<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:tahoma, new york, times, serif;font-size:10pt"><div><span>Dear All</span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span><br></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>Thanks for all answers which were not only very instructive but also very elaborated. I apologized for a late answer, but this was due to holidays obligations:)</span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>Observing Jews in Asia and especially those who are coming from Poland (or those who are connected to Poland), some of them were based in Shanghai and in
Harbin. </span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span><br></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>For those who are interested by the topic of Jews in Asia you may contact Olga Barbasiewicz from the Polish Academy Sciences (obarbasiewicz@iksio.pan.pl) as she was involved in some projects related to Jews in Shanghai and Japan.</span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span><br></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>Best,</span></div><div style="color: rgb(0,
0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span><br></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>Nicolas</span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div> <div style="font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <hr size="1"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">De :</span></b> Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann@koreanstudies.com><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">À :</span></b> Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies@koreanstudies.com> <br> <b><span
style="font-weight: bold;">Envoyé le :</span></b> Samedi 27 juillet 2013 21h21<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Objet :</span></b> Re: [KS] Jews in Korea during the Second World War<br> </font> </div> <div class="y_msg_container"><br><br>Some Hints, Some Clues, Some Sources:<br>======================================<br><br>It seems Dr. Levkowitz' notes are summing the topic up. Still, Korea is <br>always good for surprises, and so is the vitality of Jewish culture <br>around the globe. <br><br>Those from on the list from Germany sure know Professor Choi Chong-ko 崔<br>鍾庫, now retired, before a professor of Law at SNU who had once <br>studied in Germany and who wrote a thick book on the history of <br>Korean-German Relations (in the early 1980s), and in general wrote many <br>articles on European-Korean relations (law and otherwise). In any case, <br>he seems now to be working on the history of Jews in Korea:<br><a
href="http://www.khdi.or.kr/ver2/system/bbs/board.php?bo_table=review&wr_id=293" target="_blank">http://www.khdi.or.kr/ver2/system/bbs/board.php?bo_table=review&wr_id=293</a><br>On the other hand, some of those early assumptions may be taken with a <br>grain of salt, and maybe also by considering the specific hype about <br>Jewish culture in Korea--see the May 12th article in the online _Jewish <br>Chronicle_ to see what I refer to:<br><a href="http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/48771/why-south-koreans-are-love-judaism" target="_blank">http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/48771/why-south-koreans-are-love-judaism</a><br><br>As for Jews in Korea during the colonial period and more specifically <br>WW II:<br><br>We all know Jewish communities have a long history in CHINA. By the <br>late 19th century these Jewish communities had dwindled in size and <br>most synagogues had disappeared. With the Nazis taking over much of
<br>Europe those communities, in Shanghai and some other key cities, <br>started again to grow through the influx of Jewish emigrants. Some of <br>those emigrants had direct and active contacts to the Korean resistance <br>there. Those were contacts on a personal level, no institutional <br>coalitions. And JAPAN, although one of the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis <br>powers--as a young Japanese student once confidently told me in <br>Beijing, "next time without the Italians"--well, JAPAN was for obvious <br>reasons not so interested in a superiority of the Nordic-Aryan race. So <br>there was a sizable number of European Jews coming through Japan, and <br>some of them stayed for longer. The famous architect Bruno Taut <br>immediately comes to mind, who fall in love with Japanese culture, <br>influenced Japanese modernism while at the same time being influenced <br>by traditional Japanese culture (a very complex story). There were many <br>others. In most cases,
though, Japan was just the gate to the U.S., <br>Canada, or South America. As for KOREA I am not aware of even a single <br>case of a Jewish émigré to have stayed on there.<br><br>Typically, Jewish and also some political émigré from European <br>countries just traveled through Korea to get to Japan. Here they may <br>have stayed on for a week or two or in some cases longer, before <br>boarding a ship to their final destination.<br>Professor Alexander Chajes (of Amherst, USA), in a short typescript <br>with handwritten frontispice, written in 1991, describes his family's <br>emigration in June/July 1940 from Vienna via Berlin, Moscow, Manchuria, <br>Korea, Japan, to Seattle. Only his maternal grandmother was left behind <br>in Vienna and was later murdered in the Theresienstadt concentration <br>camp. I quote:<br>"Because World War II had already started, we could not take the <br>obvious route from Europe to America via the Atlantic Ocean. (...)
