The Observer
Refugees
‘Sexual assaults on children’ at Greek refugee camps
Charities claim youngsters and women are too afraid to leave tents after dark at government-run camps
Mark Townsend
@townsendmark
Saturday 13 August 2016 15.11 BST Last modified on Saturday 13 August 2016 23.15 BST
Children as young as seven have been sexually assaulted in official European refugee camps, the Observer has been told. The claims come as testimony emerges suggesting that some camps are so unsafe that youngsters are too terrified to leave their tents at night.
Charities and human rights groups allege that children stranded in supposedly safe camps in Greece that were built to deal with Europe’s migration crisis – many of whom are likely to be eligible to claim asylum in the UK – have been sexually abused.
In one government-run camp, in a former Softex toilet roll factory on the outskirts of Thessaloniki, aid organisations claim that the level of risk of sexual attack is so acute that women are too afraid to visit the camp toilets alone at night.
Yvette Cooper MP, chairwoman of Labour’s refugee taskforce, said the revelations “should shame us all” and called for immediate action to protect vulnerable children.
A series of government camps were built near Thessaloniki after the informal one at Idomeni, near the Macedonian border, was closed in May. Weeks earlier, the European commission had unveiled an extra £71m of humanitarian funding for emergency projects to help the 57,000 refugees stranded in official government camps throughout Greece.
One volunteer serving at the Softex camp, which holds 1,400 mostly Syrian refugees, alleged that some young girls had been effectively groomed by male gangs. He said an Iraqi family had to be moved to emergency accommodation outside the camp after their daughter was attacked.
“The parents are still in disbelief over what happened. A man from one of the ‘mafia’ groups asked their seven-year-old daughter into their tent to play games on his phone and then zipped up the tent. She came back with marks on her arms and neck. Later the girl described how she was sexually abused. It has scarred a seven-year-old child for life,” said the volunteer, who asked to remain anonymous.
Family members, he said, were so demoralised they were planning to abandon their dream of resettling in Europe and return to the country they had fled.
Leader of the Lib Dems Tim Farron joined calls for the British government to honour its pledges by immediately rescuing vulnerable minors who are eligible to be in the UK, saying: “If Theresa May does not act now, she will not only be shaming her government but shaming the country.”
Anita Dullard of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said there had been a rise in incidents of sexual violence in Greece’s refugee camps and that they had alerted the government.
She said they had been forwarding alleged incidents of sexual violence against women and children to the UN.
Anna Chiara Nava of Médecins Sans Frontières in Thessaloniki confirmed that they had heard allegations of children being victims of sexual violence. Nava said they were in regular contact with at least 10 women from the Softex camp who had complained of sexual violence and explained that many occupants, including children, were too afraid to speak out.
“It’s really hard for the unaccompanied minors – 16- and 17-years-olds – to survive. It’s the survival of the fittest in there. In the evening and night it’s impossible to find them [children] because they are hiding in the tents. The women are afraid. They complain that during the night and evening they cannot go to the toilet alone. They have all heard of reports of others being attacked,,” said Nava.
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees confirmed it had raised concerns with the Greek authorities. It said: “It is an issue when it comes to Softex and others. UNHCR has been raising concerns about this, specifically about this issue [sexual violence], saying that we don’t think it will be safe for women and for children. We’ve raised the issue of security again and again. This is a problem; it’s under discussion.”
The government coordinator for the refugee crisis, Giorgos Kyritsis, said: “Softex is the camp with the most cases of small criminal behaviour but there was not any case of rape reported to the camp’s staff.”
Of the people in Softex, 60% are believed to be Syrian, of whom around 170 are thought to be children.
A pressing issue for the British government is determining how many of the children are eligible to claim asylum in the UK. Under a clause in the EU’s Dublin regulation covering asylum claims, refugees who have close family members in a particular country can claim asylum there. In the refugee camp at Calais, for instance, 150 minors out of 600 are eligible. In addition, the government promised three months ago to house unaccompanied minors stranded in Greece, Italy and France under the Dublin amendment, with charities under the impression that homes would be found for several thousand.
Despite this, around 20 of the estimated 88,000 unaccompanied child refugees in Europe have so far arrived into the UK under the scheme, prompting fierce criticism.
Cooper said: “The UK government needs to urgently wake up to its responsibility. Parliament passed the amendment exactly because we were worried about child refugees being exploited, trafficked and sexually abused because other countries were overwhelmed with the scale of the problem.”
http://freedomfund.org/wp-content/uploads/Lebanon-Report-FINAL-8April16.pdf
Acknowledgement
We are grateful and humbled by the time and willingness that women, men and children showed in accepting to share their experience with us. We would also like to thank individuals and organisations working on the Syrian refugees crisis for taking time from their busy schedules to share their knowledge and analysis.Dr Katharine Jones
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University Contact:
Katharine.Jones@Coventry.ac.uk
Leena Ksaifi
Independent Consultant and Director of The George Ksaifi Organization Contact: l.ksaifi@tgko.org
Executive Summary
Since it began in 2011, the conflict in Syria has devastated the lives of millions of men, women and children. Fearing violence and persecution, families have fled their homes to seek safety in other countries in the region and around the globe. Many crossed the border into neighbouring Lebanon. Few would have expected to find themselves forced into slavery.While there are a large number of organisations in Lebanon providing services and support to Syrian refugees, including Palestinian Syrians, efforts to curb the growing incidence of slavery and human trafficking are often uncoordinated, limited in their focus and do not always target those most at risk.
