[L. 6.33.
Jewish emigration from the Reich (Germany and Austria)
to Shanghai 1938-1939 - 18,000 by September 1939]
[Jewish emigration to
Shanghai without visa possible]
In a world of closed borders and hostile officialdom,
(End note 176: A good example of this in Latin America was
the secretary of the government of British Guiana (the
proposed Jewish homeland). This worthy man wrote a letter
to the British Guiana Information Bureau in New York (see
above, note 172, 29-Germany) on December 13, 1938, in
response to a request for an entry permit by a Jewish
refugee. The refugee was told that anyone who had 50
pounds in his wallet could land. However, there were some
small snags: there was no work and no employment;
generally speaking, refugees would be well advised not to
come. "It would be most inadvisable for your family and
you to consider coming here. ... You are strongly advised
not to migrate to this colony.")
the Jews of Germany and Austria were ready to clutch at
straws. One such straw was Shanghai. In 1937 Shanghai was
divided between the international settlement, which was
run by the foreign powers (who had, in fact, been ruling
the city during the period of the disintegration of the
Chinese state), and the Chinese part of the city, which
had just been conquered by the Japanese. There was no
(p.289)
requirement for an entry visa into the city. IKG
[Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG) (Austria)] became
aware of this fact in Vienna in the summer of 1938. The
problem was to pay the fares to Shanghai, usually by a
German or Italian boat; later a rail connection via the
USSR into Manchuria and thence to Shanghai would also be
attempted. Shanghai became a place of refuge, especially
for those people who, threatened with arrest and a
concentration camp, could find no other place of
emigration.
[Jews in Shanghai in
little groups without contact between each other]
The Jewish community in Shanghai was made up of two main
elements: a wealthy aristocracy comprised mainly of Iraqi
Jews (among them were members of the famous Sassoon and
Kaddouri families), and Russian Jews who had come from
Manchuria after world War I. Since the rise of Hitler to
power, some German Jews had also arrived, mainly members
of the professions. The different groups maintained
separate social and cultural lives and evinced little
mutual sympathy for one another.
The situation of the few German Jewish refugees had
attracted the attention of JDC toward the end of 1937. At
that time Judge Harry A. Hollzer of Los Angeles, a
respected JDC stalwart, drew the attention of JDC to
Shanghai - his brother, Joseph Hollzer, who was the head
of a Jewish Relief Committee there, had provided him with
some distinctly disturbing information. In early 1938
there were some 500 destitute Jews in the city, not all of
them German Jews. But in London the Joint Foreign
Committee of the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish
Association decided that Shanghai was "not a matter about
which any Jewish community outside of Shanghai and Hong
Kong need be troubled."
(End note 177: R52, current reports, 10/12/37 [12 October
1937])
[Jews in Shanghai don't
want to finance the new Jewish refugees - JDC help]
The truth of the matter was that the rich Jews of Shanghai
were able, but not very willing, to look after the few
refugees who were then in the city. From London it seemed
ridiculous to send money to a place like Shanghai.
JDC could not take this kind of attitude. Not only
Hollzer, but also other people turned to JDC. In February
1938 the New York office empowered Kahn to look into the
matter, though Shanghai was hardly included in Europe,
which was Kahn's proper field of activity.
(End note 178: Executive Committee, 2/24/38 [2 February
1938])
JDC records indicate that during 1938, $ 5,000 was
appropriated for refugee work in Shanghai. (p.290)
[Sep 1939: 18,000 German
Jewish refugees in Shanghai - JDC help]
After November 1938 people began streaming into the Far
Eastern metropolis. By June 1939 there were 10,000
refugees in the city, and by the time war broke out in
Europe there were close to 18,000. Most of them found
refuge in the Chinese part of the city. Unemployment was
the rule rather than the exception, because Europeans
could not compete with the Chinese for work. In early
February the British, American, and French consuls drew
"the attention (of) their governments to (the) refugee
situation, particularly to (the) necessity (for) relief
funds."
The U.S. government of course turned to JDC. In JDC the
opinion was that "as (the) matter came to us from (the)
State Department, we must be prepared to be helpful."
(End note 179: R55, cables 1/12/39 [12 January 1939],
2/1/39 [1 February 1939]
The Council for German Jewry in London also provided help
in the form of 5,000 pounds; but the main burden fell on
JDC, which sent $ 60,000 to Shanghai before September.
Attempts to stop the influx into Shanghai were made by all
the responsible bodies dealing with emigration. But the
Jewish agencies in Germany and Austria refused to
cooperate. In March 1939 the Hilfsverein in Berlin
answered with a plea to "trust us when we tell you that we
are unable to diminish the emigration from Germany and
that the only possibility to prevent our people from going
to such places as Shanghai lies in finding some more
constructive opportunities for emigration."
(End note 180: R10, 3/19/39 [19 March 1939], Hyman memo to
Backer)
Gestapo pressure was definitely more convincing than
anything JDC could say.
The paradox of the Shanghai situation - viewed with the
benefit of hindsight - lies in the fact that what was in
1938/9 considered the utmost cruelty, namely, forced
emigration, turned out to be a blessing in disguise,
though the disguise may often have been very heavy indeed.
The refugees in Shanghai, the illegal immigrants who were
pushed onto boats to Palestine or Latin America by their
desperation, often under direct Gestapo pressure - all of
them managed to survive the holocaust. The ones who stayed
behind did not. Yet among leaders of German Jewry in 1939,
who had a clear feeling of approaching doom, it was
thought to be more dignified for a Jew to suffer death in
Europe than to die of starvation in (p.291)
Shanghai.
(End note 181: R47, 3/22 [22 March 1939?], unsigned. "One
can also be of the opinion that it would be more worthy of
a Jews to go to a martyr's death than to perish miserably
in Shanghai. The first choice would be a matter of
kiddush hashem, the
second merely a failure of Jewish emigration policies"
(trans. from German).
The truth is that the people in Shanghai did not die of
starvation - in large part thanks to JDC.
