EJCC Live: Paul French on Shanghai: The Port of Last Resort
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Shanghai: The Port of Last Resort. How Europe’s Jews Found Sanctuary in a Chinese City and Survived the Holocaust
In the late 1930s as the victimization of the Jewish populations of Germany and Austria intensified a possible “port of last resort” became apparent – the International Settlement of Shanghai in far off China. Approximately 20,000 Jewish refugees found sanctuary in Shanghai, a city fabled for its hedonistic nightlife and freebooting capitalism then in the grip of the invading Japanese. The Jewish refugees were faced with balancing building new lives against a backdrop of war and chaos surrounding them. And all the while the Nazis pursued them even here.
Paul French will also talk about his research into the young, mostly female, Jews who decided to move on from Shanghai to Portuguese-controlled and neutral Macao – known as an “Oriental Casablanca”. From there they hoped to make it, via Lisbon, to the UK or US but found only a new set of challenges.
Paul French was educated in London and Glasgow. He lived and worked in China for many years. His book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times Bestseller while City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir received much praise with The Economist writing, “… in Mr French the city has its champion storyteller.” Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson, was described by the New York Times Book Review as “beautifully told through meticulous historical research.” His latest book, The Last Emperor of China, is a dramatic retelling of the story of the two years China’s last emperor and empress - Puyi and Wanrong – spent cloistered in the Forbidden City was published August 2026.
In the late 1930s as the victimization of the Jewish populations of Germany and Austria intensified a possible “port of last resort” became apparent – the International Settlement of Shanghai in far off China. Approximately 20,000 Jewish refugees found sanctuary in Shanghai, a city fabled for its hedonistic nightlife and freebooting capitalism then in the grip of the invading Japanese. The Jewish refugees were faced with balancing building new lives against a backdrop of war and chaos surrounding them. And all the while the Nazis pursued them even here.
Paul French will also talk about his research into the young, mostly female, Jews who decided to move on from Shanghai to Portuguese-controlled and neutral Macao – known as an “Oriental Casablanca”. From there they hoped to make it, via Lisbon, to the UK or US but found only a new set of challenges.
Paul French was educated in London and Glasgow. He lived and worked in China for many years. His book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times Bestseller while City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir received much praise with The Economist writing, “… in Mr French the city has its champion storyteller.” Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson, was described by the New York Times Book Review as “beautifully told through meticulous historical research.” His latest book, The Last Emperor of China, is a dramatic retelling of the story of the two years China’s last emperor and empress - Puyi and Wanrong – spent cloistered in the Forbidden City was published August 2026.