Escape to Shanghai
‘ Harbor From the Holocaust’ tells how Jewish refugees ended up in China
Thanks to the film “Schindler’s List,” many people know how German industrialist Oskar Schindler saved 1,000 Polish Jews from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. But very few know that nearly 20,000 Jewish refugees found refuge in Shanghai during World War II.
At 10 p. m. Tuesday, WQED will air “Harbor From the Holocaust,” a documentary that tells the story of their flight and the struggle to keep their traditions and community alive through the war and Axis occupation of their adopted city.
WQED is also hosting a virtual preview and panel about the film at 7 p. m. Thursday. The event is free and open to the public by registering at ovee. itvs. org/ screenings/ w0duc. Panelists will speak about their personal connections to the story and how they were able to bring the untold story to the screen.
One panelist, educator/ translator Bettie Carlson, of Murrysville, will discuss her grandfather, Feng Shan Ho, who was the Chinese ambassador to
Germany during the war. As China’s chief consul in Berlin, he saw long lines of Jews seeking visas.
“My grandfather was an extremely moral person, and he saw these lines of desperate people,” Ms. Carlson said in a phone interview. “He just issued visas by the hundreds. Ultimately, it was by the thousands, clearly against the regime’s quotas. He was reprimanded and ultimately fired.”
As punishment, Ho was later stripped of his government retirement benefits. But he never spoke about his heroic act, not even to his family. Ms. Carlson said she and her family didn’t learn of his heroism until he died and his obituary was published. After many survivors
came forward to tell of his sacrifice. Ho, who is sometimes referred to as the “Chinese Schindler,” posthumously received Israel’s Righteous Among the Nations award.
Ms. Carlson said the lives her grandfather saved were his ultimate legacy.
“I think when you watch ‘ Harbor From the Holocaust’ and you see people being sent somewhere, or being forced out of their homes, or losing everything they have, people should take a hard look and say, ‘ Look who took people in and look who provided hope.’ But look, at the same time, to the people who sent them there, who caused them to lose things. Ask yourself, which person are you?” she said.
“Harbor” takes viewers through the historical, cultural and geopolitical reasons Shanghai was uniquely positioned to take on an influx of Jewish refugees. Many nations, including the United States, had strict quotas. Shanghai, a port city, already had a Jewish population.
There were three distinct waves of Jewish migration to Shanghai, according to executive producer Darryl Ford Williams: Middle Eastern and Iberian Jews who traveled the Silk Road in the 19th century and prospered as merchants; Russian Jews who fled during Lenin’s rise to power in 1917, and the European Jews who came to escape Nazi persecution, beginning in the 1930s.
Ms. Williams, who is also WQED’s vice president for content, said she was inspired to create the documentary after seeing an exhibit on Jews in Shanghai at the University of Pittsburgh several years ago. It was the beginning of three years of research, interviews, fundraising and, finally, filming.
“You don’t just show up to China with cameras rolling,” she said.
“What was enlightening to me was to not think about this as a singular story, but as a woven story that is also about the hierarchy of life in Jewish communities ... and their particular Jewish tradition that may be different from Sephardi Jews to Ashkenazi Jews. They are not a monolith.”
Ashkenazim are Jews descended from Europeans while Sephardim came from Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East.
Some of the refugees arrived in Shanghai with only a few dozen German marks, one bag and the clothes on their backs. When World War II broke out, imperial Japan invaded.
“It was amazing to hear the energy with which some of these individuals spoke and that many of them ... go out and do speaking engagements,” Ms. Williams said. “They have such a liveliness about them and purpose in life, and I really admire that resilience and determination.”
In conjunction with the film, The Friendship Circle will host an exhibit through September on the experiences of Jewish Shanghainese at the nonprofit’s office in Squirrel Hill. The exhibit was created by the Jewish Refugee Museum of Shanghai and UCLA.
“I hope that viewers walk away with an understanding that we have a responsibility as global citizens to respond to people in need and to understand the impact of geopolitical strife. There is really a human toll,” Ms. Williams said.