The Plight of European Jewish Refugees in Post-Second World War Shanghai, August 1945–April 1948

Lazin, Fred A.

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-13761-7_8

Fred A. Lazin⁵

Part of the book series: Palgrave Series in Asian German Studies ((PSAGR))

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Abstract

The chapter examines the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)’s assistance to European refugees in Shanghai from August 1945 through March 1948. It focuses on the policies of the American JDC Shanghai directors, Manuel Siegel, who took charge in August 1945 and Charles Jordan, who replaced him in January 1946 and remained through April 1948. Of interest are policies of JDC NY.

Several interrelated questions are addressed. First, how did each director perceive the plight of the refugees over time? Second, did the JDC expect the refugees to be integrated into China or resettled abroad? Did refugees’ preferences for remaining, repatriation, or resettlement change over time? How did US and Australian immigration policies affect refugee preferences? Did the JDC influence refugees as to where to go? Third, did Chiang Kai-shek’s Government pressure refugees to leave China? Fourth, were there incidents of tension and conflict between the refugees and Chinese neighbors? Finally, how did the international aid organizations’ support influence the JDC’s relief policies? The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, in cooperation with the Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, assisted European refugees in Shanghai and sponsored repatriation. The Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees resettled European stateless refugees.

The research focus is on JDC policies as documented in its archives. The findings should add to evidence presented in the many published personal memoirs and testimonies. Secondary sources supplement the archival materials.

