After three years of adjustment and peace in Shanghai, times grew difficult. On December 8, 1941—coinciding with the attack on Pearl Harbor—the Japanese took over control of all of Shanghai. From that point, the Japanese occupation forces gradually started to take control of businesses in the city. Brosan Brothers continued during the initial years of the war, but things ultimately became unmanageable after the Japanese set up a Designated Area (often referred to as the “Ghetto”) for the stateless refugees in 1943. This restriction limited the markets to which the Brosans were able to sell. The business had attracted customers all over Europe and outside the city. The restrictions imposed by the Japanese meant that Brosan Brothers was cut off from outside customers. A smaller market of customers made the process of running a business difficult for all Shanghai Jewish refugees involved in commerce. Rudolf and Richard had to dissolve the business, and the family had to live off savings for the rest of the war. Alfred later explained the situation the Brosan family found itself in at the time: “Now [after the establishment of the Designated Area] however, everything came again to naught. The local businesses that kept functioning and had a need for our leathergoods were barely enough to sustain the business. Luckily, my father had accumulated enough savings in the good years prior to Pearl Harbor to keep us going for the next few year[s] until the war ended.”[1] As for Alfred: “I worked for a Chinese-Dutch company until after the war broke out, and the Dutch gentleman, whose name was Mr. Vanderbeen was interned when all the British, and French, and Allied citizens were put into camps. After that, I really didn’t do any work until my father moved into the Ghetto with the factory in 1943.”[2]
[1] Alfred Brosan, “A Letter to My Grandchildren,” 2-3.
[2] Alfred Brosan Interview, December 5, 1991. The Japanese interned citizens of the Allied countries in internment camps. This history has become familiar to many through Steven Spielberg’s 1987 film Empire of the Sun. Many Sephardi Jews living in Shanghai were interned as British citizens. For a fascinating memoir of a woman who had been interned with her Sephardi family as a girl, see Ester Shifren, Hiding in a Cave of Trunks: A Prominent Jewish Family's Century in Shanghai and Internment in a WWII POW Camp, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012.
Although the business had to be moved, the Brosans themselves did not need to move because they already lived within the Designated Area. As Alfred explained: “To our good fortune, my father had purchased a house during the productive years and since we were already living in this Designated Area, therefore, were saved the trauma of finding new housing. With the exception of the bombings of Shanghai during the war nothing of import happened until The Atomic Bomb was unleashed on Japan and the war ended.”[3]
[3] Alfred Brosan, “A Letter to My Grandchildren,” 2-3.