<br>through Russia (...) This route was open to us only because of the <br>infamous nonaggression pact that existed between Russia and Germany. <br>(...) 12,000 miles and last approximately two months. Without the help <br>of the Joint Distribution Committee we could not have made it. This <br>American philanthropic organization, dedicated to providing relief for <br>Jews in distress, gathered together a group of about twenty refugees <br>and made all the arrangements for the entire journey." (pp. 1-2) And on <br>the handwritten frontispice he summarizes: "Transsiberian Train 5-6 <br>days - Lake Baikal - Manchuria (occupied by Japan) - Harbin - Korea <br>(under Japan) (...) Yokohama - ship to USA via Pacific." In Harbin they <br>took the train to Korea through Dandong [Antung]-Sinŭiju, via Seoul, <br>and then directly to Pusan, where they took a ferry going to <br>Shimonoseki. [The Chajes typescript is in the collection of the Leo <br>Baeck
Institute.]<br><br>In another, far more detailed description of that basic same journey <br>(route)--there must have been many such groups--that a Jewish emigrant <br>to Ecuador describes, Elisabeth Bamberger, the author states the 1940 <br>train journey from the Korean border to Pusan took "one day and one <br>night" (p. 13), passing through Seoul during the night, being in Pusan <br>at lunch. In spite of this pass-through experience the writer is <br>completely taken by the beauty of the Korean landscape! [The Bamberger <br>manuscript is also at the Leo Baeck Institute.]<br><br>It might be interesting to look into the history of *possible* Jewish <br>communities before the times of Japanese occupation. Paul Georg von <br>Möllendorff (1847-1901), advisor to King Kojong with various important <br>offices in Korea, a man who had studied Hebrew and who had written an <br>article on "Die Juden in China" [The Jews in China], a man with his <br>interests, I
think, would have mentioned it somewhere if there was a <br>Jewish community in Korea. He did not, as far as I know. Maybe Prof. <br>Ingeborg Göthel who has gone through all his published and unpublished <br>papers would know for sure if he did? <br><br>Yet, around 1900 the situation *may* have changed. This seems a pretty <br>important article, actually, if the content is verifiable! I am <br>therefore translating it for you. It is from _Die ✡ Welt_ (of October <br>1902), the original follows beneath the translation:<br><br>-----------------------<br>The Jews in Korea.<br>Even the uttermost tip of the farthest Far East, a peninsular shrouded <br>by ice-cold winds and mist, has a Jewish community. The Jews of Korea, <br>of course, were not born here but come from faraway countries. Their <br>birthplaces are in the ghettos of Russia, Galicia, and Romania, and <br>only because of the persecution of Jews did they end up in the Far <br>East. Most of them
came through London and India to Korea, others <br>through New York, San Francisco, or Japan, and some even through rough <br>Siberian landscapes. Highly interesting is the fate of some Jews who <br>have come to the country via Shanghai after having experienced plenty <br>of failures and calamities in China, Sumatra, Borneo, and Java, before <br>finally finding refuge in Korea. Korea now has presumedly around 300 <br>Jewish families who live among the "wicked heathens" ["gottlose <br>Heiden"] far more trouble-free than before in the "countries of <br>religion and love." This is because the Koreans soon enough understood <br>what a valuable asset they had gotten with the Jews, since they <br>stimulated trade and caused unprecedented growth of activities around <br>their establishments, importing Russian sugar to Korea, alcohol and <br>kerosene, and also introduced to Korea products from the Lodz (Łódź) <br>industrial complex. Furthermore, the Jews
introduced a large number of <br>crafts that had till then been entirely unknown in Korea; thus, culture <br>was brought to East Asia in the most noble sense. It is hardly <br>surprising therefore, that the people and the government of Korea are <br>cordially welcoming the Jews and the continuing growth of two <br>communities in Seoul and Masampo through new immigrants. A lot of <br>promotion [Propaganda] about the immigration of Jews to Korea is done <br>by the head of the Jewish community in Seoul, a Jew from Austria who <br>came 12 years ago via Hongkong to Seoul, and who worked so hard that he <br>succeeded in now having a regular Jewish community with a synagogue, a <br>shohet, and chasan. A similar organization should soon be materialized <br>in Masampo, so that Korea can pride itself of having well organized <br>Jewish communities.<br><br>SOURCE:<br>"Die Juden in Korea" [The Jews in Korea], _Die ✡ Welt: Zentralorgan der <br>Zionistischen
Bewegung_ 43 (October 24, 1902): 8.<br>-----------------------<br><br><br><br><br>The reference to Masampo (today Masanhapp'o-gu, Kyŏngsangnam-do) and to <br>products from Lodz and Russia are interesting, as these references show <br>a clear connection to Russia, thereby at least indicating how Russian <br>trade interests were willingly or unwillingly represented in Korea. <br>Masampo istelf was before the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) an <br>important subject for the quarrels between Japan and Russia, both being <br>interested in managing that port with its new railroad to trade its own <br>products. Might well be that Russian pre-revolution archives would have <br>some surprising documents in this regard … might well be that the <br>Japanese after the Russo-Japanese War saw the Jews as representing <br>Russian interests (-- just speculating, have no facts, didn't look into
<br>it).<br><br>Best,<br>Frank<br><br>--------------------------------------<br>Frank Hoffmann<br><a href="http://koreanstudies.com/" target="_blank">http://koreanstudies.com</a><br> <br><br></div> </div> </div> </div></body></html>