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Notes

1.
Barbara Geldermann, “Jewish Refugees Should be Welcomed and Assisted here! Shanghai: Exile and Return,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 44 (1999): 228.
2.
Yehuda Bauer, American Jewry and the Holocaust: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1939–1945 (Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1981), 304–305.
3.
Geldermann, “Jewish Refugees Should be Welcomed,” 234.
4.
Bauer, American Jewry and the Holocaust, 302.
5.
Steven Hochstadt, “How Many Jews Were There?” in A Century of Jewish Life in Shanghai, ed. Steven Hochstadt, 5 (New York: Touro University Press, 2019).
6.
Ibid., 5.
7.
Irene Eber, Wartime Shanghai and the Jewish Refugees from Central Europe: Survival, Co-Existence, and Identity in a Multi-Ethnic City (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2012), 23.
8.
Ibid., 20.
9.
Margolis previously worked for the JDC in Cuba (1939–1941). She later worked for the JDC in Europe and in Israel. All information about JDC personnel is from Nir Arielli, “Who’s who in the History of JDC,” JDC Archives, Jerusalem, 2004 (Unpublished Internal PDF Document of the JDC).
10.
Sara Halpern, “Ships and…Guarded Trains for Jews? The International Refugee Organization, AJDC and Mass Evacuations from Shanghai,” Paper presented at conference “American Joint Distribution Committee at 100,” New York City, September 2014, 5.
11.
Eber, Wartime Shanghai, 195.
12.
Sara Halpern, “The Integration of Jewish Refugees from Shanghai into Post-World War II San Francisco,” American Jewish History 104, no. 1 (2020): 96.
13.
Ibid., 98.
14.
JDC NY, “Abstract Statistical Analysis… Refugees in Shanghai…,” March 31, 1946, Records of the New York office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1933–1944, folder 465, #456657. Note: All archival sources used for the chapter are from the Records of the New York office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1933–1945. For all remaining archival footnotes this information will not be included.
15.
Marcia Reynders Ristaino, Port of Last Resort: The Diaspora Communities of Shanghai (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 243.
16.
Ibid., 246.
17.
See Harry B. Price, “UNRRA in China,” in Almanac Shanghai 1946/47, ed. Ossie Lewin (Shanghai: Shanghai Echo, 1947), 29.
18.
UNRRA funded resettlement and IGCR repatriation. In July 1947 the International Refugee Organization, IRO, replaced the UNRRA and IGCR (Nasaw 2020: 183).
19.
Letter, Manuel Siegel to Moses A. Leavitt, August 26, 1945, folder 464, #456431. Siegel later served as the JDC representative in Bulgaria (1946–1947). At this time Moses A. Leavitt was Executive Secretary of the JDC. In 1947, he became Executive Vice Chair.
20.
Cable, Joseph Schwartz to jointdisco, August 24, 1945, folder 464, #45646. Dr Joseph Schwartz served as Chair (1942–1949) and Director General of the JDC European Executive Council. “Jointdisco” and “jointco” are the respective cable addresses of the JDC headquarters in NYC and the JDC office in Shanghai.
21.
Memo, Joseph Hyman, October 31. 1945, folder 464 #456458. Mr Joseph Hyman was Executive Vice Chair of the JDC at the time.
22.
Cable, War Refugee Board to US Embassy Lisbon, April 30, 1945, folder 464, #456493. The symbol $ represents United States (US) dollars.
23.
Letter, Siegel to Leavitt, November 4, 1945, folder 464, #456597.
24.
Folder 464, #456583.
25.
Cable, jointco to jointdisco, January 10, 1946, folder 465, #456724. Jordan directed the JDC Emigration Department in Paris from 1948 to 1949. From 1956 to 1967 he oversaw JDC Overseas Operations. In 1966 he became Executive Vice President. He was murdered in Prague in 1967.
26.
Folder 465, #456734.
27.
Letter to Leavitt, March 16, 1946, folder 465, #456675.
28.
Letter to Leavitt, April 23, 1946, folder 465, #456641.
29.
Letter to Leavitt, May 28, 1946, folder 465, #456618.
30.
Letter to Leavitt, July 22, 1947, folder 467, #456963.
31.
Letter to Leavitt, December 30, 1946, folder 456, #456751.
32.
Letters to Leavitt, August 26, 1945, and September 25, 1945, folder 464, #456430.
33.
Letters, Siegel to E. T. Nash, October 13, 1945, folder 464, #456581 and to B. Kizer, October 15, 1945, folder 464, #456579. Nash was acting director of UNRRA Shanghai and Kizer directed the UNRRA in China.
34.
Folder 464, #456582.
35.
Letter to Leavitt, November 4, 1945.
36.
During the War, Dr Lang, a European refugee who had been baptized as a child, served on the staff of the Shanghai JDC Committee appointed by Margolis and Siegel (Letter, Siegel to Leavitt, August 26, 1945).
37.
Rabbi Fine served as the U.S. military’s Liaison Officer to the European refugees in Shanghai.
38.
Letter, Siegel to Leavitt, November 4, 1945; Felix Gruenberger, “The Jewish Refugees in Shanghai,” Jewish Social Studies 12, No. 4 (October 1950): 346; and Herman Dicker, Wanderers and Settlers in the Far East: A Century of Jewish Life in China and Japan (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1962), 138.
39.
Kimberly Cheng, “American Dreams: Jewish Refugees, American Servicemen, and Chinese Locals in Post-World War II Shanghai” (Unpublished manuscript).
