Wooden sandals worn by Lazar Horodetzky in the Hongkew ghetto in Shanghai, China, from 1941-1945. Lazar was a member of the Mir Yeshiva, a Jewish religious school which had left Mir, Poland (Belarus) after the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in September 1939. They first moved to Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania. When it was occupied by the Soviets in August 1940, they decided to flee once more. They were able to get Japanese transit visas from the consul, Chiune Sugihara. In the spring of 1941, they reached Japan, where they were declared stateless refugees and deported to Japanese occupied Shanghai. They settled in the Hongkew ghetto and resumed their studies. The city was liberated by US troops on September 3, 1945. The Mir Yeshiva was the only eastern European yeshiva to survive the Holocaust intact. The yeshiva members immigrated to Palestine and to the United States, assisted by the Mirrer Yeshivah in New York.
Wooden sandals worn by Lazar Horodetzky in the Hongkew ghetto in Shanghai, China, from 1941-1945. Lazar was a member of the Mir Yeshiva, a Jewish religious school which had left Mir, Poland (Belarus) after the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in September 1939. They first moved to Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania. When it was occupied by the Soviets in August 1940, they decided to flee once more. They were able to get Japanese transit visas from the consul, Chiune Sugihara. In the spring of 1941, they reached Japan, where they were declared stateless refugees and deported to Japanese occupied Shanghai. They settled in the Hongkew ghetto and resumed their studies. The city was liberated by US troops on September 3, 1945. The Mir Yeshiva was the only eastern European yeshiva to survive the Holocaust intact. The yeshiva members immigrated to Palestine and to the United States, assisted by the Mirrer Yeshivah in New York.