyone in my family and I are very pleased with how Kathy told my story in her book. I’m glad to have inspired so many to read and learn about what happened to the Jews in Hongkew,” Toufar said.
Kacer, from Toronto, has won multiple awards for 11 other children’s books on the Holocaust including The Secret of Gabi’s Dresser, about Kacer’s mother, also a Holocaust survivor. She is married to attorney Ian Epstein, and her children, Gabi and Jake, are both actors.
Kacer and Toufar will talk about Shanghai Escape again on Dec. 5, 6:30 p.m., at the Kiever Shul, 25 Bellevue Ave. For more information, call 416-537-7850 or go to kathykacer.com.
Kacer and Toufar will also be speaking about the book Dec. 4 at the Kiever Shul.