[KS] Jews in Korea during the Second World War (Frank Hoffmann)

Sat Jul 27 17:10:24 EDT 2013

Of some relevance, this book My China: Jewish Life in the Orient, 1900-1950 by Yaʼacov Liberman tells how a Jewish boy from Harbin was sent to boarding school in Pyongyang (full text available, see Ch 10, p83). http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VtNGrWMLV7oC&pg=PA116-IA2&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

Also, further the Jewish Chronicle article cited by Frank Hoffmann, see this http://www.flickr.com/photos/ibisbill/5084260795/in/set-72157625060113421/
and more worryingly this http://www.flickr.com/photos/46403625@N00/5084256675/in/photolist-8Kh9nR

Best wishes,

Michael Rank

>   2. Re: Jews in Korea during the Second World War (Frank Hoffmann)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 09:17:54 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Bill Streifer <photografr7 at yahoo.com>
> To: "koreanstudies at koreanstudies.com"
> 	<koreanstudies at koreanstudies.com>
> Subject: Re: [KS] Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 121, Issue 39
> Message-ID:
> 	<1374941874.27500.YahooMailNeo at web162901.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> I don't know if the organization "Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A." still exists, but they might have a unique take on this discussion.
> 
> Bill Streifer?
> 
> __________________________________________
> 
> Dear Nicolas.
>> I am not aware of any Jewish community in Korea during the Japanese occupation. Jews fled during the WWII from Europe to Japan on their way to America. Maybe few of them stayed in Korea. 
>> During the Korean War there were Jewish-American soldiers who fought against North Korea (About 20 of them got medals few years ago from the South Korean Government).
>> I would recommend that you ask the Jewish Agency or Jewish organizations in Europe, US or Israel. If there might have been a small Jewish community in Korea during the WWII, some of their descended might have immigrated to those countries. Or you can write a letter to some of the Jewish newspaper in those communities and ask them for help.
>> Good luck
>> Alon 
>> ?
>> Dr. Alon Levkowitz
>> Tel: 972-3-6133045
>> Fax: 972-775410701
>> http://www.coolcite.com/user/1927#About
>> Email: levko at smile.net.il
>> 
>> 
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20130727/e97a3324/attachment-0001.html>
> -------------- next part --------------
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: image003.jpg
> Type: image/jpeg
> Size: 2450 bytes
> Desc: not available
> URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20130727/e97a3324/attachment-0001.jpg>
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 12:21:14 -0700
> From: Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreanstudies.com>
> To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreanstudies.com>
> Subject: Re: [KS] Jews in Korea during the Second World War
> Message-ID: <20130727122114643063.95d04e7f at koreanstudies.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> 
> Some Hints, Some Clues, Some Sources:
> ======================================
> 
> It seems Dr. Levkowitz' notes are summing the topic up. Still, Korea is 
> always good for surprises, and so is the vitality of Jewish culture 
> around the globe. 
> 
> Those from on the list from Germany sure know Professor Choi Chong-ko ?
> ??, now retired, before a professor of Law at SNU who had once 
> studied in Germany and who wrote a thick book on the history of 
> Korean-German Relations (in the early 1980s), and in general wrote many 
> articles on European-Korean relations (law and otherwise). In any case, 
> he seems now to be working on the history of Jews in Korea:
> http://www.khdi.or.kr/ver2/system/bbs/board.php?bo_table=review&wr_id=293
> On the other hand, some of those early assumptions may be taken with a 
> grain of salt, and maybe also by considering the specific hype about 
> Jewish culture in Korea--see the May 12th article in the online _Jewish 
> Chronicle_ to see what I refer to:
> http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/48771/why-south-koreans-are-love-judaism
> 
> As for Jews in Korea during the colonial period and more specifically 
> WW II:
> 
> We all know Jewish communities have a long history in CHINA. By the 
> late 19th century these Jewish communities had dwindled in size and 
> most synagogues had disappeared. With the Nazis taking over much of 
> Europe those communities, in Shanghai and some other key cities, 
> started again to grow through the influx of Jewish emigrants. Some of 
> those emigrants had direct and active contacts to the Korean resistance 
> there. Those were contacts on a personal level, no institutional 
> coalitions. And JAPAN, although one of the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis 
> powers--as a young Japanese student once confidently told me in 
> Beijing, "next time without the Italians"--well, JAPAN was for obvious 
> reasons not so interested in a superiority of the Nordic-Aryan race. So 
> there was a sizable number of European Jews coming through Japan, and 
> some of them stayed for longer. The famous architect Bruno Taut 
> immediately comes to mind, who fall in love with Japanese culture, 
> influenced Japanese modernism while at the same time being influenced 
> by traditional Japanese culture (a very complex story). There were many 
> others. In most cases, though, Japan was just the gate to the U.S., 
> Canada, or South America. As for KOREA I am not aware of even a single 
> case of a Jewish ?migr? to have stayed on there.
> 
> Typically, Jewish and also some political ?migr? from European 
> countries just traveled through Korea to get to Japan. Here they may 
> have stayed on for a week or two or in some cases longer, before 
> boarding a ship to their final destination.
> Professor Alexander Chajes (of Amherst, USA), in a short typescript 
> with handwritten frontispice, written in 1991, describes his family's 
> emigration in June/July 1940 from Vienna via Berlin, Moscow, Manchuria, 
> Korea, Japan, to Seattle. Only his maternal grandmother was left behind 
> in Vienna and was later murdered in the Theresienstadt concentration 
> camp. I quote:
