%0 Journal Article
%T “Back on Straw”: The Experience of Shanghai Jewish Refugees in Bremen after Escaping German National Socialism, Enduring a Japanese “Designated Area”, and Fleeing Chinese Communism
%A Ostoyich, Kevin
%J Studia Historica Gedanensia
%V 2014
%R 10.4467/23916001HG.14.006.2671
%N Tom 5 (2014)
%P 113-138

%@ 2081-3309
%D 2014
%U https://ejournals.eu/czasopismo/studia-historica-gedanensia/artykul/back-on-straw-the-experience-of-shanghai-jewish-refugees-in-bremen-after-escaping-german-national-socialism-enduring-a-japanese-designated-area-and-fleeing-chinese-communism
%X 
	The article provides information on a group of 106 Shanghai Jewish refugees who returned to Germany in July 1950 after an unsuccessful attempt to immigrate to the United States. By an arrangement negotiated between German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the Mayor of Bremen, Wilhelm Kaisen the refugees were lodged in the Tirpitz Camp in Bremen until they could get permission to reenter the United States. The article provides information on 1) the experiences that thirteen of the members of the Shanghai Group had endured in German concentration camps during the 1930s; 2) the Shanghai Designated Area set up in the Hongkou district of Shanghai by the Japanese occupying forces in 1943; 3) the journey to Bremen in 1950; 4) the names (and birthdates when available) of 102 members of the Shanghai Group, their numbers over time in the Tirpitz Camp, and the health status of the members; 5) conditions in the Tirpitz Camp in Bremen; and 6) the activities of German federal and state officials to address the immediate needs of the Shanghai Jewish refugees during the time when the issue of German reparation payments to Jews had yet to be determined. The archival file upon which the article is based (Staatsarchiv Bremen 4,22/2–178) reveals that despite the initial good intentions by Adenauer and Kaisen, the experience of the Shanghai Jewish refugees became strained as their stay in the camp became prolonged and their requests for more hospitable accommodation and more funds met with bureaucratic red tape.