[Photo story] A German professor in Qingdao: Margot Grzywacz

(All photos courtesy of Zou Dehuai except otherwise stated.)

In July 2023, I purchased from a German collector over 200 photographs and documents showing a record of German professor Margot Grzywacz’s ten years in China. 

According to German scholar Wilhelm Matzat’s records, Grzywacz was born on 20 April 1901 in Hamburg, Germany. Her father was a merchant ship captain who later became the editor-in-chief of the Hamburgischer Correspondent.

In 1920, Grzywacz graduated from the Unterrichtsanstalten des Klosters St. Johannis (St. Johannes Monastery Teaching Institution) in Hamburg. However, the happy event was dampened by the loss of both her parents in the same year. 

She turned her grief into determination to pursue her studies. Grzywacz passed the middle school teacher qualification examination in February 1921, and then studied modern languages, philosophy and pedagogy at the University of Hamburg (1920-21) and University of Munich (1921-25), as well as a university in Rome and Friedrich Wilhelm University (now Humboldt University) in Berlin (1926). She obtained her doctoral degree in March 1925.

After completing four more semesters of medical courses, Grzywacz took the Hamburg middle school teacher examination again in November 1928 and obtained teaching certificates in French, Italian and Spanish. 

In 1929, with the help of her former high school principal Gustav Wendt, she received a residence permit from the foreign ministry to study in Russia. 

However, soon after, she followed a Japanese professor to Japan and spent the autumn of 1929 to 1930 learning Japanese in Kyoto. At the same time, she juggled working as a teacher at a Japanese girls’ school, as well as for a German-Japanese cultural magazine.

In 1930, Grzywacz arrived in China and worked as a French professor at Tsinghua University while also teaching German at other universities, all while learning Chinese. The diaries of archaeologist Xia Nai and sinologist Ji Xianlin give us a glimpse into the situation at the time.

Xia, then 22 years old, had transferred from Yenching University’s sociology department to Tsinghua University’s history department as a second-year student, while Ji had joined Tsinghua’s foreign languages and literature department in 1930. French was a required course for students from different departments.

Xia took Grzywacz’s French class in the autumn of 1932. His diary entry dated 1 May 1933 wrote: “Professor Grzywacz has been ill and has not taught classes since the spring break.” 

On 25 October, he wrote: “When I took second-year French class last semester, I found Grzywacz mediocre and unenthusiastic about teaching. I became unmotivated and lazy as a result. This year, I’m finding third-year French quite difficult.” 

Ji scribbled only one line in his diary: “Grzywacz, female, teaches French, probably Polish.”

In 1934, Grzywacz left Beijing and moved to Qingdao, where she taught at Shandong University (Qingdao).

The reason for her move is unclear, but some inferences can be made. Her passport, issued on 29 June 1931, stated: “Tsinghua University faculty travelling to Shandong, Shanxi and other provinces, issued accordingly.”

Perhaps her Shandong travels inspired her to teach in Qingdao.

There is also a letter addressed to “Mr Margot Grzywacz c/o Mr Li Zhongheng”. The envelope bears the name of Shandong University. 

Li Zhongheng, real name Li Da, was a native of Hunan’s Pingjiang county. He graduated from the mathematics department of National Central University in 1928 and received his PhD in mathematics from University of Munich in 1934.

After returning to China, he became a professor at Tsinghua University and Shandong University, where he headed the mathematics department — he resigned after one year. He also taught at Tongji University and Hunan Normal University, heading the mathematics department there as well.

According to records, Li took over from Huang Jiyu as head of the mathematics department at Shandong University in the summer of 1935. As friends, Li and Grzywacz kept frequent contact, and they shared similar experiences in education and research. Hence, it is possible that Grzywacz’s decision to teach in Qingdao was influenced by Li’s introduction and recommendation.

According to research by Yang Hongxun, a specialist in school histories at the Ocean University of China, foreign teachers taught in various faculties in Shandong University, especially German experts. “They were in the arts and engineering faculties. Most were part-time professors, reflecting the school’s international vision and educational philosophy.” 

In the commemorative book for Shandong University’s centennial, Grzywacz’s name appears in a list of 12 professors under the foreign language department, after playwright Hong Shen and before Tsingtao Times (《青岛时报》) editor Ling Dayang.

According to the writings of Matzat, Grzywacz taught German at Shandong University from 1934 to the end of 1937. It was at that time that she also began translating Chinese books.

During this period, Grzywacz made multiple trips to Shanghai, one of which was on 31 July 1936. On 10 February 1938, she made another trip to pay a 5 RMB (US$0.70) membership fee to the Science Society of China, staying in room 613 of the Park Hotel Shanghai.

In 1939, following Japan’s second occupation of Qingdao, Grzywacz temporarily worked at the German school in Qingdao. In 1941, she took Japanese language night classes at the private Dongwen School, which was previously shut down for being pro-Japanese and reopened after Qingdao fell. 

She returned to work at the German school three years later, from September 1942 to June 1946. 

In August 1947, Grzywacz was deported back to Germany against her will. When the ship reached the Suez Canal, she tried to jump into the water to swim to shore, but was fortunately discovered and stopped in time.

After returning to Germany, she worked as a lecturer at an interpretation school in Germersheim and later moved to Canada, where she taught French in Revelstoke. After retiring in 1966, she worked on the Caribbean island of Antigua for two years, and then went to a former French colony in Central Africa. 

Her later life was relatively affluent, owning apartments in Vancouver in Canada and Costa del Sol in Spain, where she eventually passed away.

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