Jews returned to the Chinese port of Shanghai this week to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the haven from Nazi persecution they were given there.
On Tuesday, in a ceremony held in pouring rain, the city of Shanghai honored the approximately 20,000 Jews who fled Europe and survived the Holocaust there.
Because Shanghai was a free port, one of the only cities in the world that did not demand visas or travel papers, it became a sanctuary for Jewish refugees.
During World War II, Jews were kept under armed Japanese guard in the occupied city, in a bombed-out slum known as the Hongkou Ghetto. But they were free to leave the area during the day and could apply for three-month work papers.
The Japanese had rounded up the Jews to assuage their Nazi wartime allies, but they refused a German demand to carry out the “Final Solution” there.
Among the Jews who found haven in Shanghai were the students and faculty of the Mir Yeshiva, which had been located near Grodno in what was then Byelorussia.
Others came from Germany, Austria, Poland and Russia.
Some Jewish refugees remained in Shanghai for up to 10 years before they left for the United States, Israel or other countries.
Today there is no longer a Jewish community in Shanghai.
One Chinese official attending this week’s ceremony said that the people of Shanghai “will never forget the role of Jews in helping to build our city.”
At the ceremony, China’s first-ever memorial to Holocaust victims was unveiled by Huang Yuejin, mayor of the Hongkou District People’s Government. The bronze and stone memorial is inscribed in Chinese, Hebrew and English.
An orchestra composed entirely of women played Hebrew and Yiddish songs.
Attending the ceremony was Rabbi Arthur Schneier of the Park East Synagogue in New York, a Holocaust survivor who is also head of the ecumenical group Appeal of Conscience.
Under the auspices of the foundation, Schneier helped organize the memorial with Chinese officials and led a group of about 60 survivors to China for the events, which were being held from Tuesday through Thursday.
The group visited the sites of their former synagogues, including the Ohel Rachel, which now serves as headquarters of the Shanghai Board of Education. A Torah Ark still stands in the former sanctuary room, which is otherwise empty.
The group also took part in a seminar about the Jews of Shanghai with local scholars.
“We are here today in an act of thanksgiving to the people of Shanghai who, despite their hard life during the Japanese occupation, welcomed the tired and hunted newcomers clinging to life,” said Schneier, in a speech Tuesday.
“We salute the Chinese people, who have been immune to the scourge of anti- Semitism. And we voice our gratitude for the friendship of the American and Chinese peoples and for the newly established bonds between the People’s Republic of China and the State of Israel,” said Schneier.
Israel and China established diplomatic relations in 1992, although China still maintains its traditional alliances in the Arab world.
Pan Guang, dean of Shanghai’s Institute for Sino-Judaic Studies, who helped organized the ceremony, said the peace accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization helped pave the way for this ceremony to be held.
Among the Jews who found haven in Shanghai and attended the ceremonies were Yehuda Halevi, now executive vice president of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel; David Zysman, vice president of Yeshiva University in New York; and two New York businessmen engaged in trade with China, Benjamin Fishoff and Joseph Granger.
Other former Shanghai Jewish residents came to mark the anniversary from Austria, England, France and Israel.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