This report sets out a pathway to deliver tangible and lasting change. It examines the different ways in which slavery is occurring among Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the multiple factors that combine to force people into situations of slavery. Addressing these risk factors will require the commitment of a broad range of stakeholders, including the Lebanese government, international governments, international organisations, NGOs and donors.
Lebanon, which borders Syria to the west, has been at the front line in responding to the humanitarian
crisis that has unfolded over the past five years. Given the extensive social, economic and
historical ties between the countries, the Lebanese government initially operated an ‘open door’ policy for those fleeing the conflict.
Today, one in five people in Lebanon is a refugee from Syria. With more than 1.2 million refugees living within its borders, no other country in the world hosts more refugees on a per capita basis. Such an influx has, however, placed significant stress on the country.
As a consequence, the Lebanese government has taken steps to effectively close its borders and,
in May 2015, instructed the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to stop registering new refugees from Syria. It has established a sponsorship system to limit the numbers arriving from Syria and has imposed stringent residency renewal regulations. This has left Syrian refugees open to detention and deportation for entering, working and staying in Lebanon without the correct paperwork.
These policies have simply exacerbated an already dire humanitarian crisis for Syrian refugees, manyof whom live in abject poverty. With no opportunity to work legally, and with children unable to go to school, refugees are forced into desperate situations to simply survive.
Syrian refugees often find themselves working in hard, dangerous or exploitative jobs for little or
no money. However, with the ever-present risk of detection and deportation, families are increasingly sending their children out to work, as they can pass more freely through the security check points operated by Lebanese authorities.
Our study found that slavery of Syrian refugees in Lebanon is a rapidly growing concern, which manifests in the following ways:
- Child labour has increased significantly in Lebanon since the start of the conflict in Syria. One leading NGO estimated that between 60 and 70 percent of Syrian refugee children are working, with child labour rates even higher in the Bekaa Valley. There is strong demand among Lebanese employers for child workers and many are pressed into the worst forms of child labour.
- Syrian refugee girls are increasingly forced into early marriages, especially in Bekaa Valley, Akkar (north Lebanon). While the family’s decision is commonly made to secure the girl’s economic future, there is a genuine risk that entering a marriage at such a vulnerable age could result in slavery.
- Evidence strongly suggests that ‘survival sex’ and sexual exploitation is a growing issue for Syrian and Palestinian Syrian female refugees. Women can be forced or coerced into prostitution or providing ‘sexual favours’ to order to provide food and shelter for their families.
- Forced labour is increasingly common as Syrian refugees become more desperate, so much so that it may even constitute the ‘new norm’. With surging prices for food and rent, coupled with the heavy costs associated with residency renewals, refugee families can quickly fall into debt. This leaves them even more vulnerable to exploitation.
- Despite highly sensational media coverage, we did not find any evidence of organ trafficking. Further, despite several high profile arrests by Lebanese authorities, our study did not find evidence of the facilitation of Syrian refugees across the border into Lebanon for the purpose of exploitation.
Slavery and human trafficking should never be condoned or accepted as ‘the norm’. However,
unless we act decisively, this is the grave risk facing Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Without significant and determined intervention, the situation will only worsen.
This report provides a set of targeted and integrated recommendations to counter slavery and human trafficking of Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
The starting point is to ensure that Syrians fleeing conflict and persecution are properly recognised in Lebanon as refugees, that they can legally work and their children can go to school. It is also vital that tackling slavery and human trafficking is a shared priority among every organisation with a responsibility to assist Syrian refugees in the country.
There is a paucity of data currently being collected to document slavery and trafficking of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. It is imperative that we improve data collection systems so that reliable information is available to guide the development of effective interventions.
By taking concerted steps to address the factors that contribute to slavery and human trafficking, Lebanon will be better placed to manage the prolonged humanitarian crisis. It will also develop institutions, laws and policies that are more closely aligned with international human rights standards. This will deliver benefits for everyone within its borders and make it an example to other countries responding to the current refugee crisis.
Extracts from the final report:
“Child marriage is done as a coping strategy. But not only for financial security; also because they perceive the threat of their daughter getting raped if single. The threat comes from living in an environment of abandoned buildings and in tented settlements.” Beirut-based journalist
Slavery in marriage
Many marriages involving children will not amount to slavery, especially those between couples aged 16 to 18 years. However, child marriage can obscure what are actually cases of slavery or slavery-like practices.
Child marriage can be referred to as slavery if the following three elements are present:
The child has not genuinely given their free and
informed consent to enter the marriage;
The child is subjected to control and a sense of
“ownership” in the marriage itself, particularly through abuse and threats, and is exploited by being forced to undertake domestic chores within the marital home or labour outside it, and/or engage in non-consensual sexual relations;
The child cannot realistically leave or end the marriage, potentially leading to a lifetime of slavery.
