By the late 1930s, Europe sat on the brink of a world war. As the holocaust approached, many Jewish families in Germany fled to one of the only open port available to them: Shanghai. Once called "the armpit of the world," Shanghai ultimately served as the last resort for tens of thousands of Jews desperate to escape Hitler's "Final Solution." Against this backdrop, 11-year-old Ursula Bacon and her family made the difficult 8,000-mile voyage to Shanghai, with its promise of safety. But instead of a storybook China, they found overcrowded streets teeming with peddlers, beggars, opium dens, and prostitutes. Amid these abysmal conditions, Ursula learned of her own resourcefulness and found within herself the fierce determination to survive.

Shanghai Diary: A Young Girl's Journey from Hitler's Hate to War-Torn China

Biographies & Memoirs

Bacon, Ursula

Community & Culture

M. Press

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.

Eternal Strangers

Shanghai, China-once called the "Armpit of the World"-was the port of last resort for 18,000 European Jews escaping from Adolph Hitler's extermination pogroms in Europe. As a survivor of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in WWII, the author tells her remarkable story of growing to maturity in the teeming clutter and clamor of crowded streets, screeching vendors, the miasma of running sewage, discarded newborn girl-babies, dripping humidity and pestilence-breeding rats. Between tears and laughter, she relates how she and her parents learned to live by their wits, overcome despair and value life more dearly because danger and death were always near. The author saw her best friend die of fever, learned about life and matters of the soul from a Buddhist monk, about love from Chinese concubines, swam plague-infested waters to aid in the rescue of American airmen and took to heart the message of wise old Mrs. Goldberg who always reminded her, "Go out and make a miracle today, God's busy, He can't do it all."

The Shanghai Diary

Hara Pub Group

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bacon, Ursula. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Bacon, Ursula

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bacon, Ursula. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Shanghai Diary: A Young Girl's Journey from Hitler's Hate to War-Torn China

Eternal Strangers

The Shanghai Diary