Boy Scout service medal awarded to Shanghai troop leader

Eric Bergtraun (1925-2008) was born Erich Maximilian Bergtraun in Vienna to Edmund Leon Bergtraun and Lilly Wagner Bergtraun. His family left Austria for Shanghai shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938 and was forced to live in the Hongkew Ghetto for three years as the war intensified. Eric was active in the underground British Boy Scouts and became Scout Master after the war. He immigrated to the United States in 1948, settled in San Francisco, and married Polly Bergtraun (nee Hertz). 

The medal was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2000 by Eric Bergtraun. 

Boy Scout service medal awarded to Shanghai troop leader 

overall: Height: 2.750 inches (6.985 cm) | Width: 1.375 inches (3.493 cm) 

No restrictions on access 

No restrictions on use 

Gray metal, stamped medal with embossed details hanging from a faded, red grosgrain ribbon and attached to a gray metal pin bar. The medal is oval-shaped, with the World Scout Emblem, a fleur-de-lis, at the top, and four lines of raised gray and black-enameled English text in the center. Around the central oval is a U-shaped ring containing the name of the city in large, red-enameled lettering at the bottom. On either side of the oval are small rectangles containing the dates of occupation. The metal bar features four, horizontally-aligned, six-pointed stars set inside a narrow, rectangular border. The metal is tarnished and the ribbon is frayed along the edges