One Lebanese NGO reported it was aware of two cases of child marriage that had been an entry point to the sex industry. Both marriages were arranged because the family needed money to pay rent and enrol children in school. However, the men who married the young girls paid for neither. Instead, they took the girls to a compound where they joined more than 20 women working in the sex industry.
Given the growing number of early marriages, it is vital that Syrian refugee families are aware of the potential serious risks to child brides.
Sexual exploitation of Syrian refugee women
“There is a pimp who is a powerful man with political connections ... who will provide Syrian refugees with a place to stay in. If they can’t pay up, he will suggest sexual slavery or to sell drugs ... Houses there used to cost around US$200 max. This pimp could charge around US$700 for rent.”
Director, Beirut-based NGO working with Syrian refugees
“I know a Syrian man around 35 years old that pimp around five women for example, that are usually 19-23 years old. You can call him, he then will send you a driver that will pick the customer up and take him to the house where the girl is.” Syrian male refugee
Refugee women and girls in all parts of the world face a heightened risk of gender-based and sexual violence during emergency humanitarian situations, both at the time they flee their homes and after they have settled into their new living environment.
The situation facing Syrian and Palestinian Syrian refugee women in Lebanon is no different. We heard from many different sources that their precarious situation makes them vulnerable to different forms of sexual exploitation.
One interviewee told us that some Syrian women are being trafficked into the sex industry in Beirut, Tripoli, Daher el Ein and Bekaa by Syrian men. However, in 2015, the Lebanese Internal Security Force only identified 19 alleged female victims of sex trafficking, down from the 40 to 50 identified cases in 2012 and 2013.
Without reliable data, it is difficult to determine the full extent to which Syrian refugee women are being sexually trafficked or held in sexual slavery. However, our study collected evidence which strongly suggests that sexual exploitation, including through the use of force and coercion, is a growing issue for Syrian and Palestinian Syrian refugees in Lebanon. We heard that Syrian and Lebanese men were playing the role of pimps.
Representatives from international organisations and international NGOs told us that the dire financial circumstances facing Syrian refugee women led some to engage in ‘survival sex’ to earn money for themselves and their families. Depending on their working arrangements, these women can earn between anywhere between US$13 - US$450 per client.
However, we know little about the level of coercion that may be imposed on Syrian refugee women to engage in survival sex, whether they are able to negotiate the terms and conditions under which they might agree to sell sex, or whether they are likely to end up in an increasingly exploitative situation.
We also heard that Syrian refugee women may be coerced into providing ‘sexual favours’ in return for rent, food or employment. In these cases, the perpetrator is commonly the woman’s landlord or shawish, who might broker a ‘deal’ or himself be the recipient.33 Especially disturbingly, such ‘deals’ may involve the coercion and exploitation of children.
In recent years, the Lebanese government has begun to make progress in tackling cases of sex trafficking, some of which has been achieved in partnership with NGOs.
An anti-trafficking law was adopted in 2011, and the IOM and Lebanese NGOs have delivered training to judicial officials and to Internal Security Force and General Security officials.34 Public awareness campaigns have also been run, including distributing information booklets at Beirut airport.
However, more needs to be done to support and inform Syrian and Palestinian Syrian refugees.
Despite a Memorandum of Understanding between IOM and UNHCR on identifying and protecting victims of trafficking, almost no anti-trafficking activities have been specifically developed for the refugee population in Lebanon.
Further, while there are a number of interventions targeting sexual and gender-based violence among Syrian refugees, we did not find any interventions specifically designed to counter exploitation in the sex industry. More needs to be done to address this growing problem.
Inside Lebanon’s ‘super nightclubs’
Lebanon’s ‘high end’ sex industry, which includes around 130 ‘super night clubs’, has long been a destination for migrant women from Eastern Europe, Russia and Ukraine who arrive in the country on an ‘artist visa’. Many migrant workers are severely exploited, including being deceived about the nature of the job and having their passports confiscated by the club owner on arrival.35 Some NGOs suspect that an increasing number of Syrian refugee women are joining the industry, helping to fill the gap left by a reduction in the number of ‘artist visas’ being issued for Eastern European, Russian and Ukrainian women. However, no reliable evidence has so far been collected to confirm that this is the case.
“It’s not that they are always standing on the streets. For example, if she comes to work at someone’s house to even get the job she may have to do sexual favours and then to keep the job she may have to get her 13 year old child involved.” ” Lebanese municipality official
From:
Impressions of Shanghai in 1934. Essay by a Russian journalist from Paris.
A taxi girl earns about 2 dollars (12 francs) a day and shares a rented room with two or three girlfriends. Meals are included in the rent, but she needs something to wear. So she is hard-pressed to accept gifts, even though these gifts create obligations and lead to consequences. This occupation is horrid not only because it is immoral, but because the only exit strategy is hope for a miracle. This job is empty and dull, and the monotonous merrymaking takes place in the middle of the depraved marketplace where greedy Europeans are trying to strip China naked and greedy Chinese are trying to grab some money from the Europeans. A Russian woman’s destiny is sad: her misery is laid bare for all the nations to see. Nothing is more depressing to a Russian eye than these entertainment palaces.
