It is only now that I am able to write this as shortly after receiving the sad news of Eric’s demise I left on a cruise with my family. 

Eric was one of the kindest and most decent people that I have known. Whilst he was only 3 years older than me, in our Boy Scout days in Shanghai so many years ago, it made a big difference. He was looked upon as a father figure and was like a mother hen the way he looked after us boys. When first I joined the Boy Scouts, Eric was the Assistant Scout Master and Georg Pollitzer (Polly) was the Scout Master. Polly unfortunately passed away many years ago in Sydney. Eric and Polly were cast in the same mould and during those hard times did their best to provide us boys with some pleasure and enjoyment apart from teaching us values, discipline and appropriate behaviour. I can honestly say that my Boy Scout days were the most pleasurable experiences during those difficult years in Shanghai and I am sure that this would also have applied to the other members of our Troop. 

Eric was kindness personified, he was unselfish, had a wonderful sense of humor and a strong Austrian accent which some of us ‘Piefkes’ made fun of. It was all accepted by Eric with good humor. 

I remember that when I became ill just before the end of the Pacific war and was bedridden for over a year, he often came to visit me. There would be a knock on the door of our room at 992 Tongshan Rd. and when my mother asked who it was, he always responded ‘Erich von den Pfadfindern’. 

Over the years with Eric’s guidance I worked my way up from a ‘Tenderfoot’ to Assistant Scoutmaster under Eric, who had become Scoutmaster in the meantime.

I remember when we left Shanghai for Australia on May 21^st 1947 on the ss ‘Benjamin Latrobe’, a Liberty type freighter, Eric who had been working for Caltex at the time, commandeered a motor boat from his company and accompanied our ship down the Whangpoo River giving us ‘das letzte Geleit’! 

Over the year we always kept in touch and my family and I had the privilege and pleasure of meeting up with Eric and his family on a number of occasions and Rickshaw Reunions. These were always very special occasions for me, full of reminiscences and nostalgia. 

To Eric, Scouting was his life which he continued in the US and imparted to his children and grandchildren. Apart from that he had a very successful professional engineering career and was very active in a most unselfish way in his local synagogue and the Engineering Association he belonged to.  

Because of his wonderful nature and personal qualities he was a very popular and respected person who will never be forgotten. 

May Eric rest in peace and may Polly, Eric’s lovely wife, his children Alex and Caroline and grandchildren have long lives.       

Peter Witting
January 2009      

 PS The photo was presented to me by Eric just before our departure to Australia with the following dedication “To Peter Witting my dear Scout friend whom I will always remember as one of my best and dearest friends. Eric Bergtraun S.M.  Shanghai May 18^th 1947. 

PPS At the same time Eric presented me with my old Hawk Patrol flag together with a Scout Group photo and dedication “To Assistant Scoutmaster Heinz Peter Witting! The 13^th Troop takes pleasure of presenting to you enclosed as a farewell present the old flag of the Hawk Patrol in memory of your leadership of this Patrol. When you led the Hawks this Patrol was the best of our Troop. For the 13^th Troop – Eric M. Bergtraun, Scoutmaster”. The flag and numerous other mementoes are now located at Yad Vashem. 

PPPS  I just reread a copy of the Chronological Report of the History of the 13^th Boy Scout Troop which I had written in September 1946 on the occasion of the 6^th Anniversary of the 13^th Troop, which is a testament to the good work which Eric, Polly and others had done for us boys at the time!