Monthly Archives: January 2022

Jewish Transit to China: “Die Gelbe Post”: A German Newspaper in Shanghai, 1939 – 1940

By Lea Katharina Neikes

The German Historical Institute (GHI) Washington DC, in collaboration with external partners, has organized an ongoing conference and workshop series about Jewish refugees in global transit between the 1930s and 1960s. The workshop was held 2018 in Kolkata, 2019 at the GHI Pacific Regional Office in Berkeley, and 2020 and 2021 as an online workshop due to the pandemic. As former interns, Paul Diekmann and I were invited to participate as guests at the Oct. 25-26 online workshop. Especially the discussion about the destination Shanghai, a rich and multifaceted topic, turned out to be fascinating.

After the November pogrom in 1938, while almost all other countries had closed their borders to German Jews, only Shanghai remained as one of the last places of refuge from the German Reich. Until 1941, it was still possible to enter the French and international parts of the city without a visa. Around 18,000 to 20,000 German-speaking refugees came to Shanghai. First by sea via Italian ports, later via the Soviet Union with the Trans-Siberian Railway or via intermediate stops in Africa and Asia. In addition, around 1,500 Jewish refugees from Japan were deported to Shanghai in 1941. The community grew to about 20,000 members during this time.

Cartoon, Die abgewiesenen Flüchtlinge, in: Die Gelbe Post, vol. 1, no. 2 (May 16, 1939), 28, original: Ken Magazine Chicago, cartoonist and copyrights unknown. Please contact href if you have any information about the rights holder.

The refugees had to adjust to the poor living conditions on site. Their experience offers a perspective on the war that is markedly different from the experiences of emigres to other countries. The history of Jewish refugees in Shanghai highlights that World War II was a complex combination of events, reflecting a variety of entanglements and disentanglements. After the beginning of WWII in the Pacific in December 1941, Shanghai came under full control of an Axis power: Japan. While Japan itself committed egregious war crimes, it shared neither the priorities nor the methods of the of the Germans who committed and supported the genocide.

The situation for the refugees worsened when the Japanese military authorities set up a ghetto for Jewish refugees in the Hongkou district in February 1943. Despite the adverse conditions, the emigrants developed a diverse cultural and social life with theater and music programs, newspapers, and the establishment of synagogues and schools. Still, the majority of Jews knew only German. There were no German-language newspapers and magazines in Shanghai at that time. Therefore, it was not easy to get information about what was going on in the world.

Josef Storfer, a disciple of Sigmund Freud, went into exile in Shanghai in 1938. In July 1938, he founded the magazine die  Gelbe Post (the Yellow Post), which appeared twice a month and dealt primarily with the daily struggle for survival of Jewish émigrés in Shanghai. In November 1938, the  Gelbe Post was transformed into a newspaper. It appeared daily until it was sold in September 1940. The newspaper quickly established international recognition.

Gelbe Post, vol. 7, no. 78 (May 5, 1940), LBI periodical collection online, https://archive.org/details/gelbepost

This did not go unnoticed in Nazi Germany.  Just two months after it was published, a well-informed, extensive article about Storfer and his magazine appeared in the vulgar anti-Semitic hate newspaper “Der Stürmer”. The name of the German author, who apparently had to live in Shanghai, is deliberately not mentioned: “From our collaborator in Shanghai,” is all it says. For them, Storfer who even in exile tried not to give up his Viennese cultural heritage, was also subject to racist persecution and demonization in Shanghai. The Stürmer wrote: “The Jew A. J. Storfer has now settled in Shanghai. He is working to inject his Jewish poison into wide circles of the Chinese people. Through his poison the Chinese people, who are already very decomposed by communism, shall perish completely.”[1] This example shows that the Nazi persecution did not end during the transit of the refugees. It had to be expected that Nazi supporters would remain in their environment.

The Jews in Shanghai, who had successfully escaped from the Nazi regime, continued to care and worry about the war in Europe, especially about the policies of Nazi Germany. Even though Shanghai was and felt far away from Europe, the emigrees were very worried that the war would extend further and come closer to Shanghai. Die Gelbe Post reported in almost every issue on political events, assessments of the war’s development and possible new immigration opportunities.

In Storfer’s obituary, a friend wrote: ” (…) He was always preoccupied with getting to the bottom of things (…) as deeply as possible.”[2] And in fact, there were entire articles in his newspaper devoted to the beauty and distinctiveness of Chinese and Japanese culture and language. Why were Jewish journalists and intellectuals in the changed political situation in Shanghai still focusing their attention “on the content and value of the superior Chinese culture”?

