The architect Richard Paulick wrote this letter after a dispute with a business partner. In this letter, he explains the situation he found himself in Germany in 1933. He discusses his membership in a political party, his work in the architectural bureau of Walter Gropius, his modern architectural designs and finally the attacks by SA men that ultimately induced him to leave Germany. He describes how he was stripped of his German citizenship in Shanghai because the German authorities objected to certain aspects of his life. They criticised the fact that he was married to a Jewish woman, that he employed refugees at his company and referred emigrants to positions in other companies, that he had Jewish business associates and possessed banned books.

Between 1937 and 1939, around 18,000 Jewish immigrants reached the Chinese metropolis from Europe. In 1943, all refugees who had arrived in Shanghai after 1938 were forced to move into a ghetto in the Hongkou district. Paulick, who was spared this regulation by the fact that he had arrived in 1933, was committed to helping newly arriving immigrants and made use of his many contacts: he employed refugees in his companies, referred them for work elsewhere and helped them with loans.