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June 23, 2006
Modern city, treasured past
Shanghai has always been a haven for Diaspora Jews.
KELLEY KORBIN
The booming Chinese economy is attracting Jews from around the
world to live as expatriates in China's modern commercial hub, Shanghai.
More than 1,000 Jews now live in this fast-growing metropolis of
20 million, where many work as teachers, diplomats and entrepreneurs.
These expatriates are the latest wave in a centuries-old saga of
Jews living and working in China – arguably the most historically
tolerant country in the world to Jews.
The first Jews to immigrate to China were most likely traders who
came via the Silk Road to exchange their wares in the eighth or
ninth century. But no substantial Jewish population settled in Shanghai
until the first wave of modern Jewish immigration to the city began
in 1842, when a treaty port was established and Shanghai became
an open city, meaning no entry visa was required to enter it.
Sephardi Jewish immigrants from Baghdad, Bombay, Spain and Portugal
began arriving in what was then (and is again today) an important
world trade centre. Many of these immigrants became famous and successful
in China. Families like the Sassoons and the Hardoons were significant
contributors to the establishment of the city and built many of
Shanghai's famous landmarks. For example, the Sassoon family built
the Peace Hotel on the Bund, which still operates today.
The community also built cemeteries and synagogues – at one
time, there were seven synagogues in Shanghai. Ohel Rachel was built
by Sir Jacob Elias Sassoon in 1920 in memory of his wife, Lady Rachel.
The synagogue housed a school, a mikvah and a library. The building
still stands and, although it has been used as a warehouse by the
Communist government for the last 50 or so years, it was recently
declared a world historical site and the Chinese government has
given permission for the current Shanghai Jewish community to use
it four times a year for religious services.
The only other synagogue remaining in Shanghai is Ohel Moshe, built
in 1927, which is situated in the Hong Kou district. Hong Kou became
a Jewish ghetto during the Second World War. Ohel Moshe is now open
as a museum of Jewish history in China and many of the 50,000 Jewish
tourists who visit Shanghai each year tour the site.
The second wave of modern Jewish immigration to China began in the
1920s, when thousands of Russian Jews flocked to China, fleeing
pogroms and the Russian Revolution. At one time, 4,500 Russian Jews
lived in Shanghai. Once they arrived, these new Jewish refugees,
who were for the most part relatively poor, were assisted, in the
spirit of tzedakah, by the existing established Sephardi community.
But it is Shanghai's history as a safe haven for European Jews escaping
the Nazi regime that most endears the city to many Jews. It was
one of the few, if not only, places in the world where immigrants
were not required to hold an entry visa, so thousands of European
Jews entered Shanghai between 1938 and 1944. This is in stark contrast
to other countries, like Canada, that flat out denied entry or put
quotas on the number of Jews they would accept. In fact, Shanghai
has been credited with saving more Jews during the Holocaust than
all of the Commonwealth countries combined. In total, about 20,000
Jewish refugees from Austria, Germany and Poland found refuge in
Shanghai.
The Japanese invaded China in 1937. In 1943, under pressure from
their German allies, the Japanese occupiers, who had now reached
Shanghai, rounded up most of the city's European Jews, forced them
to leave their homes and close their businesses and reallocated
them into a "ghetto" in the Hong Kou district where, despite
German policy, they were allowed to live almost without interference.
Although these immigrants were forced to make do with dilapidated
residences and faced shortages of many necessities, including food
and medicine, compared to the terrors endured in European Jewish
ghettos, their lives were relatively good and the Shanghai Chinese,
also living under occupation, were kind to Jews. Interestingly,
Jews from neutral countries like Iraq were left alone by the Japanese.
Vancouver Jewish community member Ralph Kuropatwa was born in Shanghai
in 1940. His parents arrived there from Europe independently: his
father, Zelik Kuropatwa, came from Belgium in 1936, his mother,
Fanny Klapholz, fled Germany for Shanghai in 1939. The elder Kuropatwa
and Klapholz met at a party at a boarding house and soon married.
Ralph Kuropatwa and his younger brother, Franklin, lived in Shanghai
until 1945.
