City’s refugees subject of series
Print Edition
SHANGHAI in the late 1930s and the early 1940s was a safe-haven for many Jewish refugees fleeing the horrors of Nazi Germany.
Now, a new five-volume series from Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press is shedding new light on this important piece of local history.
This richly detailed series, published under the title “Jewish Refugees in Shanghai,” contains dozens of personal accounts and offers a complex picture of life for both Shanghai’s Jewish and Chinese residents under the Japanese occupation.
Book one, “Ark on the Sea,” tells the story of how thousands of Jews fled persecution in Germany and Austria following Kristallnacht, a violent pogrom carried out in 1938 by Nazi paramilitary forces and ordinary citizens.
At that time, few countries were willing to accept Jewish refugees. One of the last ports open to them was Shanghai, which then had no restrictions on immigration. Prior to the arrival of these refugees though, local writers and intellectuals had already vigorously condemned the rise of Hitler and the spread of anti-Semitism.
In a 1933 edition of Israel’s Messenger, an English-language newspaper published in Shanghai, Soong Ching-ling wrote a vigorous condemnation of the Nazi’s anti-Jewish ideology. Other representatives of the China League for Civil Rights, including Lu Xun, Cai Yuanpei and Lin Yutang, joined her in protest.
Book two, entitled “Sentiment for Hongkou,” focuses on the lives of the Jewish refugees after their arrival. In 1943, the occupying Japanese authority built a ghetto of about 1.9 square kilometers in Hongkew — today’s Hongkou District — and forced the Jews to relocate there. In this area, many made a living by setting up temporary stalls in the nearby market along with their Chinese neighbors.
Book three, “Dust-Laden Past,” contains 26 reports drawn from contemporary newspaper sources about the city’s Jewish refugees. Along with Chinese-language stories from local outlet Shun Pao, this volume includes translations and reproductions of reports printed in German and English-language media.
A lively media scene
During the 1930s and 40s, the city’s Jews were at the center of a lively media scene with papers like Shanghai Jewish Chronicle and Die Gelbe Post. This latter source provides a rich record of daily life in the Hongkou Ghetto, which was jokingly referred to as “Little Vienna” during the paper’s run.
Book four, entitled “Memories of Shanghai,” introduces a number of Jewish refugee landmarks in Shanghai which can still be seen today.
These include the Ohel Moishe Synagogue on Changyang Road, Huoshan Park on Huoshan Road, Cafe Atlantic on Haimen Road, and the Children’s Palace on Yan’an Road. It also chronicles the story of the construction of the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum.
Book Five, entitled “The Bright Moon in Shanghai,” is a suite of drawings by Shanghai-born artist Lu Zhide, who created a series of images based on true stories of local Jews.
Among those portrayed in this volume are Jacob Rosenfeld, who in 1941 joined the Chinese Communist force as a field doctor for the New Fourth Army; violinist Alfred Wittenberg, who often organized family concerts in his shikumen house; and the musician brothers Otto and Walter Joachim, who produced 30 records of Chinese music during their stay in Shanghai.
There’s also an artistic re-imagining of the Chinese-Western style wedding between Austrian Hencuph Welarly and Chinese Wang Lanying.
It is estimated that Shanghai was home to around 25,000 Jewish refugees during World War II. This figure is higher than all of those who fled to Canada, Australia, India, South Africa and New Zealand combined, according to history professor Wang Jian, an expert on Jewish communities in China.
“Jewish Refugees in Shanghai” is a treasure trove of information on those who fled Nazi Germany and made new lives for themselves in the Hongkou ghetto. But despite the sweep of these volumes and the epic story they tell, it’s the series’ many human touches that make these books a real delight for history buffs and casual readers.
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