Farewell, Betty Grebenschikoff: A Shanghai Ghetto Survivor’s Lessons of the Holocaust

Shanghai has lost a treasure with the passing, earlier this month, of Betty Grebenschikoff, one of the most active members of the Shanghai Jewish refugee community. Born Ilse Margot Kohn in Berlin in 1929, she and her family fled to Shanghai in 1939, where she lived until 1950.

Betty in Shanghai, circa 1948 (photo: Sam Tata) and in more recent times, wearing the same jacket she bought in 1940s Shanghai

Betty, who lived on 51 Chusan Road (her neighbors included future US Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal), devoted much of her adult life teaching the lessons of the Holocaust by sharing her story of being a Jewish refugee in Shanghai at talks, conferences, exhibitions, documentaries, oral histories, and a memoir, “Once My Name Was Sara”.

Betty at her Chusan Road home (photo: Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum); and the cover of her 1993 memoir

In Shanghai, Betty attended the Kadoorie School in Hongkew (Hongkou) and later, the Jewish School on Seymour Road (Shaanxi Road). And in 1948, she met her husband, Oleg Grebenschiknoff, at the Foreign YMCA on Nanking Road (Nanjing Road). A Russian refugee from Vladivostock, Oleg had lived in Shanghai since he was four, and was the Physical Director of the Foreign YMCA.  

Betty and Oleg married at the Union Church on Soochow Road–neither of their religions would accept the other, but the non-conformist Union Church did. Her wedding dress, hand-embroidered with lilies, is now on display at the Jewish Refugees Museum. The couple left Shanghai in 1950 for Australia, before emigrating to the U.S. in 1953.

Betty and Oleg’s wedding photo (left), and the wedding dress, now at the Jewish Refugees Museum (photo: Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum)

Betty was one of the voices who kept the Shanghai Jewish refugee story alive, who reminded us of one of humanity’s darkest periods, of the importance of keeping vigilant; and of safe havens in turbulent times. Betty never forgot Shanghai, and we’ll never forget her, or her message.

May her memory be a blessing.

For more on the story of Shanghai’s Jewish refugees, visit the wonderful Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, 62 Changyang Road / 长阳路62号 邮政编码: 200086 / 6512-6669