> "Because World War II had already started, we could not take the 
> obvious route from Europe to America via the Atlantic Ocean. (...) 
> through Russia (...) This route was open to us only because of the 
> infamous nonaggression pact that existed between Russia and Germany. 
> (...) 12,000 miles and last approximately two months. Without the help 
> of the Joint Distribution Committee we could not have made it. This 
> American philanthropic organization, dedicated to providing relief for 
> Jews in distress, gathered together a group of about twenty refugees 
> and made all the arrangements for the entire journey." (pp. 1-2) And on 
> the handwritten frontispice he summarizes: "Transsiberian Train 5-6 
> days - Lake Baikal - Manchuria (occupied by Japan) - Harbin - Korea 
> (under Japan) (...) Yokohama - ship to USA via Pacific." In Harbin they 
> took the train to Korea through Dandong [Antung]-Sin?iju, via Seoul, 
> and then directly to Pusan, where they took a ferry going to 
> Shimonoseki. [The Chajes typescript is in the collection of the Leo 
> Baeck Institute.]
> 
> In another, far more detailed description of that basic same journey 
> (route)--there must have been many such groups--that a Jewish emigrant 
> to Ecuador describes, Elisabeth Bamberger, the author states the 1940 
> train journey from the Korean border to Pusan took "one day and one 
> night" (p. 13), passing through Seoul during the night, being in Pusan 
> at lunch. In spite of this pass-through experience the writer is 
> completely taken by the beauty of the Korean landscape! [The Bamberger 
> manuscript is also at the Leo Baeck Institute.]
> 
> It might be interesting to look into the history of *possible* Jewish 
> communities before the times of Japanese occupation. Paul Georg von 
> M?llendorff (1847-1901), advisor to King Kojong with various important 
> offices in Korea, a man who had studied Hebrew and who had written an 
> article on "Die Juden in China" [The Jews in China], a man with his 
> interests, I think, would have mentioned it somewhere if there was a 
> Jewish community in Korea. He did not, as far as I know. Maybe Prof. 
> Ingeborg G?thel who has gone through all his published and unpublished 
> papers would know for sure if he did? 
> 
> Yet, around 1900 the situation *may* have changed. This seems a pretty 
> important article, actually, if the content is verifiable! I am 
> therefore translating it for you. It is from _Die ? Welt_ (of October 
> 1902), the original follows beneath the translation:
> 
> -----------------------
> The Jews in Korea.
> Even the uttermost tip of the farthest Far East, a peninsular shrouded 
> by ice-cold winds and mist, has a Jewish community. The Jews of Korea, 
> of course, were not born here but come from faraway countries. Their 
> birthplaces are in the ghettos of Russia, Galicia, and Romania, and 
> only because of the persecution of Jews did they end up in the Far 
> East. Most of them came through London and India to Korea, others 
> through New York, San Francisco, or Japan, and some even through rough 
> Siberian landscapes. Highly interesting is the fate of some Jews who 
> have come to the country via Shanghai after having experienced plenty 
> of failures and calamities in China, Sumatra, Borneo, and Java, before 
> finally finding refuge in Korea. Korea now has presumedly around 300 
> Jewish families who live among the "wicked heathens" ["gottlose 
> Heiden"] far more trouble-free than before in the "countries of 
> religion and love." This is because the Koreans soon enough understood 
> what a valuable asset they had gotten with the Jews, since they 
> stimulated trade and caused unprecedented growth of activities around 
> their establishments, importing Russian sugar to Korea, alcohol and 
> kerosene, and also introduced to Korea products from the Lodz (??d?) 
> industrial complex. Furthermore, the Jews introduced a large number of 
> crafts that had till then been entirely unknown in Korea; thus, culture 
> was brought to East Asia in the most noble sense. It is hardly 
> surprising therefore, that the people and the government of Korea are 
> cordially welcoming the Jews and the continuing growth of two 
> communities in Seoul and Masampo through new immigrants. A lot of 
> promotion [Propaganda] about the immigration of Jews to Korea is done 
> by the head of the Jewish community in Seoul, a Jew from Austria who 
> came 12 years ago via Hongkong to Seoul, and who worked so hard that he 
> succeeded in now having a regular Jewish community with a synagogue, a 
> shohet, and chasan. A similar organization should soon be materialized 
> in Masampo, so that Korea can pride itself of having well organized 
> Jewish communities.
> 
> SOURCE:
> "Die Juden in Korea" [The Jews in Korea], _Die ? Welt: Zentralorgan der 
> Zionistischen Bewegung_ 43 (October 24, 1902): 8.
> -----------------------
> -------------- next part --------------
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: Juden_in_Korea_1902.jpg
> Type: image/jpeg
> Size: 532085 bytes
> Desc: not available
> URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20130727/c53d68db/attachment.jpg>
> -------------- next part --------------
> 
> 
> 
> The reference to Masampo (today Masanhapp'o-gu, Ky?ngsangnam-do) and to 
> products from Lodz and Russia are interesting, as these references show 
> a clear connection to Russia, thereby at least indicating how Russian 
> trade interests were willingly or unwillingly represented in Korea. 
> Masampo istelf was before the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) an 
> important subject for the quarrels between Japan and Russia, both being 
> interested in managing that port with its new railroad to trade its own 
> products. Might well be that Russian pre-revolution archives would have 
> some surprising documents in this regard ? might well be that the 
> Japanese after the Russo-Japanese War saw the Jews as representing 
> Russian interests (-- just speculating, have no facts, didn't look into 
> it).
> 
> Best,
> Frank
> 
> --------------------------------------
> Frank Hoffmann
> http://koreanstudies.com
> 
> 
> End of Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 121, Issue 40
> **********************************************
> 