Refugee children sometimes ventured outside the hotel to explore Hong Kong. One former refugee remembers trips on the Star Ferry, tasting ice cream for the first time, and visiting the Repulse Bay beach, courtesy of his mother’s friend. After the privations of war and the bombings wrought on Shanghai, Hong Kong was like a paradise […]
The Jewish community in the post-war period
Survivors of the Holocaust from Halle and the surrounding area once again founded a Jewish community in 1947, which moved into the community center at Grosse Märkerstrasse 13 in 1952. With the permission of the Soviet military administration, the mourning hall on Humboldtstrasse was converted into a synagogue, as such a building had been missing […]
Liberation and Resettlement: The Peninsula Hotel
Hong Kong was liberated from the Japanese in August 1945. In the post-war years, the colony once again became a site of transit – this time for Jewish refugees leaving Shanghai to find new homes in Australia and Israel (est. 1948). Lawrence Kadoorie helped refugees emigrate to new countries by providing temporary accommodation in his […]
The end of the war in Solingen
On April 17, 1945 “around 1:00 p.m.,” US Colonel Lansing wrote in his war diary, “the entire region of Solingen and its surroundings was under our control.” The American invasion took place with practically no resistance, since anti-fascist groups had ensured a peaceful handover in several places. Already at 2:00 p.m., Oskar Rieß was appointed […]
New York: “De Profundis. Cain, Where is Abel Thy Brother?” by Arthur Szyk
This important work represents Arthur Szyk’s involvement in raising awareness in the United States of the Holocaust taking place in Europe. On March 9, 1943, the show We Will Never Die, written by Ben Hecht, was performed in Madison Square Garden as part of a memorial pageant calling to rescue the Jews of Europe. Within […]
The first train to Auschwitz
On the morning of March 15, 1943, the residents of the Baron Hirsch neighbourhood in Thessaloniki, which was located by the railway station, were packed into livestock wagons, which were overloaded to twice their capacity. The cars were shut and sealed. The train departed for Poland with the first 2,800 deportees. After a tortuous, five-day journey, […]
Deportation from Solingen to Theresienstadt
“Dear Else, be sensible and think of your fragile nerves; there is no point in getting too excited. To bear the inevitable with dignity is the only thing we can do now; if we’re lucky, we will be able to bear it like our brothers,” Jenny Giesenow wrote in her last letter to her daughter […]
The Japanese occupy Hong Kong (1941 – 1945)
Only a handful of Jewish refugees were permitted to remain in Hong Kong after June 1940 – mainly doctors and engineers. Eighteen months later, the Japanese invaded the colony in December 1941. Several Jewish refugees died during the Japanese invasion including Herbert Samuel, a German Jew and statistician at CLP who fought to defend the […]
The pogrom on Pfaffenberger Weg in Solingen
Although individual actions against Jews were forbidden, the participants in a training evening of the NSDAP local group Solingen-Dorp let themselves be carried away to a pogrom in the night from July 12 to 13, 1941. After a subsequent drinking bout, some of the men, heavily intoxicated, moved on to the “Judenhaus” (Jewish house) at […]
Internment and Eviction (1939 – 1940)
On 3 September 1939, Britain declared war on Nazi Germany after its invasion of Poland. In Britain and across its empire, Austrian and German male citizens were arrested and interned as ‘enemy aliens’. In Hong Kong, Austrian and German men were interned at La Salle College, a school for boys situated in Kowloon. While conditions […]
Erna Friedlander’s picture of the refugees
Erna Friedlander and her husband Martin Friedlander came to Hong Kong in April 1939, having previously escaped Germany for Italy. Soon after his arrival in the colony, Martin became involved with the Jewish Refugee Society (JRS) where he met Monia Talan, the JRS’ secretary, who hired him at American Lloyd Shipping. Erna was a talented […]