40.
Letter, November 4, 1945, folder 464, #456562.
41.
Letter, November 20, 1945.
42.
Letter to Leavitt (December 30, 1946, folder 466, #456751).
43.
Letter to Leavitt, January 5, 1946.
44.
Letter to Leavitt, August 6, 1946, folder 466, #456842.
45.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, March 16, 1946.
46.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, April 12, 1946, folder 465, #456647.
47.
Letter, Pilpel to M.B. Blumberg, April 29, 1946 and Cable, jointco to jointdisco, April 13, 1946, folder 465, #456644. Robert Pilpel served as Executive Assistant 1946–1952 at the JDC in NYC. Blumberg was president of the Terre Haute, IN, Jewish Welfare Fund.
48.
Letter to Leavitt, May 28, 1946.
49.
Letter to Leavitt, August 6, 1946.
50.
Ossie Lewin, ed., Almanac Shanghai 1946/47 (Shanghai: Shanghai Echo, 1947), 12.
51.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, December 30, 1946.
52.
Letter, Aaron Grodsky to B.R. Badanes, February 17, 1947, folder 467, #457015.
53.
Letter from Jordan to Leavitt on May 28, 1946.
54.
Cables, jointdisco to jointco, June 12, 1946, folder 465, #456609 & jointco to jointdisco, June 13, 1946, folder 465 #456608.
55.
In early 1947 the Preparatory Commission for the International Refugee Organization (PCIRO) negotiated an agreement for IRO to operate in China from July 1, 1947 (Third … Proposed Agreement… June 10, 1947, folder 467, #456951).
56.
December 4, 1945, folder 464, #456530. Jennings Wong soon became head of the IRO in China (August 14, 1947, folder 467, #456952).
57.
Letter to Leavitt on July 22, 1947.
58.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, November 13, 1947, folder 467, #456903.
59.
Letter to Leavitt, November 4, 1945, #456597.
60.
Letter to Leavitt, May 4, 1946, folder 465, #456631.
61.
December 4, 1945, folder 464, #456530.
62.
Letter to Leavitt, January 21, 1946, folder 465, #456738.
63.
Cable, jointco to jointdisco, February 11, 1946.
64.
Letter Van Tijn to Leavitt, March 4, 1946, folder 465, #456680. German-born Gertrude van Tijn worked for a JDC-funded refugee committee in Holland before and during the German occupation in the Second World War. See Wasserstein, 2014: 23–25, 70. She came on her own to Shanghai to work for the UNRRA and the CNRRA.
65.
Press Release JDC Shanghai, April 12, 1946, folder 465, #456648.
66.
Letter to Leavitt, May 28, 1946.
67.
Cable, jointco to jointdisco, April 9, 1946, folder 465, #456641.
68.
Letter to Leavitt, April 23, 1946, folder 465, #456641.
69.
Letter, Leavitt to Jordan, January 2, 1947, folder 467, #456038.
70.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, folder 467, #457018.
71.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, November 18, 1946, folder 466, #456788.
72.
Letter to Louis Sobel (Secretary, JDC NY), June 3, 1947, folder 467, #456972.
73.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, November 13, 1947, folder 746, #456903.
74.
Letter to Leavitt, August 26, 1945.
75.
Siegel to Leavitt on September 25, 1946.
76.
Folder 464, #456582.
77.
Letter to Leavitt, December 4, 1945.
78.
Letter from American Consulate to JDC NY, December 19, 1945, folder 464, #456511; Regulations promulgated by instructions number 26392 Char “Ping Loh” November 27, 1945. Ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs could “sanction their further stay in China…. Before their repatriation however they may submit a substantial shop guarantee provided by Chinese or foreigners and apply to the provincial and municipal governments for sanctioning their further temporary stay in China. Those unable to supply a guarantee shall be segregated under the administration of competent provincial and municipal governments….” (Letter, Leavitt to Mr George L. Warren, March 6, 1946, folder 465, #456684).
79.
December 19, 1945, folder 464, #456513.
80.
Letter, January 5, 1946.
81.
Letter, January 21, 1946.
82.
Letter, Beckelman to Mr Howard (US Consul General, Shanghai), folder 465, #456744. As a JDC representative in Lithuania (1939–1941), Beckelman negotiated for the passage of Polish and Lithuanian Jews across the Soviet Union via the Trans–Siberian Railway (Bauer, American Jewry, 121–122). Also see Samuel Iwry (edited by L.J.H. Kelley), To Wear the Dust of War: From Bialystok to Shanghai to the Promised Land: An Oral History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 59–60. He returned to work for the JDC in 1946. In 1951 he became Director General of JDC Overseas Operations.
83.
Cable, Beckelman to IGCR (London), January 28, 1946, folder 465, #456721.
84.
January 31, 1946, folder 465, #456717.
85.
Letter from Jordan to Leavitt, April 23, 1946.
86.
Jordan noted that “CNRRA implemented its promise…” to provide the Shanghai municipal authorities shop guarantees “covering all refugees….” (Cable, jointco to jointdisco, March 3, 1946, folder 389, #459742). Van Tijn wrote that this “greatly relieved prevailing anxiety among the refugees” (Letter to J. Wong, April 10, 1946, folder 465, #456683).
87.
Letter to Leavitt, August 1, 1946, folder 466, #456847.
88.
Report to Leavitt, December 30, 1946.
89.
