In the Chabad Chassidic community, there were several elderly men who spent the war in Shanghai. They nearly starved to death, but they were at least safe there from the Nazis. They’re known as the Shanghai Group. All gone now. I knew at least one of them.
Guessing that you may be familiar with this group.
An amazing story.
A Jewish Dynasty in a Changing China
For more than a century, the fortunes of the powerful Kadoorie family have been a barometer of Chinese openness to the world.
...The Kadoories built their first fortune in Shanghai between the world wars, when the city became a global crossroads. When the communists took over in 1949 and expelled foreigners, they lost almost everything, fleeing to British-ruled Hong Kong to make a new start. Over the next 25 years they grew richer than ever, amassing an $18 billion portfolio that includes China Light and Power, which provides electricity to 80% of Hong Kong’s residents, and the luxury Peninsula hotel chain.
When the People’s Republic began to open up in 1972, after President Nixon’s visit, one of the first calls the communist leadership made was to the Kadoories, seeking their help in building a nuclear power plant. The Kadoories, who remain British citizens, became one of the country’s biggest foreign investors, returning to Shanghai triumphantly to build a new Peninsula Hotel. Today they meet regularly with top Chinese leaders, including Xi Jinping.
It has been a steep ascent since Elly Kadoorie landed in Hong Kong at the age of 18. He had been recruited to work for a major trading firm owned by the Sassoons, another Jewish family that had come to China from Baghdad 35 years earlier, just after the Opium Wars. But Elly soon struck out on his own, steering clear of opium, one of the main commodities the Sassoons transported between India and China. Instead he invested in hotels, land and utilities, building the infrastructure for the growing city of Shanghai as it became the “Paris of the East.” In time he built the grandest mansion in the city—43 rooms for just three people—and entertained celebrities like Charles Lindbergh. The Kadoories’ hotels hosted the world’s elites, including the wedding of Chiang Kai-shek.
Most Westerners in China, including the Sassoons, fled to Europe, Australia or the Americas. But Elly’s grown sons, Lawrence and Horace, stayed close by, moving to the family’s hotel in Hong Kong. “If we sit down and worry, not only will no progress be made but everything will get worse,” Lawrence wrote to Horace in 1946. “If we go ahead optimistically, and in the belief that Hong Kong has a great future before it…we shall recover our losses and progress.” Hong Kong, Lawrence declared, “may become another Shanghai.”
He turned out to be spectacularly correct...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-jewish-dynasty-in-a-changing-china-11590688537
also:
‘The Last Kings of Shanghai’ Review: Bund Traders
The story of old Shanghai and its Jewish tycoons. How did they amass such wealth? The answer depends on your politics.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-last-kings-of-shanghai-review-bund-traders-11592578746