A minutely observed manuscript travel diary of a research-cum-sightseeing trip to China and the USSR, ending with a nostalgic visit to Vienna, that offers glimpses of a personal history shaped by the Holocaust. Austrian-Jewish by background the electrical engineer Ernst Billig (1904-1970) was born in Vienna, was forced to flee to England where he became Head of Solid State Physics at the British holding company, Associated Electrical Industries, (AEI) where his extensively-published research focused on semiconductors, crystal growth, and power transformers.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Compact octavo format (13.1 x 9.1cm). Red flexible and textured plastic detachable covers over stiff white card boards, rounded corners, blind-ruled, blind-stamped circular motif of front-facing trolleybus to front cover with Chinese characters beneath. Red plastic a touch
grubby, mark to rear cover, text block fully separated, but tight in itself. First and final pages pink, oval vignette of trolleybus to first page, numbered in blue biro: “#306” and below: “E Billig/ China, 1965”. 19 pages of printed Chinese text, 2 fold-out (trolleybus?) maps printed in red, blue, green and black, the first double-sided; 80 leaves - 160 pages - ruled; 4 leaves - 8 pages - tables to rear. No pagination to manuscript sections, daily entries in ruled section
dated (14.08.1965 through 02.10.1965): 2 blank pages to front, 3 in between entries, and 30 blank pages to rear, plus 6 blank pages in table section; making 125 pages of ruled text (of 160) and 2 pages of notes to tables (of 8). Script, in blue biro and ink, occasionally pencil, in
a small, tight and often difficult hand, interspersed with rough, intriguing sketches; some names in Cyrillic. Numerous pieces of ephemera laid in, incl. tickets and notes. Clean and bright. The journal begins in ‘Peking’, followed by visits to ‘Nanking’, Shanghai and ‘Hanchou,’ returning to the capital, from where, on 01.09.1965, the author travels by train over 7 days to Moscow. After a two week stay, he returns home via Poland, East and West Germany, the Hook of Holland (15.09.1965) to Harwich (19.09.1965) and, finally, Liverpool Street. Later in September, he travels to Vienna, for a conference and to revisit his childhood neighbourhood.
NARRATIVE:
The author succinctly, but with close detail, documents cultural, industry-focused and academic visits to cities and provinces, including dignitaries met and receptions attended. In China, he notes, for example: - the People’s Red Star Commune, 40km south of Peking, with an overview of production and life, rich with facts and figures - its size, population & husbandry etc; - in Nanking he meets Prof. Wang (University Nanking, Physics department), and observes:
“All industry here mainly chemical, nothing electrical”. At a reception he receives a “toast of welcome,” hosted by Dr Wang, President of the Division of Science & Technology of Jiangsu province and observes that discussion focuses on the main concern in the province, agriculture.
- in Shanghai the author visits a chemical factory and in Hanchou a sanatorium.
- the diary is textured with everyday observations: “All shops open in China on Sundays,
even evenings (service to people comes first)”; children sing, “welcome foreign uncle”; at the Chinese frontier (03.09.1965) a polite doctor, asks: “do you feel well?” while the author notes the “v. close inspection, esp. my notes and papers” and decries the “stodgy” food in the restaurant car. During the long train journey, stations and distances are noted, the food at stations, and conversations with new Russian friends, who tell him: “The Chinese want war, we don’t; had enough” and “think that Chin. ‘cult’ (Mao) is all wrong.”
The author arrives in Moscow 07.09.1965 and again documents his sightseeing, industry-related and academic events, plus everyday observations. For example,
- Dr Fulaer? picks him up in his “old own car” and takes him to an Institute at Marx Prospect; he also visits the Lebedev Physical Institute and the Inst. of Neurosurgery, “Dir. of Inst. Prof. Frank”, including brief notes on people and work.
- he notes the 3km queue to see Lenin: “Policeman waved me to head of queue; hushed silence, white luminous face & hands”; he finds “stores well stocked” but “always crowds” and queuing, “(queue 2 or 3x)”.
En route home (departing 13.09.1965), in Warsaw, he visit the old market and ghetto, noting the “monument in black marble to 600, 000 Jews”.
The journal’s final entries cover a nostalgic visit to Vienna, where the author attends a conference (21.09.1965, the start of the “European Symposium on Magnetism”), and visits his old neighbourhood, including the family shop (now a sweet shop) and “Walk[s] in to daddy’s grave, all grown over, clean up (gardener lends me tools)”. He meets old acquaintances: “after 40 years! is 78 but his face & eyes not changed [...] only hair is grey. Tells about past life under Nazis (how to keep ? together in spite of Goebbels” and, another friend: “Tells us about Frans ? (arrested 1938 in Moscow, never heard since, left with 4 yr old son, Georg, also Clara & Diedrich (NKVD & Auschwitz)”; the Holocaust hangs over the visit. The Conference the author mentions in his Vienna section is the First European Conference on Hard Magnetic Materials (September 1965).
