A young Jewish refugee with her Chinese playmates. Shanghai, China (x)

Between 1933 and 1941, it is estimated that 20,000 Jews escaped persecution by fleeing to the Chinese port of Shanghai. Shanghai was one of the few places in the world that would accept Jewish refugees at this time, Japan being another.

i am furious that i am just now learning about this important fact.

Because it has nothing to do with the USA being the superhero and saving all the Jews

The U.S. actually rejected most Jewish refugees. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007094

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005182

That’s one reason why I don’t like it when people point to WWII as a “justified war.” There were so many diplomat fuck-ups leading up to WWII, and so many mistakes made in our domestic policies.

Allow me to add my grain of salt by reminding you that France wasn’t heroically defeated but some french dickwad (Maréchal Pétain) decided they’d rather collaborate with the Nazis than keep fighting, and willingly opened even more concentration camps (there already were many around France long before WWII) and only a small portion of french people joined the Resistance.