The Port of Last Resort Joan Grossman, Paul Rosdy, 1998
The film presents the littleknown story of the 20, 000 European Jews who fled to Shanghai between late 1937 and 1941. After 1939, Shanghai was the last and only resort to find safe haven from the Nazis, though not that safe either, as the film shows. This was due to Shanghai s status as a free port not requiring entry papers, and the relative tolerance of the Japanese occupiers, who, far from being saviors, resisted their Grand Ally s (Germany) demand to exterminate the Jews, and even prevented the actions of the Nazi Butcher of Warsaw who was assigned to liquidate the Shanghai Jews. After the Communist takeover of China, all traces of the Jews existence, including a Jewish cemetery with 2, 000 graves, were razed.
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