Wartime Shanghai and the Jewish Refugees from Central Europe

Wartime Shanghai and the Jewish Refugees from Central Europe PDF Author: Irene Eber
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110268183
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
The study discusses the history of the Jewish refugees within the Shanghai setting and its relationship to the two established Jewish communities, the Sephardi and Russian Jews. Attention is also focused on the cultural life of the refugees who used both German and Yiddish, and on their attempts to cope under Japanese occupation after the outbreak of the Pacific War. Differences of identity existed between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, religious and secular, aside from linguistic and cultural differences. The study aims to understand the exile condition of the refugees and their amazing efforts to create a semblance of cultural life in a strange new world.

Wartime Shanghai and the Jewish Refugees from Central Europe

Wartime Shanghai and the Jewish Refugees from Central Europe PDF Author: Irene Eber
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110268183
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
The study discusses the history of the Jewish refugees within the Shanghai setting and its relationship to the two established Jewish communities, the Sephardi and Russian Jews. Attention is also focused on the cultural life of the refugees who used both German and Yiddish, and on their attempts to cope under Japanese occupation after the outbreak of the Pacific War. Differences of identity existed between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, religious and secular, aside from linguistic and cultural differences. The study aims to understand the exile condition of the refugees and their amazing efforts to create a semblance of cultural life in a strange new world.

Voices from Shanghai

Voices from Shanghai PDF Author:
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226181685
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
When Hitler came to power and the German army began to sweep through Europe, almost 20,000 Jewish refugees fled to Shanghai. A remarkable collection of the letters, diary entries, poems, and short stories composed by these refugees in the years after they landed in China, Voices from Shanghai fills a gap in our historical understanding of what happened to so many Jews who were forced to board the first ship bound for anywhere. Once they arrived, the refugees learned to navigate the various languages, belief systems, and ethnic traditions they encountered in an already booming international city, and faced challenges within their own community based on disparities in socioeconomic status, levels of religious observance, urban or rural origin, and philosophical differences. Recovered from archives, private collections, and now-defunct newspapers, these fascinating accounts make their English-languge debut in this volume. A rich new take on Holocaust literature, Voices from Shanghai reveals how refugees attempted to pursue a life of creativity despite the hardships of exile.

Strange Haven

Strange Haven PDF Author: Sigmund Tobias
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252024535
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The author, part of the Jewish refugee community in Shanghai, tells of his experiences growing up in the ghetto under Japanese occupation.

Strangers Always

Strangers Always PDF Author: Rena Krasno
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781881896227
Category : Jews
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is a story of coming of age in chaotic times during the war in the Pacific, from the unique perspective of a young woman in the Jewish community of Shanghai. We learn how events were perceived by people entrapped by war who endeavored to seek the truth through smuggled info., jammed radio broadcasts, and reading between the lines of Japanese censorship. The heroic efforts of people in the Jewish community in Shanghai to help refugees from the Holocaust are perhaps the most inspiring part of the narrative. Many details of the history of that community are brought to light for the first time. Black and white photos.

Wartime Shanghai

Wartime Shanghai PDF Author: Wen-hsin Yeh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136858083
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Wartime Shanghai is a lively account of the political and social situation between 1937 and 1946. It explores the deep political rivalries between Nationalist groups, the intrigue of international espionage and how Shanghai society, from European administrators to Chinese film makers, collaborated with, or resisted, the Japanese occupation. Drawing on archival and published sources in English, French, Chinese and Japanese, the authors show the diversity of groups and communities that made up wartime Shanghai. This book is an engaging collection of essays written on an exciting, but often neglected episode of Chinese history.

The Jacquinot Safe Zone

The Jacquinot Safe Zone PDF Author: Marcia R. Ristaino
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804757933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The Jacquinot Zone, in Shanghai, is the first example in history of a successful safe zone that provided protection and security to half a million Chinese refugees living in a battle zone during wartime.

