The History of the Shanghai Jews

This volume provides a historical narrative, historiographical reviews, and scholarly analyses by leading scholars throughout the world on the hitherto understudied topic of Shanghai Jewish refugees. Few among the general public know that during the Second World War, approximately 16,000 to 20,000 Jews fled the Nazis, found unexpected refuge in Shanghai, and established a vibrant community there. Though most of them left Shanghai soon after the conclusion of the war in 1945, years of sojourning among the Chinese and surviving under the Japanese occupation generated unique memories about the Second World War, lasting goodwill between the Chinese and Jews, and contested interpretations of this complex past. The volume makes two major contributions to the studies of Shanghai Jewish refugees. First, it reviews the present state of the historiography on this subject and critically assesses the ways in which the history is being researched and commemorated in China. Second, it compiles scholarship produced by renowned scholars, who aim to rescue the history from isolated perspectives and look into the interaction between Jews, Chinese, and Japanese.

Auteur
Kevin Ostoyich is Professor of History at Valparaiso University, Indiana, USA.
Yun Xia is Professor of History at Shanghai University, China.

Contenu

1. Introduction.- Part I Placing the History of the Shanghai Jews within Various Historical Contexts.- 2. Jews in China and Their Contributions.- 3. The German East Asiatic Society (OAG) in Shanghai, 1931 - 1945.- 4. The Designated Area for Stateless Refugees in Shanghai: Exploring Aftereffects Using Unpublished Documents of Captain Toshiro Saneyoshi.- Part II Cultural Life of Refugees in Shanghai.- 5. The Kadoorie School: Educating Refugee Children in Shanghai.- 6. Bruno Loewenberg and the Lion Book Shop.- Part III The Jews Sojourning in Shanghai after the War.- 7. A Problem of Some Delicacy: Chinese Sovereignty, Jewish Refugees, and the West, 1945 - 1946.- 8. The Plight of European Jewish Refugees in Post-WWII Shanghai, August 1945 April 1948.- Part IV Commemoration of the History of the Shanghai Jews.- 9. Relative Resistance: Fascist Aryanization Practices and the Bond of Victimhood in the Antifascist Animation AJewish Girl in Shanghai.-
   10. The Shanghai Jewish Refugees: History and Commemoration. <p