Managing Global Transit: International Jewish Aid Organizations and Informal Networks Between Berlin, Harbin, Bombay, and Shanghai, 1938–1939

This article uses the Far Eastern Jewish Central Information Bureau in Harbin, Manchukuo, and its manager Meyer Birman (1891–1955) as a starting point for analysing the management of global transit and Jewish emigration in the years 1938 and 1939. Birman worked with various actors in Europe, such as the Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland and Jewish communities, to help Jews in their flight to Harbin or Shanghai. Jews who wanted to leave Europe could apply to the Hilfsverein for help. There, application forms, photographs, curricula vitae, recommendation letters, and other documents were collected and sent to Birman, who tried to select ‘suitable persons’ for emigration, and to help them with visas, local invitation letters, jobs, and accommodation. The article argues that understanding global transit and Jewish emigration requires specific empirical evidence that can be found by placing international Jewish aid organizations and their global networks at the centre of historical research, and combining their sources with materials from Jewish individuals and families. This interplay of the global and the local, of institutions and individuals, sheds light on the managing and building of infrastructure in this liminal time and space of global transit, not only revealing the crucial practices, experiences, and emotions of Jewish refugees, but also making their family histories visible. For this purpose, the article presents two case studies and analyses sources from the Far Eastern Bureau, the Hilfsverein, and individual Jewish refugees.