The Nazi "Anschluss," the annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938, touched off a great tide of refugee migration to Shanghai, and some 17,000 residents of Central Europe streamed to the city from 1938-1939. Most were destitute or nearly so. In 1938, the Committee for the Assistance of European Jewish Refugees in Shanghai (CAEJF) was organized, and JDC supplied most of the funds it needed. In 1941, Polish refugees arrived in Shanghai from Lithuania after crossing Siberia. After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese authorities closed Shanghai to further immigration. But at the same time, they deported to it most of the Jewish refugees then living in Japan and other Jewish refugees trapped in the Far East while in transit to other countries. All told, some 20,000 refugees lived in Shanghai at the opening of 1942, and 15,000 survived the war with JDC aid. About two-thirds of the refugees came from Austria and Germany, and the others were from Eastern European countries.
In May 1941, JDC representative Laura Margolis, arrived in Shanghai to guide refugee aid and emigration activities. A second representative, Manny Siegel, joined her on the eve of Pearl Harbor. Following Pearl Harbor, direct communications with the U.S. were cut off, leaving JDC representatives communicating with their headquarters via third countries. Under the Japanese occupation, Margolis and Siegel were classified as enemy aliens, but were permitted to remain at liberty until February, 1943 when they were interned. By then, they had succeeded in organizing a system of emergency relief with the equipment needed to run steam kitchens capable of feeding 10,000 people per day. These kitchens kept the refugees alive for the duration of the war.
Between 1946, when emigration resumed, and 1953, JDC helped some 16,000 Jews emigrate from China.
The following source materials from the JDC Archives depict aspects of JDC’s work in Shanghai during this period:
Primary Sources
Following are source materials in PDF format that can be used to teach about this series of events and its lessons:
Related Film: Shanghai Ghetto (2002), a documentary film which includes interview footage with Laura Margolis and former refugees who were in Shanghai.
For historic lists relating to Jewish refugees in Shanghai, please see the Archives' Names Database, which includes lists of rabbinical students who fled Lithuania and German Jews escaping via the TransSiberian railroad to Japan and China.
Please also visit the National Archives and Records Administration's page on the recently declassified Visa Investigation Records of the Shanghai Diaspora Communities, 1946-1951, which includes information on JDC's role assisting Jewish refugees in Shanghai during and after the war.
Japanese Diplomats and Jewish Refugees: A World War II Dilemma (Events of the Twentieth Century)Hardcover– November 19, 1998
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, European Jews traveled east to seek refuge in the West. Three thousand refugees transited Japan and China, and more than 21,000 spent the war in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. Japanese diplomats in Europe were caught off guard by the flood of visa applicants, and the Foreign Ministry belatedly confronted a refugee problem. Unexpected visitors became uninvited guests. Vice Consul Sugihara Chiune might have faded into history as a minor diplomat in Lithuania had he not issued thousands of transit visas to refugees, including those who fulfilled few visa requirements. Sakamoto demonstrates how he helped thousands escape Europe; in the end, as she points out, a number of Japanese diplomats saved Jews by issuing visas, but very few issued visas to save Jews.
Sakamoto focuses on the extensive archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which have not been treated at length before. By examining the cable traffic between diplomats and the ministry headquarters, she reveals the uncensored reactions of Japanese diplomats to Jewish refugees. Through the files of Jewish organizations and the American government, she presents the dimensions of the crisis as Germany's emphasis on emigration changed to extermination. Interviews with former diplomats, refugees, and those who knew Sugihara give human dimensions to a fascinating and little-known episode of the war.
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