When Japanese troops invaded the International City area of Shanghai on December 8, 1941, they faced little resistance. World War II had arrived in the Far East. The Japanese occupation authorities initially recognized Czechoslovak passports, even after the government-in-exile declared war on Japan, and did not understand the division of Europeans into "Aryans" and "non-Aryans" at all. But in February 1943, after much pressure from Nazi Germany, they set up a "special quarter" for Jewish refugees from Europe who arrived in Shanghai after 1937. The name Shanghai Ghetto was adopted for this area in the Hongkew district.
The effort to help those in need who were moved to the ghetto brought an unexpected split in the Czechoslovak community in Shanghai: the old settlers had mostly left the country shortly after its establishment and in Shanghai they socialized mostly with members of the Russian White emigration, living without a deeper understanding of the democratic changes brought to Czechoslovakia by President T. G. Masaryk. To them, the Jewish refugees were not true Czechs, and the moment a regional soup kitchen for the poor was established in the ghetto, they labeled it a "Jewish scam" typical of the "thieving race." The result was the expulsion of all "non-Aryans" from the Czechoslovak Circle and a litany of anti-Jewish statements that would have made any decent person ashamed.
In the picture you can see a memorandum to the Japanese occupation authorities announcing, on behalf of the "Aryan" old-timers, the expulsion of Olomouc native Alfred Stoessler from the Czechoslovak Circle.