Qi lái!: Arise!

A year ago at a business occasion I met an amiable lady from China. We got talking and as the conversation soon turned to the topic of her homeland I of course had to tell her that my uncle Walter Freudmann had been a doctor in the Chinese army during the Sino-Japanese war and after his return home had written a book about this experience.

My interlocutor was eager to know if the book was available somewhere. I had to disappoint her because the book has been published in 1947 by a small Austrian publishing house that has long passed on and there has never been a second edition. I promised her to scan a few pages and mail them to her.

So for the first time after two or three decades I opened this book and while I prepared the file for sending I browsed through the pages. My memory had not deceived me. Sixty years after its appearance my uncles account of his deployment in the Far East was still no literary masterpiece. Nevertheless I was strangely fascinated by it and read it through to the end.

W. Freudmann as a young man

Arise draws the picture of a world a saturated European can hardly imagine—and probably will not want to imagine. A world dominated by people who—in a shameless, even obscene way that seems so far removed from the reader’s own experience—only strive ruthlessly for personal advantage, wealth and power without even the faintest trace of social awareness or responsibility for their fellow humans. Characteristic are the Chinese society ladies who ask a group of doctors on their way to join the army: But what gave you the idea of coming to China? or the British businessman who recommends dealing in pharmaceuticals: Drugs are worth their weight in gold, that’s what you should deal with!

As I read page after page I began asking myself if the strange world depicted in Arise is really so strange. Maybe here everything is just a little smoother and better hidden. Maybe it would not be so hard to find the same characters—ruthless officers, corrupt officials and hypocritical politicos—in our own society, only dressed up differently. In any case the sordid lives of the coolies, peasants and soldiers described by my uncle should warn us how cruel and unjust human beings can act when the social circumstances allow, suggest or even demand such behavior.

Barcelona, July 1938

Some of the reflections in the book and also the historical evaluation from 1947 may be outdated by now, but the reader should have no difficulty in discerning between authentic reporting of facts and the conclusions drawn here and there. Once again it proves true that what is great does not stay great and what is little does not stay little, and from a contemporary point of view the touching account of a coolie’s misery maybe have more weight than the attempt at political  analysis, even if this was not the authors intent.

Birmingham, July 1939, before leaving for China

Guiyang, November 1939

A few words now about the author, my uncle Walter

Hardly anyone who knew this modest and quiet little man in his later years would have suspected him to be the brave and fearless fighter he really was. Not only was he a staunch communist, he was also willing to stand up for his dream of a better and just world with everything he had—even his life.

1936, at the age of 25, he left his family and the homeland that had been destroyed by Austrofascism and joined the ranks of the International Brigades in the Spanish civil war. He would never see his parents again: they were murdered by the Nazis in 1942. After the defeat of the International Brigades he landed in a French internment camp. He just managed to escape from this trap by volunteering for the Chinese Red Cross which was looking for physicians to deploy at the Sino-Japanese front. For other members of the International Brigades the only way out led to Dachau con centration camp.

He hoped to help fight Japanese imperialism at the side of the Chinese communists but his hope was foiled and he was deployed with the Kuomintang army. The way this army fought—or rather did not fight— the war against Japan was as great a disappointment for him as the realization that the Chinese officers did not care the least bit about the medical care for their soldiers.

After Japan’s surrender he hurriedly returned to Austria, now liberated, only to learn that his parents were dead and that his brother Erich had been murdered by the Gestapo in Paris in 1943 for being a resistance fighter. Only his two sisters had managed to escape from the country together with their families, and his brother Armin, my father, had miraculously survived the evacuation of Buchenwald concentration camp.

His sister Selma who had endured Nazi terror in Vienna in 1938 never quite understood why he wanted to return to this country. Once she told me: First he just wanted to find his little brother, but then those two took it into their heads to establish socialism in Austria!

Vienna, after the war, with his wife Margaretha

But soon not only those two realized that their hope for a socialist Austria would not be fulfilled and the euphoria after the liberation gave way to a feeling of disenchantment and— after the withdrawal of the Soviet army—hopelessness.

For a short time my uncle worked at the Vienna Hanusch Hospital until with the help of his newly-wed wife Margaretha he could open a practice in Favoriten, one of Vienna’s working-class districts. Many of his patients were his comrades from the Communist Party. They would often have to hold out in the waiting room while from the surgery they heard heated political debates instead of medical advice.

I remember a characteristic feature of his practice: instead of the German magazines usually found in other waiting rooms he had communist pamphlets and above all the illustrated magazine China im Bild because all his life China had a special place in his heart.

The split of the worldwide communist movement in the early Sixties, caused by the conflict between China and the Soviet Union, was the next blow he had to take. My uncle took the side of the Chinese communists and left the Communist Party of Austria. But till his death he kept in touch with his comrades-in-arms from Spain and China, wherever they had ended up.

