Jewish Refugee Musicians in Exile in Shanghai during World War II – March 28, Poughkeepsie

Posted: March 21st, 2023 | No Comments »

Jewish Refugee Musicians in Exile in Shanghai during World War II

Mar 28, 5:30 p.m.

Location: Vassar, Class of 1951 Reading Room, Main Library

A Multimedia Lecture by Musicologist Sophie Fetthauer, PhD of the University of Hamburg, Germany

Dr. Fetthauer’s lecture tells the little-known story of how over 400 Jewish refugee musicians from Europe during World War II were integrated into the cafés, nightclubs, and ballrooms of Shanghai, the so-called “Paris of the East.” The bars and restaurants in the Hongkou Ghetto, where most of these Jewish refugees settled, acquired the nicknames “Little Vienna” and “Little Berlin.”

Dr. Fetthauer is a scholar of musicology from the University of Hamburg, Germany, who has researched and authored numerous publications on music and musical life in the Third Reich focusing on biographies, institutional history, displaced person camps, and remigration, with a special focus on Jewish musicians in exile in Shanghai during World War II.

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