G023: The Holocaust and East Asia: Myth, Memory, and Historical Realities

Organizer(s)

• KC

  Kimberly Cheng

  New York University, United States

Chair(s)

• EF

  Elyssa Faison

  University of Oklahoma, United States

Paper Presenter(s)

• KC

  Kimberly Cheng

  New York University, United States
• RZ

  Ran Zwigenberg

  Pennsylvania State University, United States
• EV

  Edward Vickers

  Kyushu University

Session Abstract: In recent decades, the Holocaust has occupied an increasingly prominent place in East Asian cultures of memory. Chinese intellectuals have called the Cultural Revolution their "Holocaust,” both China and Japan have found and commemorated their own “Schindlers” (Ho Feng-Shan and Sugihara Chiune), and memory activists have invoked Holocaust analogies in East Asia’s never-ending history wars. Yet the Holocaust’s impact on East Asia was not just cultural. Thousands upon thousands of Jewish refugees fled through East Asia during the war, and many Asians were witnesses to the Holocaust and its aftermath. Examining the myths and historical realities connected to the Holocaust in relation to East Asia, our panel explores Jewish, Chinese, and Japanese involvement in the Holocaust and its memory. We will examine the limits of the term “Holocaust” and its applicability across histories and cultures to account for the multifaceted ways it reverberated beyond Europe.

Presentations:

• Anxieties of Escape: Climate, Hygiene, and Central European Jewish Refugees in WWII Shanghai
  

  Paper Presenter: Kimberly Cheng – New York University
• Other Holocausts: Memory, Ethnicity, and Omnicide between Jerusalem and Hiroshima
  

  Paper Presenter: Ran Zwigenberg – Pennsylvania State University
• China, the Holocaust and Transnational Heritage Politics - The Case of Shanghai's Jewish Refugees Museum
  

  Paper Presenter: Edward Vickers – Kyushu University