Museum shows unique ties between China and Israel

Volunteer guard Qin kaiyu at the Museum

Shanghai, the most populous city in the world on the eastern coast of China is home to a unique story that intertwines the histories of two of the world’s powerful countries, China and Israel.

The history, borne out of strife, remains a reminder of humankind’s enduring goodness, even during times of hopelessness.

At the height of the Second World War, Jews fled their home countries across Europe in droves to different corners of the world. Some chose to make China home and their intimate journey and subsequent stay in the Asian country is documented at the centre of this bustling Chinese city. The fleeing Jews were offered homes in Shanghai and ended up integrating and also preserving their local culture.

Their lives were visible everywhere, with the local towns in which their populations were noticeable fondly referred to as ‘Little Vienna.’ More than 20,000 made homes in the city.

Before Hitler’s Nazi policy turned actively genocidal in the late 1930s, exile was seen as a perfectly acceptable solution to the “Jewish problem” and as a result, the German and Austrian Jews were stripped of their citizenship rights, property, and employment.

In return, they were encouraged to relocate to any willing country. Sadly, the refugees had very few options. At the Évian Conference of 1938, world powers collectively decided to shut their borders to all but a small selection of Jewish refugees.

This was the genesis of the exodus of Jews, with China’s Hongkong and Shanghai being preferred destinations.

The refugees made do with modest housing, similar to the lives the Chinese lived at the time. They learnt how to cook meals with a coal stove and how to bring hot water from the boiler. A rich history of cultures through inter-marriages led to a blend in the different traditions and harmonious co-existence was founded that also resulted in publishing of Jewish journals, as they established clubs and built themselves.

But the refugees were not home and dry. A section of Shanghai remained under control of the Japanese.

“Permission must be obtained from the Japanese authorities for the transfer, sale, purchase, or lease of the rooms, houses, shops or any other establishments, which are situated outside the designated area and now being occupied or used by the stateless refugees.

Persons who will have violated this proclamation or obstructed its enforcement shall be liable to serve punishment,” reads a note by authorities from that period.

This unique history in oriental China is documented at The Jewish Refugees Historic Site, a museum commemorating the Jewish refugees. It is located at the former Ohel Moishe or moshe Synagogue, in Tilanqiao of Hongkou District, Shanghai, China.

Frequented by local and foreign tourists, the sacred moshe has a simplistic and solid style.

“The main building has three floors. Within the bricks and wood structure, every floor is surrounded by a short brick wall and has convex in the front.

The exterior decorations show the religious character Judaism,” says Qin Kaiyu, a volunteer guide at the museum.

Kaiyu paints a picture of a bustling community that played host to the Jews at their most vulnerable of times, when access to basic rights, such as access to travel documents was denied.

Years later, Kaiyu says, another group, mainly Russian and Sephardic Jewish was supplemented by tens of thousands of Ashkenazi Jews from Europe, who fled during the early stages of Nazi rule in Germany.

The second portrait is that of Ho Feng Shan, a Chinese consul general in Vienna, Austria who served between 1938 and 1940 during which he issued more than 1,200 - Visas for life - in his first three months in office to thousands of escaping Jews running from the holocaust.

As a result, Shan was nicknamed ‘China’s Schindler’ and awarded the title ‘righteous among the nations.’

Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist and a member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories.