Jewish Exile in Shanghai during Shoah

My paper focuses on the exile cultural life of the German-speaking Jewish refugees in Shanghai and tries to prove that the German-speaking Jewish refugees from central Europe, despite the difficult living conditions and amazing cultural difference, have built up a rich cultural life in Shanghai. Two polarized phenomena can be observed. On one hand, the cultural life centered entirely on the refugees themselves,. Surprisingly, there were more plays written by the Jewish refugees in Shanghai than any other place of exile during the Second World War. On the other hand, there was a magazine initiated and edited by the refugees that explored the Chinese culture and society and tried to build up a bridge between the Jewish refugees and the Chinese society. Their exile cultural life has not exerted significant impact on the host country, Europe or the future world, but the social resonance and the permanent force in the memory of the survivors are noteworthy.

My paper is going to present the history as well as the status quo of the research of this unique Sino-Jewish history. Besides, the paper tries to shed light on the subtle relationship of the German-speaking Jewish community and Yiddish-speaking Jewish community in Shanghai, and to delineate the political significance and diplomatic meaning of this history on current Sino-Israeli relationship.