How many Russian dancers are there in Shanghai? They say there are many hundreds, but perhaps this is an exaggeration. How many Russians are there total? Even this information varies. The official count is about 10,000, but the real number seems closer to 12,000 or 13,000 or even 15,000. In any case, the number is growing, especially in the last few months. Aside from the steady flow from Manchuria, some have been moving here from Europe.
FROM: Citizens of No State: Daily Life of Shanghai White Russians, 1920s-1930s
HAOCHEN WANG
The Russian Revolution was an event that affected every segment of Russian society. In terms of their social composition, the refugees were spread out among every social class. A small elites segment was composed of affluent aristocrats, officials, clergy, military officers, landowners, merchants, professionals, intellectuals, and bourgeoisie.11 The vast majority, however, were impoverished White soldiers blindly following their superiors’ orders to retreat to China, and peasants escaping from famine and farm collectivization in the early 1920s.12 Besides ethnic Slavs, a num- ber of Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews also joined the exodus.13
A large number of Russian refugees arrived by sea. In December 1922, Shanghai residents were amazed by the unexpected arrival of an odd fleet, or more specifically, a motley collection of warships, mail ships, tugs, and icebreakers.14 Most of the fourteen vessels were small and battered, with some on the brink of disintegration.15 When John Powell, an American journalist, boarded one of the warships, he encountered a crowd of ill-fed and ill-clothed refugees and found the deck “literally jammed with household equipment, ranging all the way from pots and pans to baby cribs.”16 It was later learned that the flotilla had set sail from Vladivostok. Right before the port fell to the hands of besieging Bolsheviks, Admiral Oskar Victorovich Stark, the flotilla commander, had gathered all available vessels and had evacuated the soldiers, sailors and their families, and civilians who remained loyal to Czar Nicholas II. The voyage was arduous and several ships sank during a storm.17 Other refugees followed a different but equally grueling land route, entering China through the northwestern Xinjiang region and trekking across the immense and barren Gobi Desert.18
Refugees chose Shanghai as their final destination for several reasons. The primary reason was that the city was known for its status as a free port, allowing free entry even for those who did not possess a passport or visa.19 However, the challenges were formidable even for those who made it to Shanghai. Upon their arrival, most refugees were desperately hungry and ragged, with the most urgent task being to feed, clothe, and find proper accommodation for them. In response, the Russian Emigrants Committee (REC) was established as the semi-official executive center for Russian refugees20 under the leadership of Viktor Fedorovich Grosse, a diplomat sent to Shanghai by Imperial Russia in 1911 and a prominent member of the Russian émigré community.21 Grosse was a reasonably competent administrator; however, due to scarce financial and human resources, the REC offered only limited assistance, to the great disappointment of the refugees. The League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations, dispatched a commission to investigate the living conditions of war refugees and to collect donations. After conducting a survey among White Russians, the commissioners concluded that the only feasible solutions would be repatriation or emigra- tion. Few, however, wished to return to Russia out of fear of possible persecution, and the Soviet government outright denied any possibility of repatriation for those who desired to return.22 Additionally, most of them were too poor to pay for the transportation costs and almost all nations were reluctant to accept them.23
Thus, their fate as stateless citizens was virtually sealed. In addition to the loss of their citizenship, a considerable number of expatriates were unable to secure a decent job due to their inability to speak English, the “lingua franca of the foreign community.”24 In general, Republican Shanghai was dominated by a rigid hierarchical system in which prejudice and distrust of foreigners persisted in the various émigré groups. For example, when a well-paid position was available, the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) and British firms were only willing to consider British people who were born and educated in England due to the engrained belief that British people who were brought up in Shanghai would inevitably be contaminated by the negative traits of the Chinese, and that therefore their integrity and honesty were to be doubted.25
As a result, many White Russians faced bleak prospects in the job markets and subsequently entered into the low-paid, unskilled workforce. Some veterans worked as dockworkers, janitors, guards, chauffeurs, watchmen, or bodyguards for Chinese dignitaries due to their strong physique and military experience.26 Others, especially women, found less physically demanding job at cafés, cabarets, and dance halls serving as musicians, waiters, waitresses, and dancers.27 In order to support themselves and their families, some desperate females engaged in prostitution, either voluntarily or because they were forced by unscrupulous traffickers. By the 1930s, approximately 8,000 Russians worked in the sex industry.28
One 1929 police report tells the poignant story of a Russian woman by the name of Mary Kuksova and offers a glimpse into the harsh realities that many Russian émigrés faced. Originally from Vladivostok, Kuksova was hired as a nurse by a Russian family and came to Shanghai in 1917. Two years later she was allegedly raped by her master. After that, she took refuge in a shelter and gave birth to her child there. As her social status fell, she was forced to work as a dancer in several cafés and bars, eventually contracting an unspecified disease. Eventually, her health rap- idly declined to a point where she was sent to a country hospital in an unconscious state. When the Shanghai Munici- pal Police (SMP) informed Grosse, he said that he could not do anything for Kuksova except buy her a steamer ticket to have her sent away from Shanghai.29
The presence of the White Russians, especially the beggars and prostitutes among them, became a nuisance to the tranquility of other foreigners in the community. More important, they challenged the foreigners’ entrenched ideology of white superiority, which claimed that Westerners were morally and intellectually superior to the Chinese. The foreign community, therefore, felt entitled to a higher and more prestigious status. The very sight of Caucasian vagrants begging side by side with Chinese ones unsettled and alarmed other foreigners, who regarded them as the parasites who undermined the established social order and ought to be eliminated. As a result, the White Russian was collectively regarded as “emotional, untrustworthy and usually drunk.”30 The hostility felt towards some was some- times unfairly directed against the entire community of White Russians.31
Nonetheless, some organizations did make a genuine effort to help lift Russian émigrés out of their misery. One of these attempts to relieve the oversupply of labor and the chronic unemployment in the community can be found in a 1929 SMP file. According to the report, forty White Russian artisans departed for Brazil on April 6. They were masons and carpenters hired by a Brazilian company to construct a railway. Their contracts and trips were ar- ranged by a representative from the League of Nations and coordinated by the REC. Funds from League of Nations temporarily covered their travel expenses, which were deducted from their own salaries once they started working.32 The file also contained a letter from Grosse to the secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Council in which he explained the recruitment and selection process of prospective workers. It is curious to note that the employment opportunities in Brazil attracted a considerable number of White Russian workers. Although only forty craftsmen were eventually selected, the first day of recruitment attracted more than two hundred applicants.33 The chaotic political and social conditions in contemporary Shanghai were a likely reason for the abnormally high number of applicants.
