Additional Info
Elizabeth Sametz's daughter of Muller. The scription is well kept but one piece of the stone is missing. The stone is now located in the Buddhist cemetery in the west of Shanghai. This place use to be International cemetery until the cultural revolution of China. In 1958, all the four Jewish cemeteries in Shanghai moved to this international cemetery in the west of the city. During the cultural revolution all the western graves in this place where destoried. The headstones located in this place at the moment were placed there by the local authorities by request of the Israeli consulate of Shanghai after we showed them many lost Jewish headstones that can be found in the villages west of the city. . Elizabeth died in Shanghai at the age of 47. Son Eric Sametz was located in Sydney by Dr. Andrew Jacobowitz.

From the family
Elizabeth Muler was born on the 8th March, 1895 in a small town in the district of Moravia in what is now the Czech Republic, a family of four children, three girls and one boy. Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary at that time were all part of the Austro-Hungarien empire under the rule of Kaiser Franz-Joseph, one believes that life was pleasant and comfortable, their religion was secondary in their life style.

The brother and one sister and the parents perished during the Holocaust, the other sister fled to France. It is not known when Elizabeth came to Vienna, nor how, nor where she met her husband Rudi but they had a comfortable home, a very large and elegant flat in the 9th District and also a shop selling ladies clothing, they seemed to have led a cultured and civilized life, there was always a maid and frequent holidays to various resorts in Europe.

From the mid 1930's life began to be less pleasant. The political climate in Europe was exactly right for the rise to power of a lunatic like Adolf Hilter and the Christian population of most European countries were anit-sematic.
In March 1938 the Germans marched into Austria and daily life became extremely difficult for the Jews remaining, these who could possibly leave went and the remainder were desperate to do so, the Sametz family had no sponsors or opportunity to enter U.S.A., or Israel or Australia etc.

On the 10th November, 1938 there was a serious program, everybody knows about Kyrstallnacht Rudolp Sametz was arrested and at that time given a choice of leaving the country immediately abandoning all possessions or going to a camp, naturally they left with one suitcase each. The Sametz family Rudolf, Elizabeth, daughter Hedy and son Erich left by ship, via Italy, for Shanghai,China. Shanghai at that time was an international port and gave sancturay to about 25,000 European Jews fleeing for their lives from the Holocaust, they were stateless and had limited funds. As they settled there being resourceful they became self-sufficient not a financial burden to their
adopted country, an American organisation called the J.O.I.M.T. Funded by Switzerland, provided a hostel for the seriously destitute. Fortunately a friend of Rudolf had just left for England and Rudi gave him 200 English pounds, a fortune at that time, he sent it to him in Shanghai and they were able to find a place to live and a small shop. A great deal has been written about the Refugee community in Shanghai they did adapt, they had a newspaper, cafes, sporting clubs and some sort of life, it was certainly an improvement on what fate befell many millions of others. Elizabeth was 43 years old when the family arrived in China, one presumes that the difficulties of day to day living, that is limited food and poor standard of housing, financial problems etc, etc, adversely affected her health, the family believe that her heart was not strong.

In 1942 she was bitten by a flea which came from vernin. She contracted typhoid fever and was hospitalised. The medical care for the refugees was not of a high standard and sadly a few days later on 19/6/42 she passed away aged 47 and was buried in the Jewish Section of the cemetery in Baikal Road.

The Japanese occupied Shanghai in 1942, later the refugees were obliged to move to a ghetto like area called Honkew, standard of living dropped appreciably, they were also bombed by the Americans who knew nothing of their existence. During this period the cemetery was resumed, probably in the fifties, most of the refugees left in the mid to late forties so no dated or procedures about the cemetery are known. The Sametz's came to Sydney in December 1946 Hedy Porges and her brother Erich Sametz still reside in Sydney.