12th October, 7:30pm, Online
In the late 1930s, as the victimization of the Jewish populations of Germany and Austria intensified, a possible “port of last resort” became apparent – the International Settlement of Shanghai in far off China. Approximately 20,000 Jewish refugees found sanctuary in Shanghai, a city fabled for its hedonistic nightlife and freebooting capitalism then in the grip of the invading Japanese. The Jewish refugees were faced with balancing the building of new lives against a backdrop of war and chaos. And all the while the Nazis pursued them even here.
Author Paul French will also talk about his research into the young, mostly female, Jews who decided to move on from Shanghai to Portuguese-controlled and neutral Macao – known as an “Oriental Casablanca”. From there they hoped to make it, via Lisbon, to the UK or US but found only a new set of challenges.
