Away from Death, Shanghai WWII Museum Sanctifies Life

Traveling along the river of European Jewry’s life during WWII, any informed observer could

easily detect the tenor of sorrows and catastrophes. As such, countless memorials and tributes, in

dedication to the slaughtered six millions and uprooted Jewish communities across Europe, are

primed to chronicling the tribulations and persecutions of the besieged who ultimately met their

demise before the V-day.

Such fatalistic themes are not to be missed in the many houses of remembrance around the globe.

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau and Treblinka, the remaining vestiges of the German atrocities

against European Jewry were forever etched in its barely altered, if not original, forms and

conditions; At United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem, the many galleries

and exhibition halls documented the rise and domination of the National Socialist German

Workers' Party, culminating in its genocidal enactments of the “Final Solution” at the pinnacle of

WWII; At Jewish Heritage Museum in New York City and Museum of Tolerance in Los

Angeles, Jewish heirlooms and endowments are on display before inevitably taking an woeful

turn as the wagon of world history reached the late-1930s, when the Axis powers cloaked an

enlightened continent from the West Caucasus to the Iberian Peninsula in their sheer terrors.

Almost inescapably, Jewish lives during those seven years were largely a jeremiad of apocalyptic

exterminations. However, a museum thousands of miles away from the epicenter of hatred and

vengeance, aside from preserving the records of the European Jewry during the war, sings an ode

to humanity and triumph. The city of Shanghai, one of the busiest seaports in Asia and a token of

Western capitalism in China at the time, left its door open and eventually sheltered tens of

thousands of Jewish refugees from Central Europe, and this museum in Hongkou District, is part

of the heartbeat of Jewish life in the Far East at the summit of the Nazi’s rampage..

Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, an AAA national attraction (the highest rank AAAAA is

generally reserved for UNESCO sites and major international tourism hotspots) under the

classification of the Tourist Attraction Rating Categories in China, is a historic gem that has been

gradually discovered and embraced by Chinese and foreign visitors. With an extensive

renovation project finished earlier this month, the museum is poised to becoming one of the most

authoritative sources of historical records for the Jewish refugees in Shanghai during the WWII,

with record-high numbers of visitors now pausing at the museum to celebrate life and review

history.

“One of the most unique aspects of our museum is that, compared to a gantlet of other memorials

dedicated to European Jewry during WWII, this is the only one in the world that recollects

narratives from Jewish survivors who lived through this period,” said Ms. Zhang Xiaojuan, also

known as Aria, a volunteer at the museum who was about to complete her one-year volunteer

stint. “Our reconstruction of this past episode much lesser-known to the public also makes a

faithful statement that the city of Shanghai indeed harbored the largest number of Jewish

refugees during the war.”

Located at 62 Changyang Road, formerly known as Ward Road, Shanghai Jewish Refugees

Museum is fraught with connotations. Previously known as one of the two worship venues for

Shanghai Jewry (including non-refugees who had arrived since the 1840s), the building was

transformed into a synagogue in 1927 in honor of Moshe Greenberg, a wealthy Russian Jew who

immigrated to Shanghai. During the WWII, this prayer house became a spiritual sanctuary for

thousands of externally displaced Jewish refugees, which hosted religious services until 1949,

when most refugees had departed Shanghai.

The municipal government confiscated the synagogue after the communist takeover later that

year and converted it into a psychiatric hospital before turning it yet again into office space,

according to academic scholarships on the history of Shanghai Jewry. First reopened in the early

1990s, the Ohel Moshe Synagogue returned back to full life once again in 2007, when the

Government of Hongkou District allocated special funds for a full renovation of the synagogue

in pursuance of the original architectural design preserved in the city archives, according to the

museum’s official brochure in English.

As a loyal restoration to the synagogue in its erstwhile condition, this building today is one of the

key components of the entire museum. Mixing together authentic tastes of Jewish history

through objects and relics as well as breezy digital presentations, the former Ohel Moshe

Synagogue is now a communal roof of many entities, under which Orthodox Judaism, World

War II and the city of Shanghai improbably meet one another.

