In January of 1940, just prior to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in the international settlement of Shanghai, everyone felt relatively calm and safe. That was despite the fact that the Japanese army was camped across the Huangpo river. This past May 21, I traveled to visit Beijing and Shanghai; it was my third trip to Shanghai and my second to Beijing. Shanghai was the city of my birth.

I was born to Russian-Jewish parents who had gone there as children in the 1920s, escaping the persecution of Jews in Russia and Europe. At the time, there were about 25,000 to 30,000 Jewish refugees in Shanghai, predominantly Russians, who managed to escape in the 1920s.

My mother was born in Harbin, Manchuria, of parents born in...