I knew my uncle Walter as an intelligent, thoughtful, but also melancholy person. Until the end he believed in his dream of a just world where all the people could live together peacefully and if he had seen a chance to do something for the realization of this dream he would not have hesitated for a moment.

Not long before his death—he was over 80 then—I once casually asked him how he had spent the weekend. We just let time pass was his laconic answer that I never forgot.

Walter Freudmann died from a stroke in 1993 aged 82. He left his wife Margaretha and his daughter Eva. His urn was buried at the Vienna Zentralfriedhof where there is also a memorial stone for the unknown grave of his parents.

Gustav Freudmann, Vienna, December 2008

As the grandson of Walter Freudmann I also wish that my grandfather’s book should not fall into oblivion. It is an impressive testimony of the deeply moving experiences of a staunch communist and anti-Fascist at the Sino-Japanese frontlines and the inhuman behavior of corrupt officers towards the soldiers whose lives they did not value in the least.

Unfortunately my grandfather left us when I was only 13 years old. Many of the questions I would like to ask him now—but by far not all of them—are being answered in this book.

My thanks go to Gustav Freudmann who took it upon himself to republish the book and who contributed the foreword.

Manuel Erber, Vienna, December 2008

Farewell to Europe

I am in England and I have the chance to see London during a six week stay, happy to have an invitation to China in my pocket. I will not speak here about the importance of this metropolis. This has been done often enough. I will not talk about the beauty of Hyde Park, the somber medieval Tower, the affluence of the City, the cosmopolitan atmosphere, the noise and the overwhelming turmoil in the streets that are lined with historic buildings, the intellectual and spiritual treasures amassed in the British Museum and the warehouses full of frozen meat along the Thames.

Deeply as the life and the contrasts in this metropolis have impressed me, the focus of my attention is the journey that lies before me. The mysteries of Asia, the depths of the ancient Chinese culture, the hurly-burly of modern movements in the colonial world and East-Asia as the hub of conflicting world-wide interests captivated me and determined my movements in England.

Here I met a student from China, a young man with a smooth doll’s face who was charmingly obliging. He took me to a Chinese art exhibition and while he explained the magnificent collection and talked about his fatherland his eyes wandered lovingly between the old shrines, the rigid masks, the delicate ink drawings. When he looked at me I was surprised by the naïve, warm and honest expression of his eyes. He was trying passionately to paint a glowing, optimistic picture of China:

Much has been written about feudal China, about coolies and the oppressed masses. It was the latest fashion in Europe to describe in detail the boundless misery of the Chinese peasant. How thoroughly all this has changed!

While he was saying this he pointed at a magnificently embroidered Chinese gown.

You know about our modern history? It is a short period but a period of profound changes. Our present government is following the principles of the great Sun Yat-Sen. Actually, his program has been almost completely realized.

The Chinese ambassador in London struck a more somber note when at a formal reception he addressed words of thanks to our group of physicians willing to serve in the Chinese health-sector. Raising his glass for a toast he spoke about the courage necessary to work there under the most difficult circumstances.

While we were nibbling biscuits and drinking genuine Chinese tea without sugar the Chinese society ladies, who were most splendidly dressed, became talkative. They were not just surprised but virtually astounded by our intentions.

But what gave you the idea to go to China?

I think I must have looked rather perplexed by this question.

We want to help the Chinese people in these hard times of war with the means of physicians.

Yes, but do you believe you will be able to work the way you want to?

This is what we would like to find out from you.

A charming smile on an inscrutable face was all I got for an answer.

We became pensive and began to suspect that apart from the China of millions of insurgent coolies there must be another China, a China of foreign clubs, of political and diplomatic conventions, a gulf between representation and reality.

Dinner jacket and cotton suit

It was the beginning of August 1939, a critical time for starting a journey to China. Every day brought news about preparations for war and Hitler’s international provocations.

During these days I began to look differently at the mighty vessels that were anchored in the ports. I had seen them as symbols of the creativity of human labor but now I kept thinking that maybe soon the beast of war would pounce on these vulnerable, delicate creations and rend them apart with fiery teeth.

Despite all the rumors and bad news we did not give up hope that peace could be preserved. We were resolved to go to China and we received our tickets from the China Medical Aid Committee that was organizing our journey.  On August 5 we crossed the gangway to the deck of the Aeneas.

This name of a classical hero was borne by an English steamer with a big cargo hold and room for 50 first class passengers. The middle part of the long ship consisted only of the cabins and function rooms. A life of unimaginable luxury awaited us: extremely comfortable state rooms, ample and tasty meals in elegant surroundings, mirrored dance halls and mahogany paneled gambling halls; in short, amenities and an atmosphere that would meet the expectations of the most spoiled top-class traveler.