On the back wall of the main worship hall hangs a cardboard replica of the original floor plan for

the synagogue, demonstrating how a three-story structure with a smattering of both Chinese and

European architecture details here and there, which had been built as a residential house first,

was redesigned into a sanctum of God’s worshippers. Drafted by a certain architect named

Gabriel Rabinovich, the blueprint was titled “Alteration of the House No.50 Ward Rd. into a

Jewish Prayer House”. On the ground floor, a cantilever support system and a flight of stairs

were added, so that women and children could have access to the worship balcony from the

building’s exteriors. According to an English-language tour administered by the museum, the

synagogue was built for Orthodox Jews at the time, who would not allow anyone but adult males

to enter the central worship ground on the first floor, so the architect designed exterior staircases

to comply with this strict religious code. On the second floor, in fact just one-half the size of the

first floor, resembles a mezzanine functioning as a balcony fronted by handrails that enabled

women and children to join prayer services. Lath partitions and overhead beams were also

introduced to fortify the integrity of the platform, which were rendered in two cross-section

diagrams from left and right on the blueprint. Finally, Mr. Rabinovich reserved the space for

clerical and administrative offices on the top floor.

Viewed altogether, the former Ohel Moshe Synagogue is an engineering marvel, which was

renovated the decade leading to WWII, at a still halcyon time in the Far East. The building bears

ingenious imprints of utilitarianism, religiosity and multiculturalism, making compromises in

practical terms but standing its ground when the authority of Judaism is at risk, as evidenced in

its support mechanisms and exterior staircases.

As the centerpiece of the museum, the former synagogue today is rendered as a multilayered

experience, with the worship hall remaining its backbone and multimedia exhibitions

supplementing its flavor, hewing close to the instructive nature inherent to historic museums.

During a recent visit to the museum, a storied journey between the not-so-distant past to the

present time was on ready display here. Into the former worship hall on the ground floor, a tight

but well-organized worship hall unravels on both sides. On the left, four pew rows were

thoughtfully placed in graduating semicircles, offering a sweeping perspective of the service. On

the right, the bimah and the tabernacle were placed according to the original layout. One of the

highlights here, as it might well have been for every major synagogue in the world, is the Torah

ark. Ever since the Ohel Moshe congregation concluded its worship services in 1949, this

synagogue never resumed religious activities. Nevertheless, in a telling gesture of goodwill from

afar, the Federation of Local Authorities and the Mayors of the State of Israel dedicated a Torah

scroll to the museum and it has been stored in the ark behind its mauve cover decorated by gold

lacquers and Indian gemstones. Beneath the crown, which exemplifies the supreme authority of

God in Judaism, read this blessing signed by the Consulate General of Israel in Shanghai:

“Tribute to Hongkou People who Provided Refuge to Jews in Time of Need.” At the top of the

cover records a Hebrew sentence, which can be roughly translated as “The nation of Israel is a

strong people.” Established religious arrangements could also be found in and around the prayer

hall: the silver mezuzah on its door frame, the tzedakah (or charity) box near the exit, and the

westward orientation of the worship venue, a sacred nod to the holiest city in Judaism,

Jerusalem.

It was at this prayer hall where the museum welcomed a pair of defining events earlier this year.

On April 1, the first modern Jewish wedding was held here for the first time since 1949

(curiously, the bride was Chinese), and on April 28, the first bar mitzvah was also celebrated

here, with all the trappings (and even a bit extra) befitting a 13-year-old boy entering adulthood,

including two Torah scrolls before tabernacle (the boy’s family commissioned their own Torah

scroll), a rabbi officiating the ceremony and, of course, dozens of witnesses filling the pews.

On the second floor, previously the mezzanine for women and children during services, a wall-

to-wall exhibit recounts the three waves of Jewish immigrants to the city of Shanghai and

migration routes for each wave during the first half of the 20th century.

The third floor, directly above the mezzanine, houses an updated online database of the

biographic details for the former Jewish refugees in Shanghai, along with an educational video

about this history adapted for minors.

Just as the museum has a fitting venue, its staff members also have peculiar backgrounds.

