After the war, Shanghai started to change substantially. Alfred noted: “Well, we subsisted then until the war was over, and my father and my uncle wanted to start at the business again. They regained their original place—factory—outside the Ghetto and started up again [in 1945].”[1] However, Rudolf had a heart attack and remained very sick. Richard then liquidated the company, and Brosan Brothers was no more. Richard and his family immigrated to Australia. Rudolf, Anna, Gertrude, and Alfred stayed in Shanghai for the time being.[2]
[1] Alfred Brosan Interview, December 5, 1991.
[2] Alfred Brosan Interview, December 5, 1991.
After the war, the Shanghai refugees again scrambled to acquire visas for somewhere in the world that would take them. Encountering many of the same paper walls that had barred them in the past, many refugees had to stay for years in Shanghai after the war. As Alfred later wrote:
“Now that the war had ended the question arose what to do next. The International Settlement and The French Concession were returned to China and we were now under Chinese Jurisdiction. However, we all knew that Mao-Tse Tung’s Red Army was fighting the Nationalists and that sooner or later they would arrive in Shanghai. In the meantime, the U.S. Army arrived in Shanghai to help the Nationalists to consolidate their power. My sister met and married an American soldier and left Shanghai for the U.S.A. by the end of 1945. My father and mother could also leave for the U.S.A. soon thereafter. My father was born in Czechoslovakia and quotas were available for him and my mother. I was born in Austria and since I was already 23 years old could not leave with them. So, I stayed behind in Shanghai hoping that my quota would arrive soon.”[3]
[3] Alfred Brosan, “A Letter to My Grandchildren,” 3.
Alfred got a job in an export business as he waited for his opportunity to leave Shanghai. He remembers hearing canons fire when the Communists were 40 miles from the city.[4] With Mao Zedong’s Red Army closing in on Shanghai, Alfred did not have much time to get out of China.
[4] Alfred Brosan Interview, December 5, 1991.
Although he did manage to leave for the United States, the procedure for his doing so was nothing short of Kafkaesque:
“Austria was again an independent country, so I went to the Austrian consulate to get a passport…and with the Austrian passport, I went to the French consulate [and got] myself a transit visa with the idea of going through France and Germany to Vienna. With that visa, I went to the Canadian consulate [and] got myself a transit visa. With that visa, I went to the American consulate [and] got a transit visa for America [He laughs] and left Shanghai on the last ship to leave Shanghai [before the Communists took over Shanghai]: The General Meigs!”[5]
[5] Alfred Brosan Interview, December 5, 1991.