Wooden sandals with a canvas strap worn by a Mir Yeshiva refugee in Shanghai

Lazar Horodetzky (Lejzer Borodeski ?) was a member of the Mir Yeshiva, a Jewish religious school based in Mir, Poland (Belarus). Shortly after Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland, where Mir was located, under the terms of the German-Soviet Pact. Realizing that their religious studies would be forbidden under the Communists, yeshiva students left on October 15 for Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania. After the Soviets occupied Lithuania in August 1940, the yeshiva members decided to escape again to Shanghai, China. They managed to get travel visas to Japan from the Japanese consul in Kovno, Chiune Sugihara. Soviet exit visas were extremely hard to obtain and each member had to go for an interview with the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. In January-February 1941, they traveled on the Trans-Siberian railroad to the Soviet port of Vladivostok, and from there, sailed to Japan. As they did not have visas for further travel, the refugees were not permitted to stay in Japan. They were considered stateless and deported to Shanghai in Japanese-occupied China. They settled in the Hongkew ghetto and continued their studies, gathering in the Beth Aharon Synagogue which had been built by a wealthy member of Shanghai’s Sephardic Jewish community. The Mir Yeshiva was the only eastern European yeshiva to survive the Holocaust intact. On September 3, 1945, Shanghai was liberated by American forces. After the war, the Mir refugees emigrated to Palestine and to the United States, assisted by the Mirrer Yeshivah in Brooklyn, New York.