Holocaust studies in China , while still a comparatively new field , has
impinged on Chinese academia at least since the beginning of
Jewish studies , an area increasingly well established but still inade quately defined . The Holocaust looms larger in China than in other
Asian countries for two main reasons : the Chinese experience of
Japanese atrocity during the Second World War and China , s role in giving refuge to German and Austrian Jewish refugees during the same period . Unlike most countries elsewhere in the world , China is able to hold up Shanghai's position as a place of refuge and succor when the international community turned the other way . At the same time , Chinese suffering under Japanese occupation , but particularly the Nanjing
Massacre of December 1937 , and human experimentation on Chinese subjects at Unit 731 in Manchuria , allows China to align itself with more widely recognized Jewish suffering in Europe in these same years