'A fast-paced, beautifully written, and moving story. Refreshing to read a book set in a different theatre of war. Wartime Shanghai jumped off the page' CLARE FLYNN
A poignant story of the impossible choices we make in the shadow of war, for fans of Daisy Wood and Marius Gabriel.
1941. When Zofia’s beloved husband Haru is conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army, she is left to navigate Japanese-occupied Shanghai alone.
Far from home and surrounded by a country at war, Zofia finds unexpected comfort in a bond with Hilly, a spirited young refugee escaping Nazi-occupied Austria.
As violence tightens its grip on the city, they seek shelter with Theo, Zofia’s American employer. But with every passing day, the horrors of war and Haru’s absence begin to reshape Zofia’s world – and her heart.
Can she still love someone who has become the enemy?
Readers love The Enemy's Wife:
'A gorgeous novel that will truly pull at your heartstrings' CARLY SCHABOWSKI
'I loved The Enemy’s Wife – a gripping, fast-paced and evocative story about the Japanese occupation of Shanghai during WW2 – and really rooted for the brave and selfless central character, Zofia. Highly recommended' ANN BENNETT
'Such an emotional and moving read, grounded in immaculate research that never overshadows the heart of the story' SUZANNE FORTIN
The Jewish Ghetto in Shanghai
By Deborah Swift
“Shanghai was a strange refuge—alien, chaotic, yet a place of survival.”
In the early 1940s, as Jews like my main character Zofia, tried to escape Nazi-controlled Europe, most countries closed their borders. However, Shanghai remained an open port city, and between about 1938 and 1941, nearly 20,000 Jewish refugees, mainly from Germany and Austria, arrived there. Many settled in the area called Hongkew, a poor, already crowded district that had been heavily affected by earlier bombing and fighting.
At the time of my novel, Japan had occupied Shanghai except for some foreign-controlled areas like the International Settlement. Following Japan’s alliance with Nazi Germany, pressure increased to restrict Jewish refugees. The Japanese authorities established what they officially called the Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees. This is what we now refer to as the Shanghai Jewish Ghetto. Within the ghetto they needed permits to leave, but unlike Nazi ghettos in Europe, this was not an extermination camp, and there was no systematic mass murder policy.
Life in the Ghetto
Most refugees arrived with little or nothing and were housed in overcrowded houses and or subdivided rooms, often with multiple families sharing a single space. These buildings were badly maintained having been damaged from earlier fighting in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and had few facilities. There was little heating in winter, intense heat in summer, limited clean water, and privacy was almost non-existent. Some Jewish writers used a Yiddish expression to describe Shanghai: shond khay, "a shame of a life."
Despite these harsh conditions, the Jewish community were intent on survival and built for themselves a functioning society – Schools, newspapers, and theatres were established and many refugees recreated a semblance of European cultural life. Despite restrictions, a small internal economy developed and refugees opened cafés, bakeries, tailoring shops, and repair services. Money was scarce, so bartering was very common. Newspapers and newsletters circulated within the community, and lectures, concerts, and literary events were held. This wasn’t just entertainment – it was psychological survival. Maintaining culture helped people cope with exile and uncertainty.
The uncertainty of being in a war zone cannot be underestimated. The ghetto suffered from bombing raids, after the Attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1945 U.S. bombing raids hit Hongkew, causing casualties among civilians, including Jewish refugees.
Integration with the Chinese Community
Hongkew was already home to many poor Chinese families before the refugees arrived, so the two communities were forced to live lived side by side, often sharing the same hardships. These two underclasses developed cooperation and mutual understanding, since both groups suffered under the brutal Japanese occupation.
The Chinese were considered to be lower than animals in the estimation of the Japanese army and were treated like slave labour. After 1943, when the Japanese created the restricted zone, all movement was monitored, passes were needed to go anywhere, and curfews and regulations controlled all routines. Punishment for disobeying the Japanese was violent and uncompromising and could lead to imprisonment or death.
The ghetto effectively ended with Japan’s defeat in 1945 and the conclusion of World War II. The entry of US troops into Shanghai was a double-edged sword – both jubilation that the Japanese were defeated, but also the news of the fate of their relatives in the Holocaust. Most refugees had heard nothing since the spring of 1941 from the families they had left behind in occupied Europe. And the long business of tracing them would take far more time.
Those lucky enough to live in the ghetto remember it as a place where, however harsh it was, at least they could survive.
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The Enemy’s Wife tells the story of Zofia and her friend Hilly who live in the ghetto at the beginning of the novel, before fate takes them into the larger landscape of occupied China.
Deborah used to be a costume designer for the BBC, before becoming a writer. Now she lives in an old English school house in a village full of 17th Century houses, near the glorious Lake District. Deborah has an award-winning historical fiction blog at her website www.deborahswift.com.
Deborah loves to write about how extraordinary events in history have transformed the lives of ordinary people, and how the events of the past can live on in her books and still resonate today.
Her WW2 novel Past Encounters was a BookViral Award winner, and The Poison Keeper was a winner of the Wishing Shelf Book of the Decade.
