refugee-experience

This chapter traces the intertwined histories of Isidor Landsman and Hertz Shemets, Jewish refugees from Europe who resettle in the Alaskan Sitka Settlement after World War II. It recounts Landsman's traumatic chess game with grandmaster Tartakower, the hardships of the Shemets family adapting to the harsh conditions of the Alaskan settlement, and their eventual reunion in Sitka, highlighting the emotional and cultural dislocation experienced by Jewish survivors in a liminal, impermanent homeland.

This chapter follows Hock Seng, a displaced yellow card refugee living in a slum, as he carefully retrieves hidden cash from a secret bamboo cache while reflecting on the insecurity of banks, the impermanence of wealth, and his lost past as a prosperous sea trader. The narrative explores his cautious survival tactics amid poverty and danger, his philosophical acceptance of suffering and impermanence influenced by Buddhist thought, and his nostalgic longing for a vanished life of prosperity and family. The chapter closes with a memory of escape and hope under a starry sky, contrasting the harsh present with distant dreams.