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JEWS IN SHANGHAI | A Woodcut Painting Depicting Madam Soong Ching-ling’s Protest against Hitlerism Still Hangs in the German Consulate General in Shanghai


15 September 2016 | By Huang Yuan / trans. Huang Xie'an | Copyedited by Gu Yiqing

  • Woodcut Painting

Editor's Note: During the World War II, more than 30,000 Jews, under attack by the Nazis in Europe, fled to Shanghai, China and 16,000 of them took refugee in this city. Meanwhile, the local Shanghai people were also in an abyss of pain inflicted by the Japanese invasion.  Though the time was difficult, gratitude and mutual friendship lived on in the heart of the Jewish and Chinese people. The Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum and Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) launched a initiative early this year to present those touching stories in Chinese, English, German and Hebrew. This is one of the selected stories in the project to commemorate the history of Jews in Shanghai.

 

I

t is an interesting and yet thought provoking experience. A journalist visited the German Consulate General in Shanghai and met with Dr. Wolfgang Roehr, the German Consul General in Shanghai, in his office two years ago. It was a beautifully and deliberately decorated office with blooming flowers on the tea table and a woodcut painting and several black-and-white photos on the walls. The contrast was striking between the vibrant flowers and the yellowish painting and the photos: it was a unique combination of vibrancy and nostalgia.

“Do you notice the woodcut painting on the wall?” Dr. Wolfgang asked the visitor who was about to take his leave. It was an unexpected question, and before the visitor got his answer, Dr. Wolfgang took him to the painting. The painting depicts a scene in May 1933 and the characters are Madam Soong Ching-ling, Lu Xun (a great writer), Cai Yuanpei (distinguished educator and principal of Peking University), Yang Xingfo (a revolutionist and civil rights advocator) and Lin Yutang (another great writer), who had come to the German Consulate General in Shanghai to voice their protest against the “Hitlerism” in Germany.

Dr. Wolfgang then explained why the painting was valuable: The Chinese intellectuals were crying out against the madness of anti-Semitic persecution, the Holocaust, in Germany which their counterparts in the western world had failed to notice. He said, “They were in fact ‘interfering’ with the domestic affairs of Germany, but they did a job of great value.”

The outcry was part of a sensation which had grown long before. On April 24, 1920, Dr. Sun Yat-sen wrote to Edward Ezra, a leader of the Jewish community in Shanghai: “All democracy lovers will do everything possible to help the Jewish people revive. As a great and ancient ethnicity, you’ve made great contributions to the civilization of the world, and deserve an honorable position in the world.”

It is therefore natural and a matter of continuity for Madam Soong, wife of Dr. Sun, to lead a group of social celebrities and justice advocators to protest against the Holocaust in Europe. On May 13, 1933, together with foreign journalists like Agnes Smedley and Harold Robert Isaacs, the group went to the German Consulate General in Shanghai to deliver their letter of protest. The letter was indeed very harsh, declaring that it was outrageous for Adolf Hitler and his Nazi government to have arrested 30-40 thousand workers and persecuted thousands of intellectuals within 4 or 5 months after he rose to power, and that it was inhuman and intolerable for the Nazis to torture and kill prisoners while giving them the bad name of committing suicide or attempting to escape.

Afterwards, Yang Xingfo, as it was somehow recorded, explained their protest: “The act has served us very well, as it has attracted worldwide attention. The intellectuals in Japan have taken a similar action; they also protested against the Nazi atrocity. We’re delighted to see that justice is still valued.”

It is a pride for the Chinese intellectual community that China League for Civil Rights, their own advocacy group, had fought bravely on the anti-Facist front and taken determined actions against Hitler.

It is also a pride for all the Chinese people that the woodcut painting is still hanging in the office of the German Consul General in Shanghai as a historical proof.

The friendship between Chinese and Jews has a long history. Both ethnic cities have made glorious contributions to the civilization of the world, and more importantly, they shared virtually the same fate. During WWII, over 35 million Chinese were killed by the Japanese aggressors while about 6 million Jews were killed by the German Nazis. The shared bitterness explains why the Chinese people had shown such strong sympathy on Jews when they suffered from the Holocaust.

The Jewish community in Shanghai, on the other hand, had supported their Chinese comrades in the war of resistance against Japanese aggression. The most famous Jewish fighter in the Chinese battlefield was Morris “Two-gun” Cohen, who had fought with his Chinese comrades for decades, from the early democratic revolution to the resistance war against Japanese aggression. Another Jew fighting in China and for China was Hans (Erich) Shippe (his birth name was Mojzesz (Moses) Grzyb). He used also the name Heinz Moeller but better known as "Asiaticus" and his Chinese name was (Hansi) Xibo. He was  a German writer and journalist, who was the first Jew to join the Chinese resistance war against Japanese aggression. In 1939, he left Shanghai and joined the Chinese army. He was killed in a battle in Shandong soon after the Pearl Harbor attack. A memorial in his honor has been built where he was found dead. Still another noteworthy Jewish was Dr. Jacob Rosenfield who came to Shanghai from Austria in 1939 as a refugee and joined the Chinese army in the resistance war, as a doctor for Communist-led troops, two years later. The Chinese people will always remember his contribution to the victory of resistance war.

More than half a century has passed, and now the Jews who took refuge in Shanghai, with their family and children, are living in different parts of the world. So far as we know with pride and honor, however, all of them still consider Shanghai as their “homeland”.

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Press Contact

SISU News Center, Office of Communications and Public Affairs

Tel : +86 (21) 3537 2378

Email : news@shisu.edu.cn

Address :550 Dalian Road (W), Shanghai 200083, China

Further Reading