ORT Shanghai Course in Cutting Men's Clothing by M. Wacs

Moritz (Maurice) Wacs was born in Romania. He was held as a prisoner-of-war in Austria during World War I and remained there when that war ended. He married Henia (Helen) Fachs, who was from an orthodox Polish family. They were married by a rabbi, but the marriage was not recognized by the Austrian government as Moritz was not an Austrian citizen. They had a son, Ilie, born on December 11, 1927, and a daughter, Debra, born in 1935. The family was not especially religious, though Henia kept a kosher home. Moritz was a men’s custom tailor with a very successful business. The Austrian population was primarily Catholic and anti-Semitism was common. On March 12-13, 1938, the Anschluss occurred; Nazi Germany marched into Austria and incorporated the country into the Third Reich. Moritz's business was aryanized and turned over to his Christian head tailor, Alois, a member of the Nazi party. Alois had prior knowledge of Kristallnacht that November and warned the Wacs to leave their apartment that night. Kristallnacht was especially brutal in Austria: all the synagogues in Vienna were destroyed, Jewish homes and businesses were vandalized, and 1000s of Jews were deported to Dachau and Buchenwald. Soon after this, the family decided to emigrate. They wanted to come to the United States, but since Ilie was a Romanian citizen, it was not possible to get visas. They decided to go to Shanghai, since it was an open city and required no papers. Moritz’s brother in Romania paid for their passage, since only US dollars were accepted and Moritz could not get these in Austria. They sailed from Genoa, Italy, on the Conte Bianca Mano, August 20, 1939, less than two weeks before the outbreak of World War II. After they arrived in Shanghai, the local Jewish community found them an apartment in Heime Hongkew. The family had only the four suitcases they had taken in the ship; the furniture and good they had arranged to have shipped never arrived. But Morris was able to find work as a custom tailor. He made the first suit entirely by hand, but with that fee was able to buy a sewing machine. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, food became extremely scarce and they pawned Henia’s jewelry for food. In 1943, the Japanese, who had occupied Shanghai since 1937, forced the Jewish refugees into ghettos and conditions deteriorated. In July 1945, Shanghai was heavily bombed by US forces, killing hundreds of people in the ghetto. But in August, Japan conceded defeat, although the ghetto was not officially liberated until September 2, 1945, when Chiang Kai-Shek arrived. After the war, the American Joint Distribution Committee arrived to assist Jewish refugees with relocation. They learned that all their family members who had remained in Europe, except for two cousins, had perished in the Holocaust; Henia’s sister died in Dachau concentration camp. In1949, Ilie received a scholarship to attend art school in Paris, France. With the passage of the Displaced Persons Act, Moritz, Henia, and Debra were able to emigrate to the United States, where Ilie later joined them. They settled in New York City and Moritz continued to work as a custom tailor. He passed away in 1957; Henia died in 1972.