Document Type
Oral History
Publication Date
6-10-1990
Abstract
Copyright Steve Hochstadt. This transcript is provided for individual research purposes only; for all other uses, including publication, reproduction and quotation beyond fair use, permission must be obtained in writing from: Steve Hochstadt, c/o The Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, Bates College, 70 Campus Avenue, Lewiston, Maine 04240-6018.
Recommended Citation
Hochstadt, Steve, "Bloomfield, Alice oral history interview" (1990). Shanghai Jewish Oral History Collection. 65.
https://scarab.bates.edu/shanghai_oh/65
COinS
Scope and Content Note
Alice Stern was born in Berlin in July 1902. Her father had a wholesale food business. Her mother died when she was 8 years old, and her father remarried. She married Herbert Blumenfeld (1899-1957), born in Leszno in Posen, in 1925, and they lived in Berlin. They had two children: Irene (1929-) and Ernst (1937-2013), and a business in ladies’ hats.
Herbert was arrested before Kristallnacht and falsely accused of molesting a child, but eventually released. The family sailed on the “Giulio Cesare” of the Lloyd Triestino line on 20 April 1939 and arrived in Shanghai on 15 May. They lived in Hongkou for 6 weeks, then moved to 333 Cardinal Mercier in the French Concession. She designed ladies’ hats and owned the Salon-Chapeau-Chic. Herbert worked as a night watchman.
They were able to leave Shanghai on the Japanese ship “Tatu Maru” and landed in San Francisco in November 1940. They opened two cleaning stores there. After Herbert died, she moved to Walnut Creek to be closer to her family, and later to Laguna Hills. She met Paul Feitler (1904-1999) there, who appears in the interview. Alice Bloomfield died in 2006.