Despite poverty, discrimination, and language barriers, many Russian expatriates displayed a remarkable degree of determination and resilience. As time passed, some émigrés managed to achieve upward social mobility through personal effort and initiative. This trend was illustrated by the experiences of Gregory Potapoff, a cadet who followed Admiral Stark to Shanghai at the age of eighteen. The SMC housed Potapoff and his fellow cadets in a park shortly after their arrival. One day he met a Russian woman and expressed his desire of finding a job, with the woman replying that there was a vacant assistant position in her husband’s construction firm. He applied for the job and was hired. Later on, Potapoff rose to a prestigious position in the SMC, enjoying a handsome wage, a decent house, and a group of Chinese servants.34
Similarly, many expatriates reached white-collar position, while highly educated and skilled Russians found their niches in various positions, often working as physicians, professors, lawyers, journalists, and engineers.35 For example, Georgi Sapojnikov, a talented caricaturist, reached the prestigious position of cartoonist for the North China Daily News. A man endowed with the “gift of reducing the complexities of Chinese politics to a single image and of capturing the ebullient, chaotic nature of Shanghai without sentimentality or cynicism,” Sapojnikov worked for the newspaper for more than two decades.36
In a predominately patriarchal society, educated women possessing practical skills found occupations that were respectable, if not well-paid, including shop assistant, school teacher, governess, nurse, milliner, or hairdresser.37
Following in the footsteps of Potapoff, other White Russians accumulated enough wealth through hard work and prudent investment to enjoy a prosperous and middle-class lifestyle. According to contemporary newspaper ac- counts, Russian émigrés participated in a surprisingly wide range of business and industry, including but not limited to clothing stores (both ready-made and made-to-order), shoe stores, haberdashery, furriers, hair salons, grocery stores, bakeries, dairy sales, butchery, confectionary, brewing, distilling, pharmacy, music shops, and tanning.38 By doing so, they brought “an elegant European atmosphere”39 to Shanghai. Some also worked as skilled carpenters, stonemasons, goldsmiths, cobblers, printers, watchmakers, locksmiths, barbers, mechanics, and painters.40
The ingenuity and entre- preneurship of Russian artisans was warmly lauded by the North China Daily News:
Russians made jam, salted vegetables and fruits, smoked fish, sausages; by their own special method they salt and smoke ham ... Russians draw ikons, make wax-candles, wafers and all the other neces- sary paraphernalia of the Orthodox church; they hew their own gravestones and monuments, have their own funeral bureaux, are famed in the field of floriculture, maintain hospitals for animals ... in short there is no breach of any artisan or factory labour in which Russians have not made use of their knowledge, experience and energy.41
Most extraordinarily, Russian craftsmen and factory owners usually lacked enough capital, thereby forcing them to use more primitive and crude methods of manufacturing than the foreign companies with which they competed. These foreign companies possessed efficient and advanced production and distribution systems. Nonetheless, the Russians continued to “struggle on, and if they do not actually conquer the competition, they would live off of their business- es.”42
From a cultural perspective, the 1930s “became a rich period”43 for the White Russians. Once settled, the Whites took a special interest in celebrating and promoting their proud heritage, thereby enriching Shanghai culture through various channels. A wide variety of popular art clubs, ranging from ballets and orchestras to jazz and dramas, were founded.44 The literary activities were quite vigorous as well, thanks to the large number of poets and novelists.45 By 1937, Shanghai had become one of the largest publication centers of Russian books, newspapers, pamphlets, and textbooks, surpassing both Paris and Berlin. Additionally, religion became a crucial way to preserve their traditions and forge a sense of unity and belonging among an otherwise loose social group. The grand and magnificent Orthodox churches, once constructed, provided landmarks across Shanghai that served as essential meeting grounds for local Russian immigrants. Some deeply devout Russians found consolation from Orthodoxy and saw it as a powerful shield against the pains of homesickness and a crucial bond that reinforced cultural uniformity and knitted together the social fabric of the White Russian community.46 John Powell noted the rich religious lives of White Russians:
I do not think I ever visited a Russian home without seeing at least one sacred ikon, and often there would be one in every room and usually with a small incense burner and oil lamp attached which was kept burning. Almost the entire foreign community turned out to observe the colorful Russian services at Christmas and Easter.47
In general, White Russians shaped Republican Shanghai history in remarkable ways. In spite of financial hardship, deep trauma originating from dislocation, and the enduring humiliation of low social status and discrimina- tory treatment, the refugees not only survived but also prospered, revealing their astonishing tenacity and flexibility. Today, a visitor to Shanghai will find few physical relics of the White Russians except for the remains of the graceful Orthodox churches and a monument featuring the bust of Pushkin. The rest was destroyed either by the Sino-Japanese war or the Cultural Revolution.48 Nevertheless, based upon scrutiny of the vigorous social, economic, and cultural lives enjoyed by the expatriate community, it can be safely concluded that the White Russians did leave a long-lasting mark and bestowed an indelible legacy upon the city that once accepted and sheltered them.