Ms. Zhang, the museum volunteer, is a graduating senior at Shanghai University of Finance and

Economics double-majoring in business English and economics and accounting. She fondly

summarized the museum’s creeds in between tutoring two new volunteers.

“The whole museum is potent in multiculturalism and symbolism,” she said. “It makes possible

an all-inclusive and accommodating way to memorializing the history. The mission statement of

our museum, which emphasizes ‘harmony while differing’, is indicative of that outlook.”

When she was a sophomore, Ms. Zhang first got to know the museum through former volunteers

from her school by word of mouth. Galvanized by the sense of civic duty and eager for an

opportunity to enrich her résumé, she attended an information session on campus. Ms. Zhang

was then interviewed separately by a school liaison officer with the museum and a museum

coordinator. At the start of her junior year, Ms. Zhang began volunteering here.

Soft-speaking and courteous, Ms. Zhang said that although the museum is directly sponsored by

the Government of Hongkou District, it is largely operated and supported by a sizeable volunteer

team. Nearly 100 of them now work at the museum and at least five on any given day, up from

merely a total of barely a handful back in 2008. The volunteer team, she added, has been made

up mostly by college students and young adults since the beginning.

Isabella Zhou, 17, is the youngest of them. On another visit, Ms. Zhou was standing by the

museum entrance awaiting instructions from the volunteer coordinator, when she was accosted

by three foreign visitors and a reporter. A senior in a local high school, Ms. Zhou made it no

secret that she has been committed to become active in civil groups in Shanghai. In fact, she was

the only high school volunteer when she enrolled at the museum last year. Undeterred by her

age, Ms. Zhou told the group that she believes the many cultural and social interactions as a

bilingual volunteer at the museum certainly charted new territories in her world knowledge as

she was preparing to attend college in the United States next year.

“Since I started working here, one thing about the museum that struck me is the glamour of

history,” Ms. Zhou said while leading a small group tour. “In my perspective, it introduces both

Chinese and foreigners who are interested in the subject a channel to learn about Judaism, history

of the Jewish people and WWII. For me as a bilingual volunteer, it also improves my languages

over time.”

Ms. Zhang, who worked in different shifts than Ms. Zhou, said the museum is intensifying its

outreaching efforts for potential recruits because of a recent hike in the number of visitors. Over

a fruit drink, Ms. Zhang noted a lately change of visitor demographics with excitement and

caution at the same time.

Since its first renovation in 2007, the museum had been attracting about equal numbers of

Chinese and foreign visitors, and most of them came in organized groups by schools, companies

or tour agencies. Ms. Zhang added that they were fairly knowledgeable in the overall theme of

the museum even prior to their visits. The demographics of ticket-holders, however, considerably

changed after the second renovation that was completed earlier this month, when the museum

executives ordered restructures and expansions of the two exhibition halls besides the former

synagogue building and furnished their storytelling techniques previously borne out through

textual records with more oral and photographical exhibits side by side. Over the last two weeks,

she said, the museum averaged about 500 visitors per day and peaked above 1,000 on a single

day, far outnumbering an average count of 200 before the second renovation. Extra admission

revenues aside, Ms. Zhang expressed alarm about the “overall competence” of these new

visitors.

“They tend to be less acquainted with the history presented here, and many of them seem to

come here simply to fulfill requirements of one community service or another,” she commented,

charged with a bit of frustration in her tone. “More and more Chinese and foreign companies,

schools and social organizations now enter here in throngs. Just a short while ago we could

handle almost all museum tours when visitors came in singles or doubles, but now we could only

escort much larger groups because we simply do not have any time left to care for small-group

travelers.”

Moseying down on the west limit of the museum, visitors would be greeted by a 111-feet long

relief wall, which was unveiled last September with a sprawling list of 13,732 Jewish refugees’

names who largely shunned the worst of WWII by seeking refuge in Shanghai in the 1930s and

‘40s. Cast entirely in copper, the memorial wall was preluded by a bas-relief sculpture designed

by Chinese artist He Ning, painting a chummy familial reunion with six rhetorical life-size

figures, representing faith, suffering, love, determination, light and hope, according to The New

York Times.

In case anyone wonders where is the source of all the names on the memorