- Now this is a cedar chest
that we brought along from Shanghai.
In the cedar chest I keep a carton of memorabilia
that we have collected primarily in Shanghai.
- [Ann] Hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor,
Japanese troops entered Shanghai,
officially occupying the city.
Suddenly, the war Peter and his family
thought they had left behind caught up with them.
- I think they lobbed a few shells into the city,
and then the world changed again.
The school that I went to was closed overnight.
It became a prisoner of war camp
for the Brits and the Americans,
a very brutal one, I'm told.
- [Ann] Japan quickly established a ghetto
of Jewish refugees in Shanghai.
- The Japanese issued a proclamation
that all stateless refugees had to move
to a restricted area.
20,000 Jewish people and several hundred thousand Chinese
were the crowded...
Things got a little bit uglier then.
- [Ann] Restricted to the ghetto
where conditions were worsening,
Peter's father found a way to survive.
He worked with another Jewish refugee,
Fritz Adler, and for nine-year-old Peter,
meeting Fritz was a life-changing moment.
- And this is Fritz.
Fritz was a tall Tyrolean, and the Tyroleans are to Austria
what the Texans are to the United States,
a little bit different.
My father and Fritz were in business together.
Their activities were laundering dollars,
literally laundering dollars.
- [Ann] In Shanghai during the war,
U.S. dollars were the currency with the most value,
and the better the condition of the dollar,
the more it was worth.
- And my dad as a chemist used his chemical skills
to develop detergents.
He would take dollars and sprinkle some smelly stuff on them
and then iron them with a flat iron
and increase their value that way.
A brand new dollar, we called them kanakas
because of the sound they make when you rattle a dollar.
- [Ann] As the business grew, so did the friendship
between young Peter and Fritz.
- Oh, this is Fritz, and this is me
with a big smile on my face.
We confided in one another.
We told one another our problems.
My parents did not get along very well.
They were talking of getting a divorce.
And they did not do this between themselves.
I was always called in to be a referee in these arguments.
- [Ann] So what was it about Fritz?
- Perhaps the best adjective was surrogate father.
He would take me to the cinema.
He bought me an air rifle, but my parents objected to it.
I don't remember ever having an argument
or disagreement with him.
It just felt more comfortable.
- [Ann] Fritz's wife Stella showered Peter with kindness,
also becoming a key figure in his life.
- Thinking back now,
I think I always felt I wanted to be in her company.
But she shaped my life.
I can count on the fingers of one hand
the number of people who have shaped my life
and made me what I am, whatever that may be worth.
- And so Stella and Fritz are among those--
- I think they made me who I am.
- [Ann] Peter and his parents lived
in the same building as the Adlers for six years.
He spent every hour he could in their rooms
becoming part of their family unit.
While they were still living there,
Stella gave birth to a daughter, Margaret.
She was just 12 months old when Peter last saw her.
- This is Fritz and his daughter Margaret.
He cannot possibly be alive anymore,
but I would very much like to see this lady,
the daughter of Fritz and Stella Adler.
She would now be, I imagine, a 70-year-old lady.
What became of her?
Did she get married?
Does she have children?
What does she think of me?
It could be that her parents never even mentioned my name,
but I doubt that very much.
- [Ann] Peter hasn't seen the Adlers
for nearly seven decades, but he's
never stopped thinking about them.
Why do you want to find Margaret?
- I think as a representative of her parents
and what they've done for me.
As a surrogate--dare I say--daughter.
- [Ann] Do you know what you want to say to her?
- I have a picture of her mom.
On the back of it, it said, "To my best friend Peter."
If there's this possibility, this is the first thing
I would like to show her.
- To show how close you were to her mother.
- Right.