Hans Jacoby and his doctor wife Emma landed in Shanghai in 1941 where Emma Jacoby’s sister Gertrude Loewenrosen and her husband Siegfried L. Loewenrosen awaited them. Shortly after their arrival they were able to buy a house in a higher standard Shanghainese alleyway settlement. Unlike the majority of the European-Jewish refugees, their first residence was located outside foreign territory, in Columbia Road in the western district extension. The area around Columbia Road, also known as Columbia Circle had been subjected to a generous building development plan in the 1920s and housed many luxurious garden villas of which several were designed by the émigré architect L. E. Hudec. Emma Jacoby continued to work as a doctor and set up her own medical practice in the city centre while Hans Jacoby continued to work as an artist. Thanks to the war and the deteriorating living standards of many Shanghai residents, their first residence, which was beyond the reach of the settlement police, became unsafe. Their second residence was located close to and the third residence was located in the International Settlement. Hans Jacoby’s life in Shanghai is exceptionally well documented and available to the public as he donated his diaries, memoirs and documents, as well as a number of artworks, to the Leo Baeck Institute in New York. Thus, the following short text is largely based on his accounts. He wrote about his artistic routines and subjects and the networks he established in Shanghai, as well as about his encounters with local residents. Hans and Emma Jacoby were among the very few to learn Chinese seriously and establish contacts and friendships from among the Chinese community, who were to provide a great deal of support during the harsh war years and the couple's internment in the so-called Shanghai Ghetto. Before their forced relocation to a small room in Hongkou, they lived at three different addresses. Finding accommodation in Hongkou proved to be very difficult. The "Designated Area" was already densely populated and housing had been scarce before. Among Hans Jacoby's international acquaintances and friends were the architects Rudolf Hamburger and Richard Paulick, the sinologist and Asian language scholar Willy Tonn, who founded and ran the Asia Seminar in Hongkou, the journalist Alfred Dreifuß, Lothar Nagel their Chinese teacher, the later ARTA artists, the art dealer Armand Grosz, the art historian Lothar Brieger-Wasservogel and the photographer Hermann Schieberth. Hamburger and Paulick introduced Jacoby to local artists and students and Jacoby makes mention of his acquaintanceship with Chen Chi (1912–2005), who taught at St. John’s University in Shanghai (1942–1946) and emigrated in 1947 to the United States, where he pursued his artistic career. In his Shanghai records, Jacoby frequently mentioned his friend and student Mr. Wu. For safety reasons he used various aliases for persons he feared to compromise in his private writings. According to Jacobi Mr. Wu’s real name was Koo Bun Sun. According to his notes he had to be a member of the wealthy local elite. It was him who provided Hans Jacoby with his Chinese name. Armand Grosz’s alias was Professor Klein. Jacoby's records, which in part sound like fiction, refer to Professor Klein in the context of dubious art business practices, the British Secret Service and Ignaz Trebitsch Lincoln who was seen in in the so-called Shanghai Ghetto at that time. However, Grosz activities in the art field in Shanghai can be traced. Paulick, through whom Jacobi made Grosz's acquaintance, organised an exhibition of artworks by the artist Lesser Ury (1861–1931) in the rooms of Modern Homes. A Sotheby's auction of Israeli and International Art on 16 December 2008 in New York lists a pastel painting by Lesser Ury called House by a Lake. The following is given as provenance: “Lucie and Leo Meyerheim by descent from the estate of the artist, 1931 Professor Armand Grosz, Shanghai, circa 1939 (purchased from the above) Fritz and Adelaide Kauffman, Shanghai, circa 1944 purchased from the above) Donated to the present owner from the above, 1999.” The exhibition was apparently well received, at least a short time later a newspaper article appeared reporting on the latest fashion to decorate one's living space in the signature colors of Lesser Ury's paintings.
Hans Jacoby reports that he bought his artistic supplies at the Wing One department store and via a friend who had a small business in Hongkou. This friend's last name was Kuttner and he died on May 14 in 1942 during one of many pandemic outbreaks due to the lack of proper nutrition and healthcare. When art supplies became scarce and the price inflated, Jacoby sometimes was provided with material by his clients, such as Paulick or Grosz, but his commissions became fewer.
Despite the precarious, constricted and health damaging circumstances in the so-called Shanghai Ghetto, Hans and Emma Jacoby each managed to pursue their professions. With ongoing inflation, food shortages, increasing war activity and air raids, the situation became intense. The climate – heat, humidity, floods and icy winds – also took their toll. Throughout his time in Shanghai, Hans Jacoby’s art reflects his interest in local culture and religion. He observed street life and its social logistics, as well as the social logistics that shaped its protagonists. Like almost all foreign artists he portrayed the Rishka people, monks and street vendors. As an ARTA member and a Jewish artist at the Russian-Jewish Club, he took part in a few exhibitions organised by Paulick. In 1947, Hans and Emma Jacoby emigrated to the United States, to Massapequa, Long Island, and later settled in Miami in 1968.