11 Tatiana Schaufuss, “The White Russian Refugees,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 203, (May 1939): 45. 12 Ibid.
13 Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 74-81.
14 Ibid., 39.
15 “The Russian Ships at Woosung,” North China Herald, December 16, 1922.
16 Powell, My Twenty-five Years in China, 57.
17 Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 39.
18 “Origin and Future of the Local Russian Community,” Shanghai Sunday Times, July 19, 1936. 19 Powell, My Twenty-five Years in China, 58.
20 Marcia R. Ristaino, “White Russian and Jewish Refugees in Shanghai, 1920-44, As Recorded in the Shanghai Municipal Police Files, Na- tional Archives, Washington, DC.,” Republican China 16, no. 1 (November 1990): 54.
21 Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 37.
22 Schaufuss, “The White Russian Refugees,” 47.
23 “Origin and Future of the Local Russian Community,” Shanghai Sunday Times, July 19, 1936.
24 Marie-Claire Bergere, Shanghai: China’s Gateway to Modernity, trans. Janet Lloyd (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 86. 25 Sergeant, Shanghai, 156.
26 Nicolas R. Clifford, Spoilt Children of Empire: Westerners in Shanghai and the Chinese Revolution of the 1920s (Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1991), 41.
27 Stella Dong, Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), 132.
28 Gail Hershatter, “The Hierarchy of Shanghai Prostitution, 1870-1949,” Modern China 15, no. 4 (October 1989): 473.
29 D. S. Ovsiannikoff, “Report on Miss Mary Kuksova,” September 24, 1929, SMP, reel 79, File D-522.
30 Harriet Sergeant, Shanghai (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991), 39.
31 Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 15.
32 D. I. Robertson, “Report on Russians Leaving for Brazil,” September 13, 1929, SMP, reel 57, File D-195. 33 Viktor Grosse to S. M. Edwards, Shanghai, April 26, 1929, in SMP, reel 57, File D-195.
34 Sergeant, Shanghai, 44-45.
35 Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 84.
36 Sergeant, Shanghai, 34-35.
37 Ristaino, “White Russian and Jewish Refugees in Shanghai,” 55.
38 “In the Russian Colony: Russian Traders,” North China Daily News, August 9, 1937. 39 Lu, Beyond the Neon Light, 39.
40 “In the Russian Colony: Russian Traders,” North China Daily News, August 9, 1937. 41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 81.
44 Ibid., 80-81.
45 Ibid., 84.
46 Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 85.
47 Powell, My Twenty-five Years in China, 60.
48 James Irwin, “The Ghosts of Russia That Haunt Shanghai,” New York Times, September 21, 1999.
On this day in 1937 the Battle of Shanghai begins.
Women give thanks to Chinese soldiers who held out for days against the besieging Imperial Japanese Army after evacuation of the Chapei native quarter in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Southern China, 1937.
Following the Battle of Shanghai in 1937, the city was occupied by the army of Imperial Japan, and the port began to allow entry without visa or passport. By the time when most German Jews arrived, two other Jewish communities had already settled in the city: the wealthy Baghdadi Jews, including the Kadoorie and Sassoon families, and the Russian Jews. The last ones fled the Russian Empire because of anti-Semitic pogroms pushed by the tsarist regime and counter-revolutionary armies as well as the class struggle manifested by the Bolsheviks. They had formed the Russian community in Harbin, then the Russian community in Shanghai.
Many in the Polish-Lithuanian Jewish community were saved by Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Kaunas, Lithuania. They managed to flee across the vast territory of Russia by train to Vladivostok and then by boat to Kobe in Japan. The refugees in number of 2,185 arrived in Japan from August 1940 to June 1941. Tadeusz Romer, the Polish ambassador in Tokyo, had managed to get transit visas in Japan, asylum visas to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Burma, immigration certificates to Palestine, and immigrant visas to the United States and some Latin American countries. Finally, Tadeusz Romer arrived in Shanghai on November 1, 1941, to continue the action for Jewish refugees.[1] Among those saved in the Shanghai Ghetto were leaders and students of Mir yeshiva, the only yeshiva in occupied Europe to survive the Holocaust.
