Escape To The Rising Sun

Belgian filmmaker Diane Perelsztejn's Escape to the Rising Sun focuses on a mostly unexplored chapter of WWII history: the story of some 20,000 Eastern European Jews who fled Nazi persecution and, traveling through the Soviet Union and Japan, found squalid and uncertain sanctuary in the one place that didn't require an entrance visa: Shanghai. Combining historical stills and footage with contemporary accounts as individuals recall their ordeal and retrace the steps of their journey, the film offers some stirring tales. A Japanese consul's wife remembers a crowd of Eastern European Jews in the street asking for visas to Japan (the Japanese authorities denied the consul's request to issue the visas, but the consul did so anyway). During the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, while Jewish refugees were starving, Laura Margolin boldly approached a Japanese commander to request permission to borrow money to buy food. Fred Freud stands on the spot where Allies dropped bombs at the close of WWII, one of which killed his mother. Although initially slow-moving, Escape to the Rising Sun gains momentum in the second half as it explores the uneasy relationship between Jewish exiles, Chinese natives, and the occupying Japanese in a crowded and politically volatile city. Recommended. (Available from: The National Center for Jewish Film, Lown Bldg. 102, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254-9110; (617) 899-7044.)