The house in Dairen

Memories from Dairen

Our parents arrived in Dairen in the spring of 1939 (the story of their journey from Germany will be told in a different blog). Gideon, my elder brother was born there.

Here are a few details about the city of Dairen, known today as Dalian

Dalian is a major city and seaport in the south of Liaoning Province, China. In 2016, Dalian ranked 48th in the Global Financial Centers Index. It is the southernmost city of the Liaodong Peninsula, that lies southwest across the Bohai Strait. Korea lies across the Yellow Sea to the east.

Dalian has a significant history of being used by foreign powers for its ports. Dalian was previously known as both "Dalniy" - Russian and "Dairen" - Japanese.

Modern Dalian originated from Qingniwa, a small fishing village. Russia built a commercial town for the Kwantung Leased Territory after assuming control in 1898 and called it "Dalniy" from 1898–1905. After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan occupied the Kwantung Leased Territory and renamed the city Dairen

Before the South Manchurian Railway was built, in 1905, Dairen, located near the southern end of the railway, rose rapidly to first place both as the center for both soybeans processing and exporting.

And now to Gideon's story

The house in Dairen

I love "travelling" on world on maps and city plans since I was a child. I probably inherited this passion from my father. Nowadays one can "travel" almost everywhere with Google Earth.

One of these days I decided to try and see how Dairen (today Dalian), the city I was born in, looks like today. Dairen is a port city located on the northern shores of the Yellow Sea some 850Km. south of Harbin a city that had a large Jewish community. Dairen is located in Manchuria. This area of the Yellow Sea freezes in winter. Not so the port of Dairen. Wondering through Google Earth I found out that Dalian is today a huge harbor, much larger than I remember. The city is set in a beautiful area with the sea on one side and mountains, forests and lakes that surround it on the other side.

I went looking for the neighborhood where we lived. I knew it would be useless to look for street names. When I lived there everything was Japanese and now it's Chinese. As mentioned before, even the city's name changed from the Japanese Dairen to the Chinese Dalian. I remembered the neighborhood where our house was and that there was a small lake next to the house itself. To the best of my memory the house was at a street corner and had a round façade. When I enlarged the photos, I immediately recognized "our" house. A shudder went down my spine when I saw the house standing where it was more than seventy years ago.

The photo shows all the five windows of our apartment that was above the stores on the ground floor. The interior of the house popped up in my memory and even today I can visualize all details.

I was born in this house and from here we left Dairen. I believe some of the memories are my own and others are based on stories I heard from my parents. I remember radiators of central heating under every window. The winters in Dairen were very cold and temperatures could fall as far as -30 degrees C. When the war broke out the central heating stopped working. My parents bought an iron coal stove. The stove was placed in the middle of the main room, with the chimney going out through one of the windows. As this was the only heated room in the flat, I moved there with my parents. Getting coal was not easy since, if at all, it was irregularly available. It had to be stored. So my former room turned into "the coal room".

In order to get medical treatment we walked to the nearby hospital. Due to the lack of medicine we were forced to revert to home remedies. I remember two incidents:

When I got whooping-cough the only available medicine was hot water with sugar. I set in my bed and mom fed me with a spoon. At a certain point, after I had taken some of the "medicine" it spilled over mom's leg and she got a skin burn. Little has changed since then. Even today I have problems with hot beverages.

The next incident happened at the hospital, where my tonsils were about to be removed. I remember a huge waiting hall with rows of seats like in a cinema theater. There was a large clock on the wall and a loudspeaker that called out names of patients. My turn arrived. I passed the procedure and my parents were told to give me ice-cream. Since no ice-cream was available I had to settle for ice – without the cream.

Mom and Dad were always on the lookout for legal (only legal!) ways to earn some money and found employment at a small café. As in every Chinese or Japanese business at that time, the café had a big beads counting frame. According to stories I heard, they used to seat me on the counting frame and push me along the bar counter.

Later dad worked as a book-keeper at a Chinese owned chocolate factory. The owner loved dad (very understandable) and showed him a lot of respect. One day he told dad that his daughter is getting married and invited us to the wedding. There was only one condition. Dad had to play the piano during the ceremony as the couple was approaching the stage. It didn't help when dad said he didn't know any Chinese music. The man insisted and dad was seated at the piano. As the young couple was approaching the stage, dad played with great pathos the famous Hanukkah song "Ma Oz Tzur". That's Dad!

There was an American Consulate in Dairen. The parents became friends with the Consul and his family as did we their children. This contact helped a lot in getting basic commodities during the dire times. It was the help of the Consul, Ike Patch that enabled us to get an exit permit from the Soviet authorities who took over Manchuria in 1945, and let the iron curtain down on this area.

I also remember Chinese festivities with giant paper dragons in the streets. At night the skies were lit with thousands of fireworks (a Chinese invention) that went on for a very long time. I was glued to the window fascinated by the amazing show.

I also had a pet,a white Angora bunny. It had a small collar with a bell. It stayed in a cage at the apartment's back door. I fed it with fresh grass I picked and mom added vegetable peels. I used to walk the bunny on a leash like a dog. I cannot remember what happened to the bunny at the end. It probably ended up as a rabbit's stew.

There were very few Europeans in Dairen and it was hard for them to find products they were accustomed to on the market. This was true for toys as well. Whenever my parents found a toy suitable for their son, they bought it, hid it at home and gave it to me at the next appropriate opportunity. It turned out that I had a lot of toys and the other kids liked to come and play at our place. Naturally, mom insisted that all toys would be put back to their place in the big commode-cupboard in my room. I left a wooden train on the floor, and mom told me to put it in its place. When I didn't do as I was told, mom took the train and without any hesitation tossed it into the burning kitchen oven (austerity or not, this was part of my education).

When my parents were finally informed that we can leave Dairen and China, it happened on a very short notice. We had just a few days to organize everything. There was no chance we could sell the house's content in this short period. On the other hand, Leaving the apartment as it was meant the Soviet soldiers would loot it to the last piece. The solution was to share what we had with neighbors and friends. I was sent to give away my toys and so I did. I was allowed to keep my Tinker Toy – an assembly game made of wooden sticks and wheels (I saw that Tinker Toy is still being sold in the USA) and a Mickey Mouse puppet I loved very much.

There are more memories from that time that will be brought in future stories.