Shanghai Refuge

Shanghai Refuge PDF Author: Ernest G. Heppner
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803272811
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
The unlikely refuge of Shanghai, the only city in the world that did not require a visa, was buffeted by the struggle between European imperialism, Japanese aggression, and Chinese nationalism. Ernest G. Heppner's compelling testimony is a brilliant account of this little-known haven. Although Heppner was a member of a privileged middle-class Jewish family, he suffered from the constant anti-Semitic undercurrent in his surroundings. The devastation of "Crystal Night" in November 1938, however, introduced a new level of Nazi horror and ended his comfortable world overnight. Heppner and his mother used the family's resources to escape to Shanghai. Heppner was taken aback by experiences on the ocean liner that transported the refugees to Shanghai: he was embarrassed and confounded when Egyptian Jews offered worn clothing to the Jewish passengers, he resented the edicts against Jewish passengers disembarking in any ports on the way, and he was unprepared for the poverty and cultural dislocation of the great city of Shanghai. Nevertheless, Heppner was self-reliant, energetic, and clever, and his story of finding niches for his skills that enabled him to survive in a precarious fashion is a tribute to human endurance. In 1945, after the liberation of China, Heppner found a responsible position with the American forces there. He and his wife, whom he had met and married in the ghetto, arrived in the United States in 1947 with only eleven dollars but boundless hope and energy. Heppner's account of the Shanghai ghetto is as vivid to him now as it was then. His admiration for his new country and his later success in business do not, however, obscure for him the shameful failure of the Allies to furnish a refuge for Jews before, during, and after the war.

Last Boat Out of Shanghai

Last Boat Out of Shanghai PDF Author: Helen Zia
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345522338
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
The dramatic real life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China’s 1949 Communist revolution—a heartrending precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today. “A true page-turner . . . [Helen] Zia has proven once again that history is something that happens to real people.”—New York Times bestselling author Lisa See NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR • FINALIST FOR THE PEN/JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY Shanghai has historically been China’s jewel, its richest, most modern and westernized city. The bustling metropolis was home to sophisticated intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and a thriving middle class when Mao’s proletarian revolution emerged victorious from the long civil war. Terrified of the horrors the Communists would wreak upon their lives, citizens of Shanghai who could afford to fled in every direction. Seventy years later, members of the last generation to fully recall this massive exodus have revealed their stories to Chinese American journalist Helen Zia, who interviewed hundreds of exiles about their journey through one of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century. From these moving accounts, Zia weaves together the stories of four young Shanghai residents who wrestled with the decision to abandon everything for an uncertain life as refugees in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States. Benny, who as a teenager became the unwilling heir to his father’s dark wartime legacy, must decide either to escape to Hong Kong or navigate the intricacies of a newly Communist China. The resolute Annuo, forced to flee her home with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation from the U.S. in order to continue his studies while his family struggles at home. And Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America. The lives of these men and women are marvelously portrayed, revealing the dignity and triumph of personal survival. Herself the daughter of immigrants from China, Zia is uniquely equipped to explain how crises like the Shanghai transition affect children and their families, students and their futures, and, ultimately, the way we see ourselves and those around us. Last Boat Out of Shanghai brings a poignant personal angle to the experiences of refugees then and, by extension, today. “Zia’s portraits are compassionate and heartbreaking, and they are, ultimately, the universal story of many families who leave their homeland as refugees and find less-than-welcoming circumstances on the other side.”—Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club

The Shanghai Badlands

The Shanghai Badlands PDF Author: Frederic E. Wakeman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521528719
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Between August 1937 and December 1941, when the Chinese sectors of Shanghai were occupied by the Japanese, terrorist wars broke out between Nationalist secret agents and assassins of the Japanese military authorities. The most intensely disputed area was the western suburb, the Badlands, but warfare was not restricted to that zone. A spate of assassinations, bombings, and machine gun raids took place under the noses of the authorities. Thanks to the release of secret Chinese police files by the CIA, the inner workings of these terrorist groups and their links to the notorious Green Gang can now be exposed for the first time. In so doing, this book also explores the social history of Shanghai's underworld, the worsening relations between the US and Japan before World War II, and the rivalry between leaders Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei during China's War of Resistance.

Women, War, Domesticity

Women, War, Domesticity PDF Author: Nicole Huang
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047406931
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
This book studies a burgeoning middlebrow culture championed and sustained by a group of women writers, editors, and publishers who began their careers in Shanghai in the early 1940s when the city entered into an era of total occupation by the Japanese.