Shanghai

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Map of the concessions in Shanghai in 1855 (red), overlaid (green) with the road map from 1910.

Shanghailänder , in English also Shanghighlander (pun with "Highlander"), called themselves the foreign residents of Shanghai , mostly from western countries, who lived in extraterritorial zones from about the middle of the 19th century to about 1950 . The Chinese part of the population was called Shanghainese .

International Settlement and the French Concession

There were two zones in Shanghai, the so-called International Settlement and the French Concession . The British concession in Shanghai was established in 1847, the French one followed in 1849. The Russians also showed ambitions to expand to the Far East, while Germans and Americans began to show interest in the “economic miracle” in China from 1863 onwards. In the same year the British then merged their branch with the new American zone to form "International Settlement", which had an area of ​​2.4 km 2 . The domestic and international middle and upper classes stayed for the most part in the “ivory tower” of the city's French and international concession.

Composition of the Shanghai people

The Baghdad (or Sephardic ) Jews were descendants of the first families from abroad to trade in Asia. Among the new Shanghai people, the Sassoons were considered the Rothschilds of the Far East. After the opening of China to foreign trade through the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, the family with David Sassoon (1793–1864) made great wealth , not least through the opium trade . Victor Sassoon (1881–1961) was mainly active in business and as a building contractor. The networks with the equally influential Jewish communities in Bombay, Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as their excellent contacts with the British, who set the tone in Shanghai, also consolidated their top business status in the relatively newly developed Asian market.

In addition, the Russian (or Ashkenazi ) Jews fled to Manchuria by means of the Trans-Siberian railway as a result of the Russian pogroms (1905). From there, around 300 Russian Jews came to Shanghai. The Russian Revolution of 1917 prompted the emigration of more than 10,000 Russian Jews to Harbin , some of whom went west to Tianjin and Shanghai. The total number of the Jewish population in Shanghai grew to 2000. They worked as traders, for example in the import and export of wool and furs. The Ashkenazi Jews, who later also had the thankless task of the organization with regard to refugees to be moved to the “ghetto”, represented the larger, but economically much weaker group.

In 1930, 971,397 registered Chinese and 36,471 foreigners lived in the settlement, 434,885 Chinese and 36,471 foreigners in the concession. Shanghai was the fifth largest city in the world at the time with 3.5 million inhabitants.

Shanghai under Japanese control

Shanghai was a divided city under Chinese, Japanese, British, French and American occupations. From 1941, Japan took complete control during the Second World War . These extra-territorial zones were the only place Jews could enter without a visa . Therefore, a group of around 20,000 Jews soon formed there, around 14,000 of them from Germany and 3,000 from Austria, who had been able to flee from the Nazi sphere of influence , but could not find refuge anywhere else. They lived in the Shanghai ghetto . After the end of the Second World War, most of them left Shanghai again. The majority of the survivors moved to the United States or Israel .

Reunion of the Shanghai people

In the fall of 1997, former Shanghai residents met for a symposium on common remembrance in the Wannsee villa in Berlin, at the place where the so-called Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 , decided to exterminate their families. Among the participants were Fred Freud, Günter Nobel , Egon Kornblum and Sonja Mühlberger .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Michael Andreas Frischler, “Little Vienna” in Shanghai - on the trail of Melange and Wiener Schnitzel in the Paris of the East. A cultural and communication science consideration. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna Digitalisat , p. 137. Retrieved on June 22, 2017.
  2. ^ Elisabeth Buxbaum: Transit Shanghai: a life in exile. Edition Steinbauer, 2008, ISBN 978-3-902494-33-7 , p. 31 ( excerpt ).
  3. ↑ The various sources point to 10,000 to 30,000 refugees from Europe who found refuge in Shanghai.
  4. ↑ Frank Junghänel: Longing for home. In: Berliner Zeitung , August 23, 1997. Retrieved September 6, 2016.
  5. ↑ Reunion of the "Shanghai people". In: Berliner Zeitung , 23 August 1997.