Letter, February 4, 1948, folder 491, #460205.
90.
February 5, 1948, folder 482, #459042.
91.
Letter to Leavitt, January 21, 1946; Lewin, Almanac, 33, 43.
92.
In 1946, the National Council of Jewish Women’s Department of Service to Foreign Born and the National Refugee Service merged into the USNA. The UJA funded it (Letter, Roman Slobodin to Robert Pilpel, October 22, 1947, folder 467, #456916).
93.
Memo, Jordan to Beckelman, April 14, 1946, folder 489, #459725.
94.
Cable, March 27, 1946, folder 489, #459739.
95.
Letter, M. Leavitt to Dr Joseph Schwartz, March 28, 1946, folder 489, #459738.
96.
Letter, May 14, 1946, folder 489, #459712.
97.
Folder 489, #459609.
98.
Jordan to Leavitt, April 23, 1946.
99.
Jordan to Leavitt, May 4, 1946.
100.
Letter to Leavitt May 28, 1946.
101.
Folder 489, #459669.
102.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, July 26, 1946, folder 466, #456854; Letter, Leavitt to Lessing J. Rosenwald, December 9, 1946, folder 466, #456769. See also Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 256–257.
103.
Letter, Jordan to Davis, July 26, 1946, folder 466, #456855.
104.
Letter, October 4, 1946, folder 482, #459078.
105.
Folder 489, #459614.
106.
Letters, October 16 and 29, 1946, folder 489, #459608, #459609.
107.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, December 30, 1946, folder 489, #459563.
108.
Letter, Jordan to Buchman, December 6, 1946, folder 487 #459280.
109.
Letter, Jeff Lewis to Moe Leavitt, April 25, 1947, folder 490, #459772.
110.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, February 5, 1947.
111.
Letter to Leavitt, December 30, 1946.
112.
Letter to Joseph Beck, January 16, 1947, folder 490, #459880.
113.
Letter, Edwin Rosenberg (Form letter), May 12, 1947, folder 490, #459761.
114.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, December 30, 1946.
115.
Letter, January 21, 1947.
116.
Letter, T. Shoemaker, INS, to Joseph Beck, April 28, 1947, folder 490, #459769.
117.
Masel was vice president of the Council of Australian Jewry (Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, November 14, 1946, folder 389, #459605.
118.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, March 1, 1947, folder 467, #457004.
119.
March 20, 1947, folder 467, #456997.
120.
June 2, 1947, folder 467, #456973.
121.
Letter to Ann Petluck, August 11, 1947 folder 490, #459974. Ann Petluck directed the Migration Department at the USNA in NYC.
122.
Letter to Petluck, October 7, 1947, folder 490, #459946.
123.
Folder 467, #456912.
124.
Letter to Thomas Pym Cope, acting Shanghai director of PCIRO, February 17, 1948, folder 468, #457147.
125.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, November 2, 1947.
126.
Letter, Jordan to Leavitt, January 29, 1948, folder 491, #460197.
127.
Letter to Leavitt, November 2, 1947.
128.
David Nasaw, The Last Million: Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War (New York: Penguin Press, 2020), 414, 419, 420.
129.
Letter, November 25, 1947, folder 467, #456901.
130.
Letter, Leavitt to Jordan, February 12, 1948, folder 491, #460196.
131.
Folder 491, #460192.
132.
See Suzanne Rutland, “‘Waiting Room Shanghai’: Australian Reactions to the Plight of the Jews in Shanghai after the Second World War,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 32 (1987): 422–428.
133.
Letter to Pilpel, March 10, 1948, folder 490, #460186.
134.
“Notes,” folder 468, #457142.
135.
“Final summary…,” April 21, 1948.
136.
Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 250.
137.
Dicker, Wanderers and Settlers, 139.
138.
Geldermann, “Jewish Refugees,” 239.
139.
Aaron Grodsky, “The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Shanghai,” in Almanac Shanghai 1946/47, ed. Ossie Lewin (Shanghai, Shanghai Echo, 1947), 37.
140.
Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 250.
141.
Eber, Wartime Shanghai, 190.
142.
Ibid., 193, 194.
143.
Geldermann, “Jewish Refugees,” 239.
144.
David Nasaw, The Last Million.
145.
Fred Lazin, “The Response of the American Jewish Committee to the Crisis of German Jewry, 1933–1939,” American Jewish History 68, no. 3 (March, 1979): 283–304.
146.
Cable, jointdisco to jointco, August 19, 1946, folder 487, #459306.
147.
Hochstadt, “How Many Jews Were There?,” 24.
148.
.See also Gruenberger, “The Jewish Refugees in Shanghai,” 347.

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Department of Politics and Government, Ben Gurion University of the Negrev, Beer Sheva, Israel
Fred A. Lazin

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Department of History, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN, USA
Kevin Ostoyich
College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
Yun Xia

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Lazin, F.A. (2022). The Plight of European Jewish Refugees in Post-Second World War Shanghai, August 1945–April 1948. In: Ostoyich, K., Xia, Y. (eds) The History of the Shanghai Jews. Palgrave Series in Asian German Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13761-7_8

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13761-7_8
Published: 29 November 2022
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