Fleeing the Nazis

Given the importance of Kristallnacht within the historical narrative of the Shanghai Jews, more information on that event is in order: Kristallnacht was a violent pogrom carried out against Jewish individuals living in Germany that began during the night of November 9 and carried over into November 10, 1938. In this pogrom roughly 30,000 men were captured and shipped off to various concentration camps including Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Buchenwald. What is often not known is that Jewish families whose loved ones had been sent to concentration camps were able to get their loved ones out of these camps on the condition they leave the country within three to four weeks; otherwise, their loved ones would have to go back. The process of obtaining tickets was often a long and arduous one that sometimes involved bribing travel agents and/or waiting for cancellations.[1] The requisite documentation for highly sought-after countries was often fairly detailed and the waiting process was longer than most people could afford. But one destination was different: Shanghai, China. One did not need a visa to enter Shanghai; one just needed to have assurances to later purchase tickets that would grant one passage from Germany to China.

[1] For a description of women scrambling to get their loved ones out of concentration camps and to Shanghai, see Kevin Ostoyich, “Mothers: Remembering Three Women on the 80^th Anniversary of Kristallnacht,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, https://www.aicgs.org/2018/11/mothers-remembering-three-women-on-the-80th-anniversary-of-kristallnacht/