Biography
Eric Goldstaub is the only child of Adolf and Camilla Fiedler Goldstaub. His father owned a sewing accessories business in Vienna, Austria. Born on November 14, 1921, Eric grew up in Vienna and attended the Grinzig gymnasium, where he was one of two Jewish students in his class. Both Eric and his father were involved in athletics. Adolf was a member of a gymnastics association and the Maccabi Jewish sports organization. Soon after the Anschluss Eric was among a group of Viennese Jews rounded up by Austrian police and SA members and forced to scrub streets in the seventeenth and eighteen districts of the capital. Following this incident Eric made every effort to secure visas for his family to leave Austria. After visiting every consulate in Vienna, Eric went to the Chinese embassy, where he was among the first Austrian Jews to receive Chinese visas. He succeeded in getting twenty visas for members of his immediate and extended family, including the parents of Harry Fiedler. On Kristallnacht Eric's father was arrested and held for a couple of days, and his store looted. Eric was detained at his school by members of the SA and allowed to leave only after producing his visas and ship tickets. On November 13 the entire family left together for Genoa. They sailed aboard the Conte Bianca with several hundred other Viennese Jewish refugees, arriving in Shanghai in mid-December. The family settled in the Embankment building owned by Sir Victor Sassoon. Following the Japanese occupation, the family moved to quarters in Hongkew. Eric found employment in the import/export firm run by Paul Komor, the former Hungarian consul to Shanghai. Komor, who also headed the International Committee for Refugees, utilized Eric and his other employees in its operations. In addition to these activities, Eric organized a dancing school in the ghetto and was a leading member of the Jewish soccer league. Eric remained in Shanghai until 1949, leaving one week before the communist takeover. He sailed to Canada in the summer of 1949 and settled permanently in Toronto.
Harry Fiedler is the son of Oskar and Berta (Gottfried) Fiedler. He was born July 7, 1940 in Shanghai, a year-and-a-half after his parents fled from their home in Vienna. Oskar and Berta were married in Vienna in 1938. With the help of their nephew, Erich Goldstaub (the son of Oskar's sister, Camilla Fiedler Goldstaub), they secured visas from the Chinese embassy and passage on the Italian liner Conte Bianco Mano. Twenty members of the extended Fiedler/Goldstaub family departed on November 13, 1938 a few days after the Kristallnacht pogrom. Arriving in Shanghai in mid-December, they found temporary shelter at the Embankment building owned by Sir Victor Sassoon. The refugee shelter was administered by the International Committee for European Refugees, also known as the IC or Komor Committee. Subsequently, the family moved to the Hongkew district, where they remained through the period of the Hongkew ghetto (1943-1945). The family emigrated to Canada in October 1949, one week before the Communist takeover of Shanghai.
