[KS] Jews in Korea during the Second World War

[Christian Lewarth]

Dear list-members and readers,
 
I want to take the 75th anniversary of the Progrom night, when not only the churches and fire brigades remained silent toward the violent anti-Semitism, in Vienna yesterdays night as an opportunity to add more names to this topic, respectively remind of some people, that had to leave Austria in 1938.
 
Ernst Kisch (1892-1951) a Viennese of Jewish descent was able to get out of the concentrations camps of Dachau und Buchenweld and immigrated to Shanghai, where he lived until 1949. In 1950 he started to work in a hospital in Kaesong. When the North Korean troops entered the south he was imprisoned and he died on June 28th 1951 near Andong of malnourishment. I owe this information to a forthcoming article from Werner Koidl.
 
Rudolf Toch (1919-1999) born in Vienna, was medicine student on Vienna University from 1937 on, and had to leave the university by June 24th 1938 - more than 2700 mostly Jewish affiliates of the University had to leave the university in this year. He immigrated in the USA in 1939, where he could finish his studies. From 1951 to 1953 he was soldier in the Korean War.
 
Oskar Morgenstern (1902-1977), was born in Görlitz (Germany) and grew up in Vienna, where he was in 1938 professor for Political economy at the juridical faculty of the Vienna University. He lost his permission to teach on April 22nd 1938. He immigrated to the USA where he published the book “Theory of games and economic behaviour”. The game theory should serve in his view to the resolution of conflicts. During the Korean War the US government consulted game theorists and Morgenstern and his colleagues compiled a 3000-times-3000 strategy mix, with different solutions and then calculated on an ENIAC-Computer the optimal solution. I read that Truman subsequently decided not to cross the Yalu river and to fire McArthur. I owe this information to the memorial book of the University of Vienna, which has only started to review the past, an undertaking that will preoccupy us in the coming decades.
 
peace,
Christian Lewarth
Vienna, Nov 10th
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