A few years after his arrival in Shanghai, the Jewish jurist and journalist Dr. Victor Sternberg stated in this regard:  “Above all, we have come to know the people of China, in that section which lives in Shanghai, to some extent, during the years of our stay here, and we have made a great discovery: the Chinese are people just like us. […]”[3] This discovery was partly owed to those exile journalists, like Storfer, who helped the Jewish emigrants in Shanghai to overcome the linguistic difficulties, especially the problems of understanding the Chinese mentality and Chinese culture.

The Jewish refugees living in Shanghai were considerate of their fellow residents and of their surroundings. For example, they reported on initial mistakes made by newcomers or advised on the proper, polite, way to treat rickshaw drivers. The report “Gangsterversicherung gegen Gangster in Hongkew”, published on the 5th of March 1940, speaks of thugs on Huoshan Street, who often came into the stores and collected the protection fees. Those who paid the protection fees had a note with “under protection” taped to the door of the store. Reports like this informed the Jewish businessmen about the various gangs in Shanghai and urged them to be careful. The Jewish refugees cared very much for their countrymen and wished that more refugees would be taken in by Shanghai.

Shanghai’s unique perspective and newspapers like the Yellow Post are a good reflection of the experiences and observations of the Jewish refugees stranded there. However, in order to evaluate these experiences in depth, one must evaluate biographical aspects to reconstruct time and feelings. There are always certain types of religious and cultural knowledge that have been passed down through generations, which may not be documented by documents and other sources While transit is frequently associated with trauma, it can also be associated with other aspects of the experience, such as humor, love or sexuality. Die Gelbe Post and Josef Storfer’s work demonstrate just that. A wide range of Exilpresse publications like the Gelbe Post and other journals (not only from Shanghai) can be accessed via the online catalog of the German national library, which also includes various exhibitions, publications and events. https://www.dnb.de/DE/Sammlungen/DEA/Exilpresse/exilpresse_node.html;jsessionid=58CB1B342758D91C72DBA2346543D980.internet532

See also:  Gelbe Post: ostasiatische Halbmonatsschrift. (Shanghai, China: 1939-1940), Leo Baeck Institute Periodical Collection, NYC, online at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/gelbepost (last accessed January 17, 2022).

[1] Kaufhold,Roland: Ein Wiener in Asien. https://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/kultur/ein-wiener-in-asien/ (Stand: 12.12.2021).

[2] Goddemeier, Christof: Adolf Josef Storfer: „Geist von der Eindringlichkeit eines Drillbohrers“. https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/210735/Adolf-Josef-Storfer-Geist-von-der-Eindringlichkeit-eines-Drillbohrers (Stand: 12.12.2021).

[3] Lukoschik, Rita Unfer: Deutsch-chinesische Literaturbeziehungen. In: Hans-Gert Roloff (Hg.): Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik. Jahrgang XLVII – Heft 1, 2015.

References

  • Eber, Irene. Wartime Shanghai and the Jewish Refugees from Central Europe: Survival, Co-existence, and Identity in a Multi-ethnic City. 2012.
  • Kaufhold, Roland. Ein Wiener in Asien. Jüdische Allgemeine, Aug. 7, 2017 https://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/kultur/ein-wiener-in-asien/ (Accessed 12.12.2021).
  • Lämmert, Eberhard, Mencke, Eva, Maas, Lieselotte. Handbuch der deutschen Exilpresse 1933-1945. Bd. 3 1976.
  • Lukoschik, Rita Unfer. Deutsch-chinesische Literaturbeziehungen. In: Hans-Gert Roloff (Hg.): Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik. Jahrgang XLVII – Heft 1, 2015.
  • Lukoschik, Rita Unfer. Deutsch-chinesische Literaturbeziehungen. In: Hans-Gert Roloff (Hg.): Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik. Jahrgang XLVII – Heft 1, 2015.
  • Mars, Alvin. A Note on the Jewish Refugees in Shanghai. In: Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 31, Nr. 4, 1969.
  • Rosdy, Paul. Adolf Josef Storfer, Shanghai und die Gelbe Post. Dokumentation von Paul Rosdy zum Reprint der Gelben Post. 1999.
  • Rosdy, Paul. Adolf Josef Storfer, Shanghai und die Gelbe Post. Dokumentation von Paul Rosdy zum Reprint der Gelben Post. 1999.
  • Stiftung Jüdisches Museum Berlin (Hg.). Heimat und Exil: Emigration der deutschen Juden nach 1933. 2006.
  • Yutong, Wang/Yongting, Pan. Was stand in der Gelben Post? SISU, Sept. 25, 2016, http://de.shisu.edu.cn/resources/features/content5127 (Accessed 12.2021).

