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studied and knew Japanese, and worked for the Jewish relief organization in Japan. He stayed in Japan until mid 1943 before going to Shanghai. There he helped the Chinese underground activities. Another was the above-mentioned Rabbi Kalmanowitz, who not only gave me some insights into his extraordinary rescue efforts, he permitted my making copies of his voluminous files. Another was Laura Margolies, the representative 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 colorful experience, and all very open and even delighted to finally talk to someone interested in their experience. Perhaps the well-known interviewee was Michael Blumenthal, USPresident 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 sixties 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 temperate Central European climate, to a virtual torrid equatorial climate. It was quite another to step out of one’s air-conditioned 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 discovery 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 refugee, 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 useful 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 probably become a two volume work. Zu David Kranzler siehe die biographischen Angaben im ersten Shanghai-Schwerpunktheft ZW 2001/Nr. 1. The now rapidly growing body of literature on the Jewish refugee 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 certainly had a past, did not have a history.' In the 1990s, the history 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 extent 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 surviving published materials from the Shanghai period. Nonetheless, at the present time historical knowledge of this rather singular refugee community relies extensively on personal 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 community and a few also from the Shanghai Sephardic community joined 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, relations between these different groups are formed by their separate 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 coming 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 interest in other sectors of Jewish life in Shanghai. The refugees 69
