Surviving WWII in Shanghai--the one place Jews without visas could escape the Nazis--a German girl chronicles her ordeal in a diary. Later, her estranged American-born daughter finds it, discovering suprises about her deceased mother, and rediscovering herself.
SHANGHAI LEGACY
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Editorial Reviews
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...a deeply affecting novel of mother-daughter love, the tolls it takes and the gifts it bestows...in pitch-perfect prose. -- Ellen Feldman, author of The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank
...a fascinating journey...[to the] Jewish Settlement in Shanghai during World War II...beautifully rendered... -- Joanne Greenberg, author of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
...a finely engrossing read--particularly Cuba's true-to-life depiction of misery endured by the Jewish refugees who...sought...safety -- Mary Swartz, co-author of The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story of The Japanese and The Jews During World War II
Cuba's engrossing novel provides the reader with a fascinating account of Jews living in Shanghai during the Nazi era. -- Jewish Book World, Spring, 2006
There is a good story here...the author shows a great deal of promise...the novel certainly deserves a read. -- Norm Goldman, Editor of Bookpleasures.com
...a fascinating journey...[to the] Jewish Settlement in Shanghai during World War II...beautifully rendered... -- Joanne Greenberg, author of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
...a finely engrossing read--particularly Cuba's true-to-life depiction of misery endured by the Jewish refugees who...sought...safety -- Mary Swartz, co-author of The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story of The Japanese and The Jews During World War II
Cuba's engrossing novel provides the reader with a fascinating account of Jews living in Shanghai during the Nazi era. -- Jewish Book World, Spring, 2006
There is a good story here...the author shows a great deal of promise...the novel certainly deserves a read. -- Norm Goldman, Editor of Bookpleasures.com
From the Publisher
During the Nazi era, nearly 20,000 Jews sought safety in the unlikely haven of Shanghai-the one place that would have them without a visa.
SHANGHAI LEGACY by Marion Cuba, a novel of historical fiction, chronicles this pocket of time-1938-1945. The book weaves actual events with an imagined mother-daughter drama of dark secrets, generational conflict, and the search for love and fulfillment.
The fictional Hannah, like many Jews at the time, is forced to flee an affluent life in Berlin to the squalor of Shanghai. She endures a harrowing adolescence, marries young, and finally makes it to America. There she starts her own family.
At Hannah's death, her adult daughter, Maya, now a New York suburban empty-nester, perceives her mother as distant and severe, even cruel-until a German diary shows up. It reveals the courageous choices and sacrifices the young Hannah had to make in the Jewish settlement of Shanghai.
Thus begins an emotional odyssey that forces Maya to re-examine her own complacent life-her marriage to an often-absent husband, her neglected career as a sculptor, her outworn child-centered existence, and, most significantly, her harsh view of her mother. She has choices Hannah never had, Maya realizes after twenty-five years as a dutiful wife and mother. Is she daring enough to reach for them?
Based on years of research, Shanghai Legacy dramatizes how a survivor's secret hardships affect-and afflict-the next generation. The novel crosscuts between the Shanghai ghetto with its filthy alleys, constant hunger, and struggle to survive.to contemporary Manhattan with its vibrant culture, unique glamour, and endless possibility.
A Reading Guide at the back of the book provides discussion questions for this lesser-known, provocative chapter of the Holocaust.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A little-known chapter in Jewish history intertwined in a worthy novel,
By Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (COMMUNITY FORUM 04) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: SHANGHAI LEGACY (Paperback)
Author Cuba takes a little-known chapter in Jewish history and writes a very worthy novel. The device is a diary; Maya finds the diary of her mysterious mother Hannah after Hannah dies. Now some of the mystery of Hannah's life unfolds for Maya, and she learns of her mother's struggles, bravery and difficulties while she examines her own life through new eyes. Hannah escaped Germany and went to Shanghai and ultimately ended up in America. The story of her flight and her struggles is the backdrop for the novel, and as the mystery of Hannah unfolds, Maya learns a lot about her own life and her own attitudes.
The diary is the most fascinating part of the book--the refugees in China mourn the loss of their comfortable life in German and they live in squalor in Japanese-occupied China. Shanghai is dirty and cold. Diseases are rampant, yet the Jewish refugees hear stories of Treblinka and realize that though life is hard, it is far more horrible in Germany. And the survivor guilt sets in, for the victims of the Holocaust, for those left behind when Hannah goes to America. This is a very good novel; the interleaving of Maya's life is typical of novels today that twine two lives together and show their relationship and contrasts. But for me, the diary was so poignant and real, it almost overshadowed Maya's story. However, alone it is almost too much to read and together with Maya's tale, you can almost walk her part and with her, begin to untangle the lives that affected you from the past, lives with struggles that we can hardly know. A terrific book. Recommended.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I WISH I COULD READ IT AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME,
By
This review is from: SHANGHAI LEGACY (Paperback)
Cuba does a sensitive job depicting the complicated life of Hannah, a German Jewish teenager in World War II era Shanghai. This gripping page turner is as exciting in its flash-forward story of her adult daughter years later in Manhattan as it is of the highly perilous years of Hannah's youth in China. I only regret that I cannot read it again for the first time.
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