A Reflection on the Connection between Facebook and Anti-Refugee Violence in Germany

#Onlinehatecrime #Socialmedia #Migrants #refugees #Germany #attacksonmigrants

By Anosh Samuel

Editorial note: The author completed a virtual internship at the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, in the fall/winter of 2021/22. Anosh Samuel hails from Islamabad, Pakistan and is currently studying for a Master in Roads to Democracies at the University of Siegen in Germany. He plans to work on a final Master’s Project about “Migration, integration and social media (case study of Pakistani students in Germany).” He’s keenly interested in international politics, policy and decision making, social media and migration, diplomacy and communication, research and analysis, and foreign policy. In his free time, he plays guitar, loves to read and write articles, watches historical documentaries, watches NEWS, and reads newspapers. He’s reachable at anosh_samuel [ at ] yahoo.com. 

This blog, “A Reflection on the Connection between Facebook and Anti-Refugee Violence in Germany,” analyzes the study “Facebook and propagating hate against migrants and refugees in Germany” by Karsten Müller and Carlo Schwarz (2020).” What are the contributing patterns and factors on Facebook towards hate against refugees and migrants in Germany? Are users of Facebook and other social media politically or ideologically influenced? Based on a report published by Hamburg-based Statista Research Department (2021), 42.8 million users actively use Facebook in Germany. Social media has become a wide source of information and news. The shared information spreads like wildfire. A staggering number of 87% of internet users in Germany use WhatsApp, followed by YouTube 69%, and further 63% of the German population use Facebook, according to the 2020 survey. This means any event could reach 63% of the German population in just a blink of an eye, not considering the shared content on WhatsApp. 28% of Facebook users in Germany are between 25-34 years old.

Müller and Schwarz argue that Facebook, used by a considerable percentage of adults as a news source, could propagate hateful sentiments. Their argument is partially based on research on Facebook’s role in spreading online hate in the US by the Pew Research Center (2018).  Germany saw the influx of one million migrants in 2015 and 2016, and the “Amadeu Antonio Stiftung,” a nonprofit organization, registered an astounding 11,200 between 2015 and 2019 incidents against refugees in Germany (Spreter, 2021). The scholars also explored the Facebook page of the German right-wing party “Alternative for Deutschland (AFD),” which has a larger reach than the sites of any other political party in Germany. AFD was and is still the third-largest party in the 2017 general elections and again sustained the consistent third position in 2021 (Results Germany – The Federal Returning Officer, n.d.).

Unlike other political factions such as German Social Democrats (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU); AFD enabled its followers to directly post messages on a Facebook wall. Civil rights groups identified content on AFD’s page that focused on refugees and deemed the content as ‘hate speeches’. The authors note that hate crimes mostly take place in areas with higher traffic of Facebook users. Municipalities that experienced Facebook outages and disruptions that they used as control locations experienced fewer hate crimes. Essentially, the authors argue that the more AFD users are engaged with Facebook in German regions, the more prevalent are hate crimes; the less engaged people are with Facebook, the less prevalent hate crimes appeared to be. 

Incidents Targeting Refugees in 2016

Source: DW. (2017) Attacks on refugee homes as high as ever, German Criminal Police Office says | DW | 28.04.2016DW.COM. Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/attacks-on-refugee-homes-as-high-as-ever-german-criminal-police-office-says/a-19221702 (Accessed: 10 December 2021).

The groups of perpetrators attacking refugees are driven by collective actions. First, social media is a driving factor for collective outcomes. Second, the collective outcomes of attacks have a spillover effect. The elevation of right-wing sentiments is considerably more common in the towns next to each other based on the spillover effect. The spillover effect could also be supported by the domino effect; a cumulative set of actions produce similar actions.

To the extent that social media has driven the polarization of society, does it also contribute to hate crimes against refugees and migrants? Social media has divided people’s thoughts, and there are two dominating blocs of social media users: one bloc of people who are pro-migrants, and another bloc who is anti-migrants. Polarization of society becomes especially evident when parties like CDU and SPD bring forth migrant-friendly policies.  Recently, for example, SPD, Greens, and FDP proposed overhauling German migrant and citizenship laws, strengthening integration of migrants into society with a promise to allow migrants to hold dual citizenship (DW, 2021). This proposal prompted strong reactions by migrants’ rights on social media. On the one hand, migrants and migration rights groups voiced their enthusiastic support. On the other hand, right-wing groups criticized the proposal.

