Hey everyone, welcome back.

Lhasla Montgomery here with China History Podcast episode 211.

Part 4 this time in our overview of the history of the Jewish refugees in China.

We're still in the lead up to World War II. Let's get back to the story.

1938-1939. European Jews were looking everywhere for escape routes and most places

had no vacancy.

But Shanghai, starting end of 1937, getting in was like walking across the border into Nogales, Mexico.

Nobody was checking.

After more chaos than usual, descended on Shanghai, starting in August, 1937 with the commencement of the Battle of Shanghai.

Many government services and authorities sort of went on hiatus.

I mean nobody's at war yet except China and Japan.

Hitler hadn't invaded Poland yet.

Pearl Harbor was still years away.

And even though the Japanese could have wiped out all the foreign powers combined,

nobody was firing on anybody as far as the

International settlement and French concession went. The Soviets in the Japanese still had their non-aggression pact. So Russian Jews got to piggyback on that little

convenience of history for the time being.

Everyone wanted to appear neutral, and in fact often went out of their way to exhibit this neutrality in front of the Japanese.

Let's talk a bit about the relationship between the Jews and the Japanese government.

In December 1938, the Five Ministers conference was held in Tokyo.

And one of the upshots of that assembly was,

it was agreed that Japan should avoid actively embracing the Jews

...