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JewishHistoryעברית

Murder of Simon Kaspe

Date
24 August 1933 – 3 December 1933Hebrew date: 2nd of Elul, 5693 – 15th of Kislev, 5694
Location
HarbinChina
Then part of
Manchukuo
Perpetrators
  • White Russian kidnappers, including Martinov (Militia / auxiliaries)
  • Russian Fascist Party (Militia / auxiliaries)
Killed (estimate)
1[1]Simon Kaspe, a French citizen and son of Joseph Kaspe of Harbin, was kidnapped and murdered. Chizuko Takao states that his mangled body was found on 3 December 1933.
Locality

0.0067% – 0.01% of the Jewish population of Harbin[4]

Worldwide

0.0000065% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1933)[7]

Category
Persecution
Confidence
High

Summary

At midnight on 24 August 1933 Simon Kaspe, son of Joseph Kaspe, owner of Harbin's Hotel Moderne, was kidnapped in Harbin. Chizuko Takao, writing in JISMOR, describes the Kaspe affair as a conspiracy between the Russian Fascist Party and the Japanese army and police: Kostya Nakamura, an interpreter for the Japanese military police (kempeitai), conceived a ransom plot; when Joseph Kaspe refused to pay, the kidnappers sent him his son's ear; Simon's body was found on 3 December 1933. In October 1934 six suspects were arrested, including Martynov, a member of the Russian Fascist Party and a Harbin police officer; they were sentenced to death in June 1936 and acquitted on appeal in January 1937. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported in January 1935 that N. E. B. Ezra told the British minister to China that Japanese police official Igguchi (Eguchi) had said Kaspe, a French citizen, was put to death because he was a Jew and that the killers were entitled to leniency. A February 1935 JTA dispatch from Harbin quoted Eguchi's report naming Martinov and Shander and stating that the accused, "imbued with extreme anti-Soviet and anti-Jewish feelings," chose Simon Kaspe in order to take money from his father and "avenge themselves on the Jews."

Sources

  1. Chizuko Takao, Prewar Japan’s Perception of Jews and the Harbin Jewish Community: The Harbin Jewish Community under Japanese Rule 1932-1941. JISMOR (2014)
  2. Jap Justifies Slaying of Jew in Manchukuo. Jewish Telegraphic Agency (1935)
  3. Trouble in Manchukuo. Jewish Telegraphic Agency (1935)
  4. Rudolf Loewenthal and Noah W. Dragoon, Harbin. Encyclopaedia Judaica

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 15,300,000[7]c. 1933USHMM, citing the American Jewish Year Book, estimates 15.3 million Jews worldwide in 1933 (about 9.5 million of them in Europe).
  • Harbin: 10,000 – 15,000[4]Jews in Harbin at the community's early-1930s peak, the years of the 1933 kidnapping and murder. Encyclopaedia Judaica gives 10,000 to 15,000 for that peak.

Sources for population estimates

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  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
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  7. Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations (Palestine Administration, 1922). United Nations UNISPAL (British mandatory report) (1922)
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  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
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  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
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  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
  63. Argentina Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
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