February 18, 1943
Japan Designates a Restricted Zone in Shanghai
Historical context
On this day, February 18, 1943, Japanese authorities in occupied Shanghai ordered stateless refugees, most of them Jews, into a designated area of Hongkou.
Archive record
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- Date
- February 18, 1943
- Verified sources
- 1
- Archive threads
- 7
On this day, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy in occupied Shanghai issued a proclamation creating a “designated area” in Hongkou for “stateless refugees.” Most of those named were Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria, and later Poland, whom Nazi Germany had stripped of citizenship. They were ordered to move residences and businesses into the district.
Shanghai had received thousands of Jewish refugees in the late 1930s because a visa was not required to land. After Japan seized the International Settlement in 1941, movement tightened. The 1943 zone, later called the Shanghai ghetto, was overcrowded and poor. It was not a Nazi killing site. Japanese occupation of the city ended in 1945.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Proclamation of restricted zone in Shanghai for refugees · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum · Holocaust Encyclopedia View source
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