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studied and knew Japanese, and worked for the Jewish relief
organization in Japan. He stayed in Japan until mid 1943 be¬
fore going to Shanghai. There he helped the Chinese under¬
ground activities. Another was the above-mentioned Rabbi
Kalmanowitz, who not only gave me some insights into his ex¬
traordinary rescue efforts, he permitted my making copies of
his voluminous files. Another was Laura Margolies, the re¬
presentative of the „Joint Distribution Committee“, as well as
her boss, Dr. Joseph Schwartz, head of the „Joint“ in Europe
during the war. There were others from the Russian Jewish, as
well as the Sephardic Jewish communities, though most were
German and Polish refugees; each with a unique, usually co¬
lorful experience, and all very open and even delighted to fi¬
nally talk to someone interested in their experience. Perhaps
the well-known interviewee was Michael Blumenthal, US¬
President Carter’s Treasury Secretary.
After the interviewees I found the discovery and analysis of
numerous collections of documents — eventually over 25.000,
and photos, provided by interviewees or find in private and
public archives in the U.S., Israel and England. During the six¬
ties one was not permitted to visit China, so I never got to
Shanghai until last year, and it made a real difference. It was
one thing, for example, to write about the humid, hot summers
and how difficult it was for the refugees to adjust from the tem¬
perate Central European climate, to a virtual torrid equatorial
climate. It was quite another to step out of one’s air-conditio¬
ned hotel to walk into an oppressive, humid heat that drenched
one in one’s sweat within minutes.
Another wonderful consequence of my research was the di¬
scovery of some great people, who were responsible for the
rescue of thousands of Jews during those tragic times, such
as the Dutch and Japanese Consuls, Jan Zwartendijk and
Chiune Sugihara, among others. And, two years ago, I had
the distinct honor of getting Jan Zwartendijk into the „Hall of
the Righteous Among the Nations“ at Yad Vashem.
The final pleasure I got out of the book are the many letters
of support and appreciation I received from Shanghai survivors
from all over the world, for writing up their experience. One re¬
fugee, Dr. Kurt Redlich, from Indianapolis, who had read my
dissertation, sent me a ten-page letter; one page of praise and
nine pages of constructive criticism. I quickly got in touch with
him and began a two-year correspondence (he wrote 2.000
single-spaced typed pages) wherein he criticized or made use¬
ful suggestions on many facets of the dissertation, that greatly
improved my eventual book. Occasionally, he would agree with
my response: always a gentleman and always honest. To this day
I cherish these friendships that I developed and from whom I
learned, and owe so much. The nice thing about the ten years I
put into this book, were not only enjoyable, they made it the
standard work in this field to this day. Although I am making a
new edition, there are very few facts that require change. I only
supplemented the existing material to create what will probab¬
ly become a two volume work.
Zu David Kranzler siehe die biographischen Angaben im er¬
sten Shanghai-Schwerpunktheft ZW 2001/Nr. 1.
The now rapidly growing body of literature on the Jewish re¬
fugee community in Shanghai during World War II shows the
fascinating process by which an event, place or phenomenon
is historicized. Before David Kranzler’s pioneering work
Japanese, Nazis and Jews, this community, although it cer¬
tainly had a past, did not have a history.' In the 1990s, the hi¬
story began to acquire substance: memoirs have been
published, associations founded, museum exhibitions held,
and documentaries filmed.
A striking aspect of this history-making process is the ex¬
tent to which it relies on, and has been stimulated by, memoirs
and oral history. There are some notable exceptions, including
Kranzler’s pioneering work, and work is in progress on various
aspects of the refugee experience based on the body of survi¬
ving published materials from the Shanghai period.
Nonetheless, at the present time historical knowledge of this
rather singular refugee community relies extensively on per¬
sonal memories. Who has written or spoken, what has been
said and not said: such factors have shaped this knowledge,
and are the subject of the present article.
My brief reflections here arise from a study of the migratory
experiences of twenty-six people, all now resident in
Melbourne, who come to Australia from Shanghai after World
War II. Perhaps two thousand of the former refugees — from
Nazi Europe emigrated to Australia either directly from
Shanghai or via Israel and Europe between 1945 and 1951.’
Smaller numbers from Shanghai’s Russian Jewish communi¬
ty and a few also from the Shanghai Sephardic community joi¬
ned them. Russians from China, Jewish or otherwise, tended
to settle in Sydney. Melbourne, however, became the great
centre of Jewish immigrants from central and eastern Europe,
including a large number of those who spent the war years in
Shanghai.
Of these twenty-six people, the oldest was born in 1907, the
youngest in 1936. The majority grew up in Germany or
Austria, or those bits of Poland which were once Germany or
Austria, and fled to Shanghai from the Third Reich, arriving at
various times between 1938 and 1941. The remainder of the
interviewees, six people in all, came from established migrant
communities in Shanghai, Iraqi and Russian, three having
British nationality.
As was the case in Shanghai, so it was in Melbourne, relati¬
ons between these different groups are formed by their separa¬
te community histories. Nearly all the German-speakers know
each other, but they have limited acquaintance with the
Russians, Poles or Sephardim. The main occasions for their co¬
ming together have been provided by recent exhibitions on the
Jewish experience of Shanghai. It is notable that in Australia at
least attention to the Jewish refugee community has led to an in¬
terest in other sectors of Jewish life in Shanghai. The refugees
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