Holocaust rescuers? Not quite

DR. RAFAEL MEDOFF SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

A new form of Holocaust distortion is floating around in cyberspace. A Web site sympathetic to China is trying to improve the communist regime's image by falsely claiming that China rescued Jews from the Holocaust.

The previously obscure Web site, www.liberationgraphics.com, received a significant boost earlier this month when it was the focus of a Washington Post feature story. The Post was interested in the site's display of posters supporting Arab attacks on Israel. The site also includes extensive commentary asserting that the posters are not anti-Semitic and not necessarily even anti-Israel.

The site displays a poster published by the (communist) Chinese government in 1970, which, according to the Web site, "portrays five Palestinian militants launching into an attack." The explanatory text alongside the China poster states: "Though allied with Palestine, China is not an enemy of Israel; the relationship is more complex. China practised an open door policy during the Second World War that provided desperately needed safe haven for many Jewish refugees from Shanghai and elsewhere in Asia."

From that description, one might deduce that Chairman Mao was some kind of Asian Raoul Wallenberg. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, Shanghai was a haven for some Jewish refugees during the Hitler years – but large areas of China were under Japanese military occupation from 1931 until 1945, and immigration to Shanghai was controlled by the Japanese government, not the Chinese. The Japanese, hoping to improve their relations with the United States and the American Jewish community, permitted thousands of German and Austrian Jews to settle in Shanghai during the 1930s.

During 1940-'41, some 2,000 Polish Jewish refugees who had been stranded in Lithuania were able to escape, thanks to false visas to Curacao provided by the Dutch consul, Jan Zwartendijk, and transit visas to Japan provided, without official sanction, by Japan's acting consul-general in Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara. Although the transit visas were technically good for only eight to 12 days, the refugees were permitted by the Japanese authorities to remain in Japan for up to eight months until they were able to secure other destinations.

Beginning in 1943, most of the Jews in Shanghai were confined to a two-square-mile section of the city known as the Restricted Area. Conditions were harsh but certainly not comparable to what Jews suffered in Europe. Historians estimate that altogether, about 18,000 Jews were saved from the Holocaust because of Japan's – not China's – policy.

One Chinese government official has been honored by Yad Vashem for assisting Jews during the Nazi era – Ho Fengshan, the Chinese consul-general in Vienna, who helped a number of Austrian Jews emigrate during 1938-1940. At an October 2000 ceremony, Fengshan was posthumously declared one of the "Righteous Among the Nations." But Ho Fengshan was a representative of the nationalist Chinese (those who now rule Taiwan), not the communist Chinese. Chairman Mao and his followers did not control China until 1949, four years after the Holocaust ended.

It is not hard to understand why American friends of China would like to demonstrate that China is not an enemy of Israel. Propaganda such as the poster glorifying "Palestinian militants" is more credible if it is seen as coming from a source that is not intrinsically hostile to Israel. But rewriting the Holocaust in order to improve China's image is simply wrong.

Rafael Medoff is director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which focuses on issues related to America's response to the Holocaust – www.WymanInstitute.org.

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