Similarly, thousands of Austrian Jews were saved by the Chinese consul-general in Vienna Ho Feng Shan, who issued visas during 1938-1940 against the orders of his superior the Chinese ambassador in Berlin, Chen Jie.
The refugees who managed to purchase tickets for luxurious Italian and Japanese cruise steamships departing from Genoa later described their three-week journey with plenty of food and entertainment — between persecution in Germany and squalid ghetto in Shanghai — as surreal. Some passengers attempted to make unscheduled departures in Egypt, hoping to smuggle themselves into the British Mandate of Palestine.
The first German Jewish refugees — twenty-six families, among them five well-known physicians — had already arrived in Shanghai by November 1933. By the spring of 1934, there were reportedly eighty refugee physicians, surgeons, and dentists in China. On August 15, 1938, the first Jewish refugees from Anschluss Austria arrived by Italian ship. Most of the refugees arrived after Kristallnacht.
During the refugee flight to Shanghai between November 1938 and June 1941, the total number of arrivals by sea and land has been estimated at 1,374 in 1938; 12,089 in 1939; 1,988 in 1940; and 4,000 in 1941.[2] In 1939-1940, Lloyd Triestino ran a sort of "ferry service" between Italy and Shanghai, bringing in thousands of refugees a month - Germans, Austrians, a few Czechs. Added to this mix were approximately 1,000 Polish Jews in 1941.[3] Among these, all the faculty of the Mir Yeshiva, some 400 in number, who with the outbreak of World War II in 1939, fled from Mir to Vilna and then to Keidan, Lithuania. In late 1940, they obtained visas from Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Kaunas, to travel from Keidan, then Lithuanian SSR, via Siberia and Vladivostok to Kobe, Japan.[4] By November 1941 the Japanese moved this group and most of others on to the Shanghai Ghetto in order to consolidate the Jews under their control.[5] Finally, a wave of more than 18,000 Ashkenazi Jews from Germany, Austria, and Poland immigrated to Shanghai until the Attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan in December 1941.[6]
The Ohel Moshe Synagogue served as a religious center for the Russian Jewish community since 1907 (currently the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, located at 62 Changyang Road, Hongkou District). In April 1941, a modern Ashkenazic Jewish synagogue was built (called the New Synagogue).[7]
Much needed aid was provided by International Committee for European Immigrants (IC), established by Victor Sassoon and Paul Komor, a Hungarian businessman, and Committee for the Assistance of European Jewish Refugees (CFA), founded by Horace Kadoorie, under the direction of Michael Speelman. These organizations prepared the housing in Hongkou, a relatively cheap suburb compared with the Shanghai International Settlement or the Shanghai French Concession. They were accommodated in shabby apartments and six camps in a former school. The Japanese occupiers of Shanghai regarded German Jews as "stateless persons".[8]
In 1943, the occupying Japanese army required these 18,000 Jews to relocate to a 3/4 square mile area of Shanghai's Hongkou district where many lived in group homes called "Heime" or "Little Vienna".[9]
A Jewish girl and her Chinese friends in the Shanghai Ghetto, from the collection of the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum
Former site of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
The authorities were unprepared for massive immigration and the arriving refugees faced harsh conditions in the impoverished Hongkou District: 10 per room, near-starvation, disastrous sanitation and scant employment.
The Baghdadis and later the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) provided some assistance with the housing and food problems. Faced with language barriers, extreme poverty, rampant disease and isolation, the refugees were able to make the transition from being supported by welfare agencies to establishing a functioning community. Jewish cultural life flourished: schools were established, newspapers were published, theaters produced plays, sports teams participated in training and competitions, and even cabarets thrived.[10]
After Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor, the wealthy Baghdadi Jews (many of whom were British subjects) were interned, and American charitable funds ceased. As communication with the US was broken, unemployment and inflation intensified and times got harder for the refugees.
The JDC liaison Laura Margolis, who came to Shanghai, attempted to stabilize the situation by getting permission from the Japanese authorities to continue her fundraising effort, turning for assistance to the Russian Jews who arrived before 1937 and were exempt from the new restrictions.[11][12]
As World War II intensified, the Nazis stepped up pressure on Japan to hand over the Shanghai Jews. Warren Kozak describes the episode when the Japanese military governor of the city sent for the Jewish community leaders. The delegation included Amshinover rabbi Shimon Sholom Kalish. The Japanese governor was curious and asked "Why do the Germans hate you so much?"
Without hesitation and knowing the fate of his community hung on his answer, Reb Kalish told the translator (in Yiddish): "Zugim weil wir senen orientalim—Tell him [the Germans hate us] because we are Orientals." The governor, whose face had been stern throughout the confrontation, broke into a slight smile. In spite of the military alliance, he did not accede to the German demand and the Shanghai Jews were never handed over.[13]
"Residences, Businesses of City's Stateless Refugess Limited to Restricted Sector". (Shanghai Herald newspaper, February 18, 1943)
According to another rabbi who was present there, Reb Kalish' answer was "They hate us because we are short and dark-haired." Orientalim was not likely to have been said because the word is an Israeli academic term in modern Hebrew, not a word in classical Yiddish or Hebrew.
