ABSTRACT
On November 24, 1938, the Conte Verde luxury liner docked at 2 p.m. alongside the Shanghai and Hongkou Wharf, Shanghai side. Among the ship's 350 passengers were 187 German and Austrian refugees who were greeted by representatives of the International Committee for Granting Relief to European Refugees. This chapter proposes that Jews fleeing Nazi persecution to Shanghai were able to do so because by mid-1938 the larger context had taken shape. This context consisted in finding a solution to Germany's foreign currency problems, setting a new course in relations with Japan, and tightening Nazi control over Jewish emigration. Part of these three was the Gestapo's mobilization of the means for shipping Jews to Shanghai. After their assumption of power in March 1933, the Nazi regime's solution of the "Jewish problem" in Germany was to urge voluntary emigration. This was to be accomplished by restricting Jewish activities and segregating Jews from German society.