"I remember speaking a pidgin Shanghai dialect, because I had
an ama, a Chinese babysitter, because my mom and dad ran
a stationery store," recalled Kuropatwa, who said he has few
memories of his time in Shanghai.
Kuropatwa said that, although he knows his parents suffered hardship
during those years in Shanghai, especially when they were forced
to move to the Hong Kou ghetto in 1943, for him and his friends,
life was good and they felt relatively safe.
"I had a happy childhood in Shanghai," he said. "To
someone under four feet tall, day-to-day life was good. We weren't
hiding; [rather we were] living, working and doing our best in trying
circumstances.... It was primarily a haven. We had lots of social
and business relationships with Chinese people and we'd ooh and
aah over each others' food."
As for the Japanese occupation, in hindsight, Kuropatwa reflects
that the Jews in Shanghai were "in relative safety, even under
the Japanese. It wasn't until three months before the war ended
that the Japanese were setting up death camps under German pressure
- but to their credit, they were moving reluctantly and slowly.
The Japanese didn't hurry to do the bidding of their allies. My
father's impression was that the Japanese were quite respectful
of Jewish culture," he said.
Nevertheless, the Kuropatwas and other Jewish refugees in Shanghai
eagerly anticipated the end of the war. "My most romantic memory
is from 1944," recalled Kuropatwa. "I remember my dad
taking me in his arms, despite the protests of my mother, and rushing
me up to the roof of our tenement flat and it was night time, dark,
and the Americans were bombing the Japanese ammunition sites –
the ammunition dumps were deliberately placed in the centre of the
Jewish populations, a trick the Japanese learned from Germany –
my father was saying, 'Look, look, the Americans are coming,' as
if it was the Messiah."
After the war, Kuropatwa said his father was desperate to get back
to Europe to see his family and friends – only to be "continually
shocked to find they had been decimated."
Kuropatwa owes his life to the city of Shanghai and remarked that
he has a fondness for the Chinese people and culture. "Something
Chinese will always be in my heart," he declared.
Today, amid the myriad ultra-modern, multi-storied buildings in
Shanghai, many of the streets in Hong Kou, including the one where
Ohel Moshe is located, remain much as they were during the war years,
minus of course the Viennese bakeries, kosher butchers and Jewish
schools run by the Jewish refugees who peppered those streets during
the first half of the 20th century.
At the end of the Second World War, approximately 24,000 Jews lived
in Shanghai. By 1950, as a result of the Communist revolution and
the establishment of the People's Republic of China, only a handful
remained. Now, with China opening its borders more to international
trade, the city of Shanghai is once again welcoming Jewish expatriates
and Diaspora Jews.
Kelley Korbin is a Vancouver freelance writer.
A Chinese hero
One of the unsung heroes from the Holocaust is Dr.
Feng Shan Ho, the Chinese consulate general in Vienna from 1938
to 1940. Ho risked his career and his life to save thousands of
Jews from Nazi persecution. At the time, Jews in Austria were trapped
there, unable to leave unless they had an entry visa for a specific
country. So, although China did not even require an entrance visa
at the time, and in defiance of direct orders from his own ambassador
and the Nazis, Ho issued thousands of Chinese visas to Jews –
a visa for every Jewish person who applied to him. The majority
of these refugees never went to China, but used the visa to get
them out of Austria and then found shelter in other countries.
When Ho's consulate was shut down by the Nazis in 1939, the Chinese
government, short on funds and afraid of German retaliation, refused
to provide the financing to relocate it. Ho took matters into his
own hands. He paid out of his own pocket to set up a smaller office,
where he continued to issue visas to Jews until the conclusion of
his mission.
In his 1990 memoir, My 40 Years of Diplomatic Life, Ho wrote:
"Since the annexation of Austria by the Germans, the persecution
of the Jews by Hitler's 'devils' became increasingly fierce ...
I spared no effort in using any means possible. Innumerable Jews
were saved."
Ho has since been given the designation "righteous among the
nations" by the State of Israel.
– Kelley Korbin
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