HIDDEN HISTORY
RECOUNTING THE SHANGHAI JEWISH STORY
BEST WAY TO EXPERIENCE THE EXHIBITION
Hidden History: Recounting the Shanghai Jewish Story begins in The Breman’s Lobby with images and objects of the five families profiled in the exhibition before their escape from Europe to Shanghai.
Upon entering the main part of the exhibition, we recommend exploring it in the following order:
#5
Sanctuary in Shanghai
#4
Escaping the Nazis
Libertation, Loss, and Life After
HIDDEN HISTORY
Arthur Rothstein
Hongkew Ghetto
#1
Beginning of Jewish Life in China
START HERE
#3 Baghdadi Jews
Harbin Jewish Community
#1
Beginning of Jewish Life in China
From the second century BCE until the discovery of new sea routes leading to faster, less expensive transportation of goods, the Silk Road, a 4,000-mile network of trade routes, facilitated economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds and connected China to the Mediterranean Sea.
Many Jewish communities lived along the Silk Road. Jewish merchants, because of their shared Hebrew language, could communicate with regional Jews who would translate between Hebrew and local languages making it easy to travel and trade across the continents.
The earliest evidence of Jewish life in China dates from the beginning
#2
of the eighth century with a JudeoPersian letter regarding commerce. The first established Jewish community arrived in Kaifeng, probably via the Silk Road and most likely from Persia or India. At the time, Kaifeng the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), was a bustling center for trade, communication, and transportation.
The first synagogue was established during the Jin Dynasty in 1163. Like many Diaspora Jewish communities, as generations continued, Chinese Jews maintained their unique monotheist practices while adopting Confucian and Chinese cultural elements.
The Harbin Jewish Community
Beginning in 1791, Jews under Russian Empress Catherine II were confined to the Pale of Settlement and excluded from political, economic, and social life. In 1881, anti-Jewish pogroms erupted and continued to escalate over the next three decades. At the end of the 19th century, Russia, seeking territorial gain, signed the RussoManchurian Treaty which allowed it to expand its Trans-Siberian Railroad and build the Chinese eastern Railway.
Harbin, a village in northeastern China’s Manchuria, grew as the administrative center for the railway and, like Shanghai, became a desirable place for Jews seeking work and escape from oppression.
During the 1904 Russo-Japanese War, Russia conscripted tens of thousands of Jews and sent them to the front lines in Manchuria. After the war, many demobilized Jews settled in Harbin, followed
by waves of refugees fleeing pogroms, brutality during World War I, the Russian Revolution, and Russian Civil War. Jewish life in Harbin reached its peak in the early 1930s with tens of thousands of Jews calling the city home.
The Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931 drastically
#3
impacted the community. An increase in antisemitic violence was overlooked by the puppet regime and many Jews left Harbin, returning to Russia, moving to other parts of China or to Shanghai.
Baghdadi Jews: The First Jewish Community in Shanghai
In 1843, Shanghai was established as an open port for international business and settlement following the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing that ended the Opium War between Great Britain and China. Not subject to Chinese law, a thriving foreign community developed, including Jews from Baghdad, Bombay and Cairo who sought to escape persecution as well as seek the economic opportunities that Shanghai offered.
The influential and wealthy Sassoon family from Baghdad together with the Kadoorie family from Bombay provided the growing Jewish community with education, religious and
work opportunities. These two prominent Baghdadi families and several others achieved great economic success by establishing vast business empires and expanding trade throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East. They built opulent hotels, invested in utilities and real estate, and left their mark on the city’s skyline
It was these prominent families, as well as the broader Jewish community in Shanghai who, in the early 1930s, came to the aid of the desperate Jewish refugees escaping Nazi Europe.
#4
Escaping the Nazis
During the first six years of Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship, Germany’s democracy was dismantled and government at every level adopted thousands of discriminatory laws that restricted the civil and human rights of Jews. With Nazi Germany’s1938 annexation of Austria, antisemitic policies were extended to Austrian Jews sparking a refugee crisis as Jews living under Nazi control desperately tried to emigrate.
Entrenched antisemitism and quota systems in most countries made it nearly impossible for European Jews to obtain entry visas. In July of 1938, delegates from 32 nations, including the United States and Canada, met
in Evian, France, to address the plight of Jewish refugees; only one country, the Dominican Republic, agreed to accept more refugees. On November 9, 1938, the Nazis unleashed a violent pogrom against Jews. Known as Kristallnacht, Nazis and their sympathizers destroyed Jewish homes and businesses, burned synagogues, beat Jews on the street, and deported 30,000 Jewish men to concentration camps.
A seemingly unlikely refuge, Shanghai, as an international port city required no entry visa and became one of the only options for Jews trying to escape the Nazis.
#5 Sanctuary in Shanghai
Before World War I, there were about 700 Jews living in Shanghai. Their numbers were increased to about 25,000, first by Jews from Russia fleeing the 1917 revolution and then, between 1932 and 1940, by refugees from Nazism.
Many Jews fleeing Europe were helped by two men who defied
their governments by providing visas. Dr. Feng Shan Ho, the Chinese Consul General in Vienna, disobeyed orders from his superiors and personally issued visas to Austrian Jews. After the Nazis closed the consulate, he continued to issue visas from an apartment until being recalled to China in 1940. In 1941, Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Consul to Lithuania, issued transit visas, saving thousands, including the only complete yeshiva (school of Talmudic study) in Europe to survive the Holocaust, the Mirre Yeshiva.
Prior to 1938, the Mizrahi and Ashkenazi communities had created their own institutions and organizational structures. These two established communities joined in cooperation to provide a massive aid effort for the refugees. In 1938, the wealthy Sassoon and Kadoorie families, leaders of
Shanghai’s Jewish community, offered employment, created schools for children to learn Hebrew, Chinese and English, and provided food, housing, work, and loans to start businesses. Although arrival in Shanghai was initially a culture shock, the refugees tried to establish normalcy. “Viennese” coffee houses, restaurants, and stores opened, and Chusan Road in the Hongkew district became known as “Little Vienna.” Jewish traditions and culture continued in a variety of ways. A Yiddish theater was established, and Jewish musicians performed in a variety of dancehalls, cabarets, and clubs. Newspapers were printed in English, German, Yiddish and Polish, and world news, entertainment and lectures tailored to the Jewish community were broadcast on the local radio station.
NOW, enter the inside of the circle for images of the #6 Hongkew Ghetto and to learn about #7 Liberation and Life After.
NEXT, explore the Family profiles in the cases along the walls outside of the circle.
Libertation, Loss, and Life After
HIDDEN HISTORY
Arthur Rothstein
Hongkew Ghetto
Maimann Kolber
Medavoy
Freidmann
Millett
Hidden History: Recounting the Shanghai Jewish Story
An Exhibit by Holocaust Museum LA Sponsored by East West Bank Foundation
Curated by Jordanna Gessler and Christie Jovanovic. Graphic design by Brett Aronson. Illustrations by Dave Regan.
Artifacts from Holocaust Museum LA Archival Collection, and on loan from Skirball Museum, Yad Vashem, Mike Medavoy and Veronica Dressler, the Good family, the Kolber family, the Maskell family, the Millett family, Dr. Ann Segan-Rothstein and the Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.
presented by with additional support from:
For The Breman: Exhibition design by John Williams, Shibui Design; Jane Leavey, Curator of Exhibitions; Film clip courtesy WQED-TV Pittsburgh.
EZBO Foundation
MAYOR’S OFFICE OF Cultural Affairs
Funding for this program is provided by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners.
This program is supported in part by the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
The Walter and Frances Bunzl Family Foundation Exhibition Fund