Jewish Group
Related: About this forum(Jewish Group) How Jewish refugees found a wartime home in Shanghai
Asst. Prof. Rachel DeWoskin has visited Shanghai every summer for nearly a decade, walking along streets that more than 18,000 Jewish refugees once called home. Spanning roughly a square mile, those blocks were where they established schools and businesses, rebuilding their lives in one of the few cities that accepted World War II refugees without visas.
DeWoskins years of research culminated in the January publication of Someday We Will Fly, her fictionalized account of a young Jewish girl fleeing war-torn Poland. Described as a beautifully nuanced exploration of culture and people, the book is the fifth from DeWoskinan award-winning novelist and assistant professor of practice in the arts who has taught at the University of Chicago since 2014.
In writing her novel, DeWoskin also relied in part on the family possessions of UChicago staff psychiatrist Jacqueline Pardo, whose German mother Karin Pardo (née Zacharias) lived in Shanghai as a child. A selection of those objects and photographs are displayed on the third floor of Regenstein Library.
That exhibit is sponsored by the Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies, which is also supporting two events: a March 13 conversation between DeWoskin and former Secretary of the Treasury W. Michael Blumenthal followed by a concert of wartime music by Civitas Ensemble, and a March 14 symposium on the legacy of the Shanghai Jews.
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tirebiter
(2,539 posts)Chiune Sugihara (杉原 千畝 Sugihara Chiune, 1 January 1900 31 July 1986)[1] was a Japanese government official who served as vice consul for the Japanese Empire in Lithuania. During the Second World War, Sugihara helped some six thousand Jews flee Europe by issuing transit visas to them so that they could travel through Japanese territory, risking his job and his family's lives.[2] The fleeing Jews were refugees from German-occupied Western Poland and Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland, as well as residents of Lithuania. A few decades after the war, in 1985, the State of Israel honored Sugihara as one of the Righteous Among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם for his actions. He is the only Japanese national to have been so honored.
Behind the Aegis
(53,986 posts)Ho Feng-Shan (traditional Chinese: 何鳳山; simplified Chinese: 何凤山; pinyin: Hé Fèngshān 10 September 1901 28 September 1997) was a Chinese diplomat for the Republic of China.[1][2] When he was consul-general in Vienna during World War II, he risked his life and career to save more than 3,000 Jews by issuing them visas, disobeying the instruction of his superiors.[3] Ho's actions were recognized posthumously when the Israeli organization Yad Vashem in 2000 decided to award him the title "Righteous Among the Nations".[4]
In 1935, Ho started his diplomatic career within the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of China. His first posting was in Turkey. He was appointed First Secretary at the Chinese legation in Vienna in 1937. When Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, and the legation was turned into a consulate, Ho was assigned the post of Consul-General.[6]
After the Kristallnacht in 1938, the situation became rapidly more difficult for the almost 200,000 Austrian Jews. The only way for Jews to escape from Nazism was to leave Europe. In order to leave, they had to provide proof of emigration, usually a visa from a foreign nation, or a valid boat ticket. This was difficult, however, because at the 1938 Évian Conference 31 countries (out of a total of 32, which included Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) refused to accept Jewish immigrants. The only country willing to accept Jews was the Dominican Republic, which offered to accept up to 100,000 refugees.[7] Acting against the orders of his superior Chen Jie (陳介 ), the Chinese ambassador to Berlin, Ho started to issue visas to Shanghai, part of which during this time was still under the control of the Republic of China, for humanitarian reasons. Twelve hundred visas were issued by Ho in the first three months of holding office as Consul-General.[8]
At the time it was not necessary to have a visa to enter Shanghai, but the visas allowed the Jews to leave Austria. Many Jewish families left for Shanghai, whence most of them would later leave for Hong Kong and Australia. Ho continued to issue these visas until he was ordered to return to China in May 1940. The exact number of visas given by Ho to Jewish refugees is unknown. It is known that Ho issued the 200th visa in June 1938, and signed the 1906th visa on October 27, 1938. How many Jews were saved through his actions is unknown, but given that Ho issued nearly 2,000 visas only during his first half year at his post, the number may be in the thousands.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Feng-Shan
Tanuki
(14,920 posts)and the artist Peter Max spent much of his childhood there after his parents fled Germany.