Gerda Rose Loewy

Gerda Rose Agnes Loewy was born on March 6, 1925 to Leo and Irma Loewy in Berlin.

Although she was an only child, she grew up in a large family where her parents' siblings regularly came to visit for Shabbat dinners and weekend trips to the lakes around Berlin. Every Friday evening, Gerda would walk with her father to the synagogue on Lützowstrasse. Her mother was not as religious and came from a secular family.

The Loewy family lived in a five-room apartment at Lützowstraße 56 from 1931 to 1939. One room in the apartment was used for the father's business, who worked in the leather goods trade and was supported in his work by his wife.

Gerda attended elementary school from 1930-1935. In 1935 she came to the Auguste-Viktoria-Gymnasium in Landgrafenstrasse and attended it for a year. After the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws, increasing anti-Semitic hostilities forced her to leave this school.

From 1936 Gerda attended the Grunewald Jewish School (known as the Lesler School).

After the pogrom of November 9, 1938, Leo was interned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp from November 11, 1938 to December 6, 1938.

On November 10, Gerda's formal schooling ended because the Lesler School, like all other Jewish schools at the time, was closed. Since she has always been good at drawing and painting, Gerda enrolled at the private fashion drawing school Feige Straßburger Kunsthochschule near Alexanderplatz. She was unable to complete this training because she was forced to emigrate.

Leo was released from Sachsenhausen on condition that he prove that he and his family would leave Germany.

Since no entry visa was required there, Shanghai was one of the few places of refuge for European Jews. 18,000 refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia streamed into the city of Shanghai after the pogrom night.

Leo, Irma and Gerda left Berlin on May 31, 1939 by train for Naples and then continued on to Shanghai on a Japanese ship called the Hakone Maru, arriving in June 1939. There they first lived in the French concession area in a one-room apartment with an outbuilding, where Gerda slept.

In Shanghai, Gerda had to support her parents; so she did an 18-month stenography course at Shanghai Business College and ended up working for a dentist for a few months, working long hours and low wages, with just enough money to pay for the trip and some grocery expenses.

After seeing an advertisement in the newspaper by an artist who used to be a painter for the Meissen porcelain factory in Germany, Gerda applied to work with him. His name was Jan Kaminsky and he taught Gerda how to paint on porcelain. She was given tourist pictures to copy, including Chinese flower arrangements, umbrellas, rickshaw pens. Gerda worked for Kaminsky for about a year before they all had to move to the Hongkew ghetto.

In the Hongkew ghetto, Gerda and her parents had very little money to survive.

The Japanese imposed strict curfews, rationed food to the point where many were starving, and imposed rules that made it difficult for ghetto residents to find work. Residents were not allowed to leave Hongkew's designated area unless they had special permission. It often happened that the border to the rest of Shanghai was closed for hours without any apparent reason. This made things difficult for Gerda, who supported her parents by painting glass and ceramic pieces again and selling these items to two shops in the Shanghai French Concession area.

Gerda and her parents lived with six families in a small terraced house in a narrow Chinese lane. There were six rooms but no kitchen; What used to be a kitchen served as a room for one of the six families.

Irma Natalie Loewy died in Shanghai in 1943. The cause of death was "dysentery" and was attributed to the terrible living conditions and also to being unable to afford the medicines needed for her illness.

After the Americans liberated Shanghai from the Japanese in August 1945, Gerda worked as a secretary for the American occupying forces.

With the support of an Australian family, she was able to travel to Australia in 1946. Three years later her father was allowed to join her in Australia. He died in 1955.

In her early years in Australia, Gerda painted lampshades and lingerie at night while working as a secretary during the day. After that, Gerda held two office jobs. She married Wolfgang Schmidt in 1955 and had two children. She eventually became the happy grandmother of six grandchildren.