Paula, Josef and Frieda Fruchter: Letters from Shanghai Exile 1941–1949

• Applicant: Dr. Sophie Fetthauer
• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: from 2023 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 515699733

In April/May 1941, the pianist and vocal coach Paula Fruchter (1896-1983) and the singer, singing teacher and cantor Josef Fruchter (1900-1976) fled to Shanghai with their eight-year-old daughter Frieda (1933-2020). They were among the approximately 18,000 mostly Jewish refugees who sought refuge from Nazi persecution in the Chinese port city. Supplemented by messages from her husband and daughter, Paula Fruchter wrote almost 70 letters, postcards, telegrams and Red Cross messages to her mother and other relatives in Vienna between 1941 and 1949. Since the mother was not affected by antisemitic persecution, she survived the Nazi period in Vienna and with her the letters. This is absolutely exceptional, because in most cases the addressees of letters from Shanghai were deported and the correspondence was lost along with their belongings. The Fruchters’ letters, for which no reply letters have survived, were written in three phases. The first messages were written during the flight from Vienna via Berlin, Moscow, Siberia and Manchukuo. They give an impression of the circumstances of the journey, of cities and landscapes as well as approaching foreign worlds. The final section is made up of four letters written during the ship passage from Shanghai via Italy to Israel and in Raanana, Israel. These are mainly about hopes and fears for the future. The letters from Shanghai make up the largest part. In addition to the professional situation (concerts, teaching, work as cantor in the synagogue, working conditions, competitive situation, etc.), they deal with everyday life in Shanghai (accommodation, food, health, climate, education, contact networks and considerations for further migration or remigration in the post-war period). Against the background of the difficult situation in Shanghai and the concern for her mother in Vienna, Paula Fruchter in particular developed writing strategies – typical of letters from exile – that served both to reassure herself and to calm her mother. The aim of the project is a two-part publication. The first part will be an analytical study. It will analyse the Fruchters’ exile-specific communication strategies and thus, among other things, the image that was conveyed to the family in Vienna of the conditions in Shanghai, including musical life. This is combined with explanations of the state of research, the source situation, the historical background, the biographies of the Fruchters and the family contexts. The letter edition, including commentary and reference apparatus, a letter index and a report on the editorial problems and decisions, will form the second part. The project is connected to the applicant’s monograph “Musiker und Musikerinnen im Shanghaier Exil 1938–1949” (2021) and is intended to build on methodological considerations on the history of entanglements tried out there.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants