Ellen Rita Winston Berland
Ketubah, Shanghai, 1946 (Wedding Certificate)
Accompanying Photos/Documents including Postcards and Passports
Courtesy of Ellen Berland

Ellen Rita Winston Berland was born Ellen Bernstein in Berlin, 1922. Ellen’s family left Berlin in 1939 for Italy. From Italy, they made their way to Shanghai where the family stayed throughout the war.

In Shanghai, Ellen met Arno Wischtinetzky. The two were married in 1946, in Shanghai. This Ketubah shows the cultural blend between Jewish tradition and their new home in China. The marriage certificate speaks not only to the strength of love in the face of war but to the power of belief and the malleability of the Jews who were forced to create new lives far from what had been their home.

In 1949, Ellen and Arno moved to Israel and in March 1954 came to Chicago via New York City.

Ellen has donated this Ketubah to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center along with a number of photographs and documents showing the journey of the Bernstein family as they traveled away from Germany in search of peace.

For more information about the Shanghai Jewish Ghetto:

Shanghai-Jews.com
The documentary, The Shanghai Ghetto
Holocaust Encyclopedia
"The Ghosts of Shanghai," from Asiaweek, June 1997