Shanghai Ghetto

The latest documentary I watched on the Holocaust was about the Jews who migrated to Shanghai in 1939 while they were still able to leave Germany.  It is interesting that no one else in the world wanted the Jews but the Japanese admired them for their great skill in so many areas.  The Japanese owned parts of China at that time and invited them to come to Shanghai.  

It was not very wonderful but they would be able to survive.  The thing that was so impressive is that the Jewish Organizations from around the world funded soup kitchens and help for them.  Being the resourceful people they are, they soon had schools, rebuilt the apartments, had soccer teams, gardens, a synagogue, etc.  They built an excellent community.

Then Japan  joined Germany in the war.  The British and Americans in Shanghai were put in concentration camps and their riches taken from them.  The Jews were not put in camps but they were moved to a less desirable area which they called a Ghetto.  Still they survived and the Japanese did not harm them.  They were, of course, though bombed.

It was a most educational and well done documentary and prepared by one of the survivors.   Unfortunately the relatives who were not able to leave with them on the ships to Shanghai did not survive the war at all.