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Expert illuminates Shanghai’s role as place of refuge for Jews during World War II
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Editor’s note:
Wang Jian is a professor of history and international political economy at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. His research has focused on global public goods, Middle East studies and Jewish communities in China. Recently Shanghai Daily reporter Michelle Qiao spoke with Wang about his latest findings from Israel’s Messenger, an English-language newspaper published in Shanghai that focused on the city’s Jewish community.
Q: How many “life visas” did Ho Feng-shan, the Chinese consul-general in Vienna, sign for Jewish refugees during World War II?
A: It’s hard to count the exact number of “life visas” during Ho’s term from March 1938 to May 1940. But the estimated number was amazing. A Jewish refugee’s passport was signed with visa No. 238 on June 1938 while only a month later, another passport’s visa number exceeded No. 1200. That means he signed nearly 1,000 visas in a month.
The peak period for Jewish refugees arriving in Shanghai was between August 1938 and August 1939, when around 4,000 Austrian Jews traveled to Shanghai by sea. Most of them came with Ho’s visas. In addition, many Jewish people used the China visa simply as a certificate to escape from concentration camps and went to other countries such as Palestine afterwards. So I believe Ho signed at least 5,000 visas for Jewish refugees. The number was greater than the 3,500 visas signed by Sugihara Chiune, Japanese Vice-Consul in Lithuania.
Ho faced great pressure from his superior, the Chinese ambassador to Germany, Chen Jie, who feared aiding the Jews would harm Sino-German relationship, which were ebbing at the time. Despite this, Ho insisted on signing visas for the Jews.
Q: How many Jewish refugees did Shanghai save during World War II?
A: Large numbers of Jewish refugees escaped to Shanghai as the Nazi government’s Jewish persecution intensified from August 1938, especially after Krystalnacht in November. The number grew from less than 30 refugees in August 1938 to between 200 and 700 refugees every month after November.
According to Israel’s Messenger, Shanghai’s Committee for the Assistance of Jewish Refugees estimated that there were 3,000 refugees arriving every month from June to September 1938, which would bring the number of refugees to 21,000. During a scarlet fever epidemic in Shanghai, the committee came under pressure as it coped with the flood of refugees. The committee had to ask the Shanghai Municipal Council to restrict refugees to Shanghai.
After the restriction decree was announced in August 1939, the number of refugees dropped sharply. But still more than 6,000 refugees managed to come to Shanghai in various ways.
The 1940 annual report of the committee proclaimed that it had received 23,310 Jewish refugees in that year.
I estimate Shanghai sheltered around 25,000 Jewish refugees during World War II. This number surpassed the total number of Jewish refugees received by five other countries including Canada, Australia, India, South Africa and New Zealand. Therefore, “Shanghai” has become a synonym for “asylum” in the study of Nazi massacre.
Q: Is there any other Chinese cities that have saved Jewish refugees like Shanghai?
A: On the way to Shanghai, some refugees stopped in other Chinese cities and settled there. Some Jewish refugees in Shanghai also left for other Chinese cities for various reasons.
These Chinese cities included Dalian, Qingdao, Tianjin and Harbin. Berlin Philharmonic violinist Hellmut Stern was a Jewish musician who had left Germany for China on the eve of WWII. He described his refugee times in Harbin in his memoir. In addition to Shanghai, other Chinese cities sheltered at least 1,500 Jewish refugees in total.
Q: Why did Japanese authority set up ghetto in Hongkou to quarantine Jewish refugees?
A: In 1942 German colonel Josef Albert Meisinger came to Shanghai to encourage the Japanese to exterminate Jewish refugees. His proposals included starvation on freighters off the coast of China or the creation of a concentration camp on Chongming Island.
But the Japanese supported their own “puffer fish plan,” and believed Meisinger’s plan would provoke the worldwide Jewish community. Regarding Jews as “delicious, but extremely toxic,” the core of the “puffer fish plan” was to cooperate with the Jews in China to realize their “Zionist dream” in Harbin in exchange for financial support for the Japanese war. The plan was not implemented due to American and Chinese protests. Unwilling to engage in a Jewish massacre but under pressure from Germany, the Japanese authority reconsidered its interests and decided to build a ghetto in Hongkou, a one-square-mile area named the Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees, where some 16,000 Jewish refugees were relocated to live starting in 1943.
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