"Safe Haven"? Sentiment and Space in German Jewish Experiences of Shanghai, 1935-1945

During the Second World War, over 15,000 German Jews lived in Shanghai.1 Variously identified as refugees, exiles, stateless and displaced persons, they joined a pre-existing German Jewish community in the city and created 'Little Vienna,' a material monument to the German identity stripped from them.

Distant from European territory, they nonetheless encountered 'Europe' in Shanghai's foreign settlements and explored multifaceted identities across the city's semi-colonial spaces. The group's post-war self-identification as 'Shanghailanders' signals the city's enduring impact on their identities. This

project explores German Jewish self-identification in Shanghai 1935-1945 by asking how place informed identity, and how identity shaped placemaking.