Shanghai's efforts to save Jews during WWII retold

 Shanghai's efforts to save Jews during WWII retold

In 1939, the Kracho family was trying to escape Nazi Germany and found themselves at a travel agency. The man said he had just had a cancellation and had 16 extra tickets. Mr Kracho asked, "16 tickets to where?" The man replied, "Shanghai, China."To get more shanghai china news, you can visit citynewsservice.cn official website.

They bought the tickets. And in March of that year, 16 members of the Kracho family boarded a German ocean liner and set out on an eight-week journey to Shanghai.

"A different country, a different world, different culture, language, different food, weather, everything. Totally, totally different," said Ellen Kracho, who was born in Shanghai during World War II and grew up in New York.

Elizabeth Grebenschikoff's grandfather, on the other hand, managed to get out because he bribed the shipping agent. Her grandfather was turned down the first time he asked for four visas.

However, he went back with the same paperwork and said, "Take another look." Hidden between the pages was money. He eventually secured passage on a shipping line from Naples, Italy, to Shanghai.

During 1933-41, more than 20,000 stateless Jews fled to Shanghai to escape the Holocaust, as the city was among the few places that Jewish refugees were guaranteed acceptance, said Huang Ping, Chinese consul general in New York. He spoke on Tuesday at the opening ceremony of an exhibition on refugees in downtown Manhattan.

Some of the survivors and their descendants shared their family stories at the exhibition titled Shanghai, Homeland Once Upon a Time — Jewish Refugees and Shanghai.

The exhibition is organized by the Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and managed by the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum at 28 Liberty Street in Fosun Plaza. It showcases more than 200 photographs and approximately 30 pieces of replica memorabilia and will last until Aug 14. It also features videos and personal stories from Jewish refugees in China and their descendants.

In the summer of 1938, delegates from 32 countries met in France, and most countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, decided not to take in more Jewish refugees.

It was during that time that Rabbi Arthur Schneier, now 93 and a Holocaust survivor, first encountered a Chinese diplomat who issued thousands of visas. "Many of you, and many of your parents, survived because of this hero," he said. "My family, except for my mother and I, ended up in Auschwitz, never to be seen alive."

Ho Feng-shan was the consul general of the Republic of China in Vienna from 1938 to 1940. He managed to issue numerous visas to Jews seeking to escape Austria after the Anschluss, the German annexation of Austria.With his help, about 2,000 Jewish refugees managed to flee Austria to Shanghai and other places. The visas were known as "visas for life".

Jerry Lindenstraus and his father were among the German Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai during that time.

Lindenstraus, born in Germany in 1929, had a good life until 1938. "I don't know how my father and people figured out there was one place in the world where he could go to, and that was Shanghai," he said.

Just like that, young Lindenstraus followed his father and boarded one of the last German ships to Shanghai in 1939. He then lived in Shanghai for seven and a half years.