On November 15, 1942, the idea of a restricted ghetto was approved. On February 18, 1943, the Japanese authorities declared a "Designated Area for Stateless Refugees" and ordered those who arrived after 1937 to move their residences and businesses within it by May 18, three months later. The stateless refugees needed permission from the Japanese to dispose of their property; others needed permission to move into the ghetto.[14] The English version of the order read:
The designated area is bordered on the west by the line connecting Chaoufoong, Muirhead, and Dent Roads; on the east by Yangtzepoo Creek; on the south by the line connecting East Seward, Muirhead, and Wayside Roads; and on the North by the boundary of the International Settlement.[15]
While this area was not walled or surrounded with barbed wire, it was patrolled and a curfew enforced in its precincts. Food was rationed, and everyone needed passes to enter or leave the ghetto.[14]
Polish Jew's passport registration inside the ghetto (1943)
According to Dr. David Kranzler,
Thus, about half of the approximately 16,000 refugees, who had overcome great obstacles and had found a means of livelihood and residence outside the 'designated area' were forced to leave their homes and businesses for a second time and to relocate into a crowded, squalid area of less than one square mile with its own population of an estimated 100,000 Chinese and 8,000 refugees.[16]
Although a few temporary passes were issued to work and to 16 students of St. Francis Xavier College outside the ghetto, these were granted arbitrarily and were severely curtailed after the first year. But the fact that the Chinese did not leave the Hongkou ghetto meant the Jews were not isolated. Nevertheless, economic conditions worsened; psychological adjustment to ghettoization was difficult; the winter of 1943 was severe and hunger was widespread.[17]
The US air raids on Shanghai began in 1944. There were no bomb shelters in Hongkou as the water table was close to the surface. The most devastating raid started on July 17, 1945, and was the first attack on Hongkou. The bombings by the US 7th Air Force continued daily until the Atomic Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, which ended the air raids.
Refugees in the ghetto, improvised their own shelters, with one family surviving the bombing under a bed with a second mattress on top, mounted on two desks. Thirty-eight refugees and hundreds of Chinese were killed in the 17 July raid.
Some Jews of the Shanghai ghetto took part in the resistance movement. They participated in an underground network to obtain and circulate information and were involved in some minor sabotage and in providing assistance to downed Allied aircrews.[17] In addition, over 90% of the residents were unable to leave the ghetto until after the liberation in August 1945.
The ghetto was officially liberated on September 3, 1945, after some delay to allow Chiang Kai-shek's army to take political credit for the liberation of Shanghai. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the fall of Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, almost all the Shanghai ghetto Jews left. By 1957, only 100 remained, and today only a few may still live there.[17]
The Government of Israel bestowed the honor of the Righteous Among the Nations to Chiune Sugihara in 1985 and to Ho Feng Shan in 2001.
- [Krzysztof Kacperek]. "Kanadyjska Fundacja Dziedzictwa Polsko-Żydowskiego - Tadeusza Romera Pomoc Żydom Polskim na Dalekim Wschodzie". Polish-jewish-heritage.org. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
- "Avraham Altman and Irene Eber. Flight to Shanghai, 1938-1940: The Larger Setting. p.2/32" (PDF). Retrieved 2011-07-0
- "Anthony Hughes. Sport and Jewish identity in the Shanghai Jewish Community 1938-1949" (PDF). Retrieved 2011-07-08
- Shanghai Jewish History Archived August 13, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
- "Pamela Shatzkes. Kobe: A Japanese haven for Jewish refugees, 1940–1941. Japan Forum, 1469-932X, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1991, pp. 257–273". Informaworld.com. 1970-01-01. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
- "Return of a Shanghai Jew". Latimes.com. 2006-01-15. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
- Encyclopedia of Diasporas. Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World. Vol. I, Jewish Diaspora in China by Xu Xin, p.157, Ember, Melvin; Ember, Carol R.; Skoggard, Ian (Eds.), Springer 2004, ISBN 0-306-48321-1. Books.google.pl. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
- "Péter Vámos. The Life of Central European Jewish Refugees in Shanghai During World War II. University of San Francisco. Pacific Rim Report No. 23, November 2001". Pacificrim.usfca.edu. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
- "Feature: Former Jewish refugees revisit Shanghai Ark". English.people.com.cn. 2005-11-11. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
- The Ghosts of Shanghai by Ron Gluckman.
- Special Tributes. Laura Margolis, Rescuer of Jews A Testimonial by Ernest G. Heppner, Author of Shanghai Refuge: A Memoir of the World War II Jewish Ghetto
- "Forgotten Heroes of the Holocaust". Kimel.net. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
- The Rabbi of 84th Street: The Extraordinary Life of Haskel Besser by Warren Kozak (HarperCollins, 2004) ISBN 0-06-051101-X p.177
- Shanghai Ghetto Shows a Hidden Piece of WWII History By Kimberly Chun (AsianWeek)
- English decree cited by Exil Shanghai;[19] modern forms of the old street names according to French.[20]
- Japanese, Nazis and Jews: The Jewish Refugee Community in Shanghai, 1938–1945 by David Kranzler, p.491
- Voticky, Anka (2010). Knocking on every door. Toronto: The Azrieli Foundation. p. Kindle loc 1299-1317. ISBN 978-1-897470-20-6
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