Percentage of Social Media Hate Speeches Deleted After User Reports

Source: DW. (2017) Bundestag passes law to fine social media companies for not deleting hate speech | DW | 30.06.2017DW.COM. Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/bundestag-passes-law-to-fine-social-media-companies-for-not-deleting-hate-speech/a-39486694 (Accessed: 30 November 2021).

To tackle hate crimes, the German parliament (Bundestag) in 2017 passed a law imposing fines on social media companies for not deleting online hate speeches/ content or offending posts (Welle, 2017). Big companies such as Facebook and Twitter could be fined up to 50 million Euros and they are liable to delete the offensive content “which is obvious” within 24 hours. If the content seems ambiguous, companies have 7 days to deal with such content.  Soon after the law was passed, Facebook opened a center operated by service provider Competence Call Center in the Western German city Essen to ramp up the anti-hate subject (DW, 2017).

The prejudices towards foreign culture etc. in Germany are persistent and are reflected by social media.  The authors hold social media platforms responsible for real-life actions and content full of hate. They are shedding light on anti-migrant attacks and online posts. While considering policy debates about regulating and controlling hate speeches on social media, the authors also found that online hateful/offensive content is ignored by policymakers.

Before concluding the discussion, I would like to mention that a study by Matthias Ekman  (Ekman, 2019) also analyzes Facebook posts and comments that could potentially amplify antagonistic and violent behavior towards migrants. The analysis is based on news sources and social media posts on Facebook (Ekman, 2019:613-616). The study emphasizes that citizens are not only politically motivated, but can also be emotionally persuaded. The study  highlights that racist sentiments and emotions are passed on to a large audience using Facebook groups. The online public on social media, whether influenced by politically and belonging to far-right groups, cherish anti-immigrant behavior – Ekman (2019:606-607) posits that public opinion certainly can be manipulated on refugees and immigrants. Far-right political actors utilize nationalistic approaches to harbor citizens’ emotions. The nationalistic approaches ultimately create a sense of insecurity i.e. harboring intolerance due to cultural differences. . Such emotions of insecurity appeal to a like-minded larger audience Migrants and refugees have been marginalized and targeted not only on Facebook but also on other social networking channels.

 

Primary Source:

Müller, K. and Schwarz, C., 2020. Fanning the flames of hate: Social media and hate crime. Journal of the European Economic Association, 19(4), pp.2131-2167.

Secondary Sources:

American Psychological Association. (2017). The Psychology of Hate Crimes.  https://www.apa.org/advocacy/interpersonal-violence/hate-crimes

Dean, B., 2021. How Many People Use Social Media in 2021? Retrieved 28 November 2021, from https://backlinko.com/social-media-users

DW. (2017). Facebook ramps up anti-hate campaign in Germany. DW.  09.08.2017. Retrieved 5 December 2021, from https://www.dw.com/en/facebook-ramps-up-anti-hate-campaign-in-germany/a-40021761

DW.(2021) Germany: Post-Merkel government set to ease migration, citizenship rules. DW. 25.11.2021. Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-post-merkel-government-set-to-ease-migration-citizenship-rules/a-59935900 (Accessed: 12 January 2022).

Ekman, M. (2019). Anti-immigration and racist discourse in social media. European Journal of Communication, 34(6), 606–618. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323119886151

Müller, K. and Schwarz, C., 2020. Fanning the flames of hate: Social media and hate crime. Journal of the European Economic Association, 19(4), pp.2131-2167.

Results Germany—The Federal Returning Officer. (n.d.). Retrieved November 29, 2021, from https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/en/bundestagswahlen/2021/ergebnisse/bund-99.html

Results Germany—The Federal Returning Officer. (n.d.). Retrieved 3 December 2021, from https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/en/bundestagswahlen/2021/ergebnisse/bund-99.html

Spreter, J. (2021). Rassismus: Zahl der Gewalttaten gegen Geflüchtete ist weiter auf hohem Niveau. Die Zeit. https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2021-12/gewalt-gegen-gefluechtete-rassismus-studie-deutschland

Statista. (2021). Social media used in Germany 2020 | Retrieved 5 December 2021, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1059426/social-media-usage-germany/

Welle, D., (2016). German police chief concerned at growing anti-refugee violence. DW. 14.05.2016. Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.dw.com/en/german-police-chief-concerned-at-growing-anti-refugee-violence/a-19257795

Welle, D., (2017). Bundestag passes law to fine social media companies for not deleting hate speech.DW. 30.06.2017. DW.COM. Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.dw.com/en/bundestag-passes-law-to-fine-social-media-companies-for-not-deleting-hate-speech/a-39486694