A Study Of Jewish Refugees In China 1933 1945

This book comprehensively discusses the topic of Jews fleeing the Holocaust to China. It is divided into three parts: historical facts; theories; and the Chinese model. The first part addresses the formation, development and end of the Jewish refugee community in China, offering a systematic review of the history of Jewish Diaspora, including historical and recent events bringing European Jews to China; Jewish refugees arriving in China: route, time, number and settlement; the Jewish refugee community in Shanghai; Jewish refugees in other Chinese cities; the "Final Solution" for Jewish refugees in Shanghai and the “Designated Area for Stateless Refugees”; friendship between the Jewish refugees and the local Chinese people; the departure of Jews and the end of the Jewish refugee community in China. The second part provides deeper perspectives on the Jewish refugees in China and the relationship between Jews and the Chinese. The third part explores the Chinese model in the history of Jewish Diaspora, focusing on the Jews fleeing the Holocaust to China and compares the Jewish refugees in China with those in other parts of the world. It also introduces the Chinese model concept and presents the five features of the model.

This volume provides a historical narrative, historiographical reviews, and scholarly analyses by leading scholars throughout the world on the hitherto understudied topic of Shanghai Jewish refugees. Few among the general public know that during the Second World War, approximately 16,000 to 20,000 Jews fled the Nazis, found unexpected refuge in Shanghai, and established a vibrant community there. Though most of them left Shanghai soon after the conclusion of the war in 1945, years of sojourning among the Chinese and surviving under the Japanese occupation generated unique memories about the Second World War, lasting goodwill between the Chinese and Jews, and contested interpretations of this complex past. The volume makes two major contributions to the studies of Shanghai Jewish refugees. First, it reviews the present state of the historiography on this subject and critically assesses the ways in which the history is being researched and commemorated in China. Second, it compiles scholarship produced by renowned scholars, who aim to rescue the history from isolated perspectives and look into the interaction between Jews, Chinese, and Japanese.

The situation of Jewish refugees in Shanghai and the work of various political actors and organizations

In the 1930s, anti-Semitism was spreading like a cancer throughout the world. And even though Hitler's regime was criticized for its treatment of Jews, no one stepped forward to help them. In mid-1938, 32 countries met to discuss the Jews' dilemma. But they did not open their doors (except the Dominican Republic), citing a variety of reasons. Through words of mouth or information from travel agencies, Jews from various parts of Europe discovered that Shanghai was an open port. No visas or passports were required. About 20,000 refugees made the decision to flee from impending extermination--leaving behind their highly civilized and sophisticated culture for a haven that could not have been more unlike the life they had experienced. Shanghai Remembered... is a collection of first-person accounts telling how these refugees found themselves traumatized, stateless and penniless in a strange and inhospitable place.

This book assesses the plight of the European Jewish refugees who fled to Japanese-occupied China during the Second World War. It examines the Nationalist government's policy towards the Jewish refugee issue and the most thorough and subtle analysis of Japanese diplomacy concerning this matter. The story of the wartime "Shanghai Jews" is not merely a side-bar to the history of modern China or modern Japan. It is a story that illuminates how the "Jewish issue" complicated the relationships among China, Japan, Germany, and the United States before and during World War Two. Both the Chinese Nationalist government and the Japanese occupation authorities thought very carefully about the Shanghai Jews and how they could be used to win international financial and political support in their war against one another. Thus, the Holocaust had complicated repercussions that extended far beyond Europe. The diaspora of Jews to East Asia in the era of the Second World War is a rich and complex story that deserves our attention as well. Firmly grounded in archival sources from the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, Britain, and Israel, this book is comparative and transnational in scope and makes an important contribution to the international history of the period.

The life story of a Holocaust survivor, born in Breslau in 1921, who emigrated to Shanghai in March 1939 and to the USA in 1947. Relates his experiences in Germany during the first years of Nazi rule and describes his struggle for survival in the German and Austrian Jewish refugee community of Shanghai during 1939-47. also deals with the internment of the stateless Jews who had arrived after 1937 in the "Designated Area for Stateless Refugees"--The ghetto established by the Japanese military occupation authorities at the instigation of the German government, and the ambivalent conduct of the Japanese authorities toward the Jewish refugees.

Irene Eber was one of the foremost authorities on Jews in China during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries—a field that, in contrast to the study of the Jewish diaspora in Europe and the Americas, has been critically neglected. This volume gathers fourteen of Eber’s most salient articles and essays on the exchanges between Jewish and Chinese cultures, making available to students, scholars, and general readers a representative sample of the range and depth of her important work in the field of Jews in China. Jews in China delineates the centuries-long, reciprocal dialogue between Jews, Jewish culture, and China, all under the overarching theme of cultural translation. The first section of the book sets forth a sweeping overview of the history of Jews in China, beginning in the twelfth century and concluding with a detailed assessment of the two crucial years leading up to the Second World War. The second section examines the translation of Chinese classics into Hebrew and the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Chinese. The third and final section turns to modern literature, bringing together eight essays that underscore the cultural reciprocity that takes place through acts of translation. The centuries-long relationship between Judaism and China is often overlooked in the light of the extensive discourse surrounding European and American Judaism. With this volume, Eber reminds us that we have much to learn from the intersections between Jewish identity and Chinese culture.