Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum

When I was looking on TripAdvisor on things to do in Shanghai I found one of the most popular museums to visit was a Jewish Refugee Museum. Naturally, this intrigued my interest. Why is there a Jewish Refugee center...in China?  How many people came? Also, wasn't China going through a terrible war at the time?

The museum offers tours in English and Chinese every 30 minutes. 

These are the answers I found at the Jewish Refugee Museum. First, China was going through a Japanese invasion at the time and a civil war. Many Americans are unaware but Japan during WWII was murdering, raping, and invading other countries beside the Pacific Islands such as China and Korea. You can read about one of the bloodiest massacres to happen in China here.

However, before the invasion China had agreed to take in refugees from foreign nations if needed, so Shanghai became an international city. (During this time America was denying refugees.) When Japan invaded China and had taken over Shanghai, they had to honor the agreement to be an international city so China took in over 25,000 Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi Germany. Our tour guide believes that this number could be much higher as some of the documents were destroyed. The documents were destroyed on purpose as Japan and Germany were allies at the time, and those who were protecting the Jewish refugees were afraid that the Japanese could see who was on the Nazi's wanted list and then the Japanese could deport those on the wanted list.

Wall of known names of those who immigrated to China.

Life in China was not easy due to the fact that the Japanese were in charge of everything. The Jewish people still had to live in ghettos and still had restrictions placed on them. There was even a Japanese officer who would hit any European who was taller than him in the stomach when they would walk by him. This officer was also in charge of giving out visas which he gave out sparingly. It is said that when the war was over and the people could go back to Europe, they would walk by this general and punch him. What goes around, comes around.

However, there were positives to living in China. Shanghai's conditions were still much better than if they were in Europe. The citizens in the Jewish ghettos could leave their houses when they wanted, go grocery shopping without showing their papers, and could make friends with the Chinese citizens who lived there. Not to mention, in 1907 (thirty years before the refugees came) a synagogue was already built by Jewish business owners who came to China for trade, so the people in this area could still go to Jewish religious services. The people also owned businesses such as convenient stores and restaurants and did fairly well for themselves. They named their ghetto "Little Vienna."

The museum is in the picture is three floors. The first is the synagogue, the second is a collection of items from the refugees, and the third is a history of how the Nazis came to power. You can see there is an umbrella and sitting area there, this was in front of a popular restaurant in Little Vienna that still stands but sells postcards now.

The restaurant that now sells postcards. 

The reason that the restaurant sells postcards is sobering. When WWII was over, the refugees sent letters and postcards back to their relatives in Europe to see if they survived and if they could live with them. None of them got replies. Every single one of the refugees postcards and letters went to people who had died during WWII. You could send a postcard to the museum itself to say how you felt about the experience, to yourself, or to whoever you wanted.

Behind the restaurant are two buildings. The first has a small movie theater and a collection of items such as visas, wedding photos, and pictures of buildings that the refugees owned. The second building has a mailbox, a map of the ghetto, and written accounts and paintings of the refugees experiences.

Jewish and Chinese families joining together for Chinese New Year.

The area outlined in blue was the Jewish ghetto

Where you can send postcards to the past.

One of the most important people to the Jewish refugees was a man named Doctor Ho Feng Shan. When Japanese officers refused to give out visas, Doctor Ho, who was a Chinese diplomat, decided to give out "visas for life." This was against orders but he knew that if he did not do this, these people could be sent back and killed by the Nazis.
In case you don't know, most visas only last for a limited amount of time. For my own visa, it expires once a year and I have to get it renewed. Doctor Ho knew that the Japanese could deny renewals of visas and have these people murdered, and no one knew when the war would end, so he decided to put himself at risk by giving out a guaranteed life saving visas to these refugees. Doctor Ho died in 1997 and saved 3000 Jewish lives. In the year 2000 he was posthumously given the "Righteous Among Nations Award" by the Israeli foundation for his work in saving refugees.

One of the people that was grateful for gaining refuge in China was Jacob Rosenfeld. Rosenfeld was an Austrian Jew that joined the Chinese army in fighting the Japanese army.

A powerful thought I took away from this experience was a poem written on a hallway ceiling from one of the buildings to another by Yehuda Amichai.

"God takes pity on the kindergartners

Less so on the school children

And will no longer pity their elders

leaving them to their own

And sometimes they will have to crawl on all fours

Through the burning sand

To reach the casualty station

Bleeding."

*As a side note, all plaques were written in Chinese, English, and Hebrew.

According to our tour guide, the poem was written about a boat full of children who were shipped out of Europe hoping that one country would accept them. No country at the time would and almost all the children died. Thinking of this makes me quite emotional, maybe because I am a teacher or maybe it's because I have actually visited Auschwitz. It makes me sick that no country in the world would accept little children who did nothing wrong but everyone was so afraid of the "drain" of refugees or were anti-Semitic or whatever that they let them die. We can see this happening in the world right now. 

You can read about American cases here

and a recent case (at the time of this publishing) where a boat was turned away here. 

It amazes me that a country that was going through it's own oppression and being murdered by the thousands was one of the few countries that would let refugees come in. It makes me think of a study that found that those who were poor, were more willing to donate and help than those who were more well off. This is because those who are not fairing well, understand how hard it is and are more empathetic towards others. 

I think of a high school class when I was student-teaching (shout out to Mrs. Wiarda) where she wanted to emphasize that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. The Chinese population empathized with the Jewish people and were able to save over 25,000 lives. Doctor Ho Feng Shan grew up poor and without a father and then went on to save 3,000 Jewish lives. 

After the war, all the Jewish refugees left for their home countries, Australia, South America, and the newly created Israel. They were unable to stay as China was going through a civil war which lasted until 1950. 

A fascinating turn of events was the tour group I was with had Jewish family with us whose grandparents immigrated to South America to escape the Nazis. They told us a little about their own family history and another family in our tour group found that they were from the same South American city as them! I have no idea what that means or if they became good buddies after that but it was a weird coincidence. 

Who knows, maybe I have an old distant relative who was saved by the Chinese. (Turek is spelled Tuerk on this wall.) 

I think the largest take away for me is that I viewed the Holocaust as a European event but the fact that South America and China both helped Jewish refugees. The Holocaust was a world-wide event. I hope we others can see and empathize while genocides currently go on in our world today.