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Oral history interview with Leah Jacob Garrick

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1999.A.0122.407 | RG Number: RG-50.477.0407

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    Oral history interview with Leah Jacob Garrick

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Leah Jacob Garrick, born on July 9, 1928 in Shanghai, China, describes her grandparents, who had fled Iraq in the late 1800s and settled in Shanghai; her parents, who were both British citizens when they met in China; her early home life and schooling; being raised in a Sephardic orthodox home; attending a British school; her memories of her father building a “succah” (a hut built for the Jewish festival of Sukkot); her vivid memories of celebrating Jewish holidays; the Japanese bombings of Shanghai, beginning when she was nine years old; fleeing to Hong Kong with her mother, grandmother, and two siblings; returning to Shanghai; watching bombs hit the water at the docks of Shanghai; the terrible famine that had struck the Chinese during the war, and her family’s attempts to help as many refugees as they possibly could; her father being permitted to continue his work during the war; her family not being forced to wear armbands because they were still seen as British citizens; her memories of the Pearl Harbor attack; helping her parents care for her siblings; the bombing of her father’s factory multiple times; being constantly afraid of the air raids; having mixed feelings when the Americans began bombing Shanghai; graduating with her sister from a Jewish school in 1944; the occupation of peoples’ homes by Japanese soldiers; being sent with her sister in 1947 to an orthodox school in Crown Heights, New York; her sister getting married and moving to San Francisco, CA; finding a job at a Jewish organization; her parents and brother fleeing the communists in Shanghai in 1949 and going to Hong Kong; her mother and brother moving to the US, while her father built another factory in Macau, China; moving to San Francisco in 1955 and working for Jewish organizations there; her father’s move to California in 1969; visiting her childhood homes in Shanghai in 1987; going to a 1998 reunion in Israel; retiring in 2001; her belief that God had a hand in sending Jews to Shanghai; being proud to be Jewish; and how the events of September 11, 2001 scare her greatly.
    Interviewee
    Leah J. Garrick
    Date
    interview:  2001 September 12
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 videocassette (SVHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Garrick, Leah Jacob.

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project conducted the interview with Leah Jacob Garrick on September 12, 2001. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from the Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project in October 2002.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:45:07
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn511720

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