It would soon become obvious that we did not fit in with these extravagant people.

The dinner gong was sounded and we did not appear in evening dress. What an insult to the eyes of the high society. Our humble bodies were clad in the cheap cotton suits we had been given after our release from the French internment camp. I think that indeed we did not look very presentable. The business men, missionaries and adventurers traveling on the ship attached great importance to making an impression. They were definitely not interested in looking beyond outward appearances. To them only what you had, or at least pretended to have, mattered.

While the threat of war was looming over all continents, these people, be they old or young, were only after erotic adventures. Games, dancing or conversation were only the refined expression of primitive sexual desire. Two topics were being avoided in a most conspicuous way: business and war…

Two young Chinese—colored people—made friends with us, obviously realizing that they, just like us, did not fit in. They were nice people and maybe their passage had been paid for by some charitable organization, too. They had graduated in English literature, so they were inoculated with guaranteed Anglo-Saxon mentality as it were. They told us they would now work for their country. It remained a mystery how they would make use of their profound knowledge of Milton, Shakespeare and Byron in the struggle against Japan. They were friendly, amiable in an Eastern sort of way and exceedingly helpful. One of them found pleasure in teaching us Chinese. We had been told that this language was impossible to learn. But after the first days of study we began to have the wildest hopes. From our daily progress we concluded that we would soon master the language. This optimism was actually quite useful.

Once we stood on Chinese ground we immediately lost our illusions. Still, the first hours of study had convinced us that there was no reason to fear any insurmountable difficulties. With diligence and persistence it is possible to learn even Chinese.

We could not learn anything about internal conditions in China from our two friends. It was astonishing how they seemed to know practically nothing. I think they were afraid to appear ungrateful to their English benefactors if they had told us the truth. In China not everything was as the leading circles in England would have it.

Spain revisited

Behind gray fog and thick cloudbanks lay the continent. The old Europe was hiding from our view. In the bay of Biscaya a storm that raged for hours descended upon us and evoked in us all the revolting symptoms of heavy seasickness.

After long hours of torment the gale subsided and the sea became calm again, showing a friendly, harmless surface that reflected the glittering sunshine. We gathered on deck and continued our study of the strange sounds and characters of the Chinese language.  In the distance a coastline appeared on the horizon. It is Spain! exclaimed our colleague Hehr. Once again we would see the country we had known during the disruptions of the Civil War. Now we were approaching land and little by little it unfurled into an idyllic scene. At the foot of a huge mountain lay a Basque village showered in golden sunlight. The church tower in its middle and the cemetery wall were clearly visible. Had Spain, after the defeat of democracy, not become a graveyard for everything free, alive and striving?

From the year 1937 onwards I had taken part in the Spanish liberation war as a young physician. I had witnessed glorious victories, suffered sad defeats and lastly found myself behind the barbed wire of a French internment camp. Many months had passed before I was released by the camp authorities, together with other doctors who were now travelling to China with me, on the condition that we leave France immediately.

We were overwhelmed by memories. Our arrival in Spain, when thousands of raised fists had greeted us, the hard work at the military hospital at the Jarama front, the dramatic days of the battle of Teruel, the joyous victory at Brunete, the temperamental songs of the Spanish village girls and the bitter retreat over the Pyrenees into France.

Over there was the homeland of the Basque orphans we had visited in Birmingham just before our departure from England. Torn away from their native soil and the care of their parents, handed over to emotionless benefactors, they were now withering away in a remote part of that bleak manufacturing town.

When we had entered the building in Birmingham an atmosphere of misery and loneliness had hit us. Gloomy rooms almost without any furniture stared at us. Our arrival had stirred the house into frantic activity. A most embarrassing show had been put on. At the signal of an old looking girl the Basque children with their shy, skinny faces had stood in a row, looking more like waxworks at a fair than human beings. Then in a strange mechanical way they had rattled off their songs. Monotonous, empty. No sign of the liveliness, the passionate sounds we had once heard from the Spaniards. Were these the same Spanish songs we had listened to so enthusiastically? There could not have been a more informative report about the fate of these poor children than this sad performance, and surely it had not been the first time they had been tortured with it. What might they have suffered? Some of them were toiled away in a workshop for their living, others were used in the fields. They had not had any school lessons for weeks. The children were not to be instructed in the corrupting ideas for which their parents had sacrificed their lives. But then, against all regulations, when the boys at last had started to dance and sing their Basque freedom songs, their very own Spanish vivacity had revealed itself. Here it was again, the upright fighting spirit we loved and adored so much, the noble, proud attitude we had learned to admire in those years. Spain rose before our eyes again, this marvellous, violated, unhappy land.

Our ship held a course that unstoppably separated us from the Spanish coast and tore