Event History
The International Committee for European Immigrants in China, a refugee assistance organization in Shanghai, was founded on August 7, 1938 to deal with the wave of Jewish refugees arriving in Shanghai from Nazi Germany. Established under the aegis of Sir Victor Sassoon, a wealthy Iraqi Jew with British citizenship, the committee was organized by Hungarian businessman Paul Komor, together with Eduard Kann, Aladair Kelen and Michael Speelman. The International Committee was referred to as the I.C. or Komor Committee, after its first secretary. I.C. headquarters were first located at Komor's firm, but were soon moved to the Hotel Cathay owned by Sir Victor Sassoon. Initially, the I.C. provided housing, meals, jobs and financial assistance for the Jewish refugees in Shanghai. Later, after the establishment of the Committee for the Assistance of European Refugees in Shanghai under the direction of Michael Speelman (the Speelman Committee), the I.C. focused its efforts on providing international identification cards to the Jewish refugees whose passports had been confiscated or invalidated. These documents, which bore the I.C. stamp and Komor's signature, gave the refugees "legal" status in Shanghai, and were used in lieu of regular passports for those applying to emigrate. Komor headed the committee until his sudden arrest by Japanese naval intelligence in January 1942. After his release two months later, the Japanese prohibited him from returning to the I.C., but the committee continued to function for another year after his departure.
[Sources: Komor, Valerie S., "Paul Komor, 1886 Budapest, Hungary -1973 Santa Cruz, California" [unpublished biographical sketch of Paul Komor], New York, N.Y., 2000; Vamos, Peter. "Central and Eastern European Jewish Refugees in Shanghai, 1938-1948' [unpublished paper] U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 2001.]
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/german-and-austrian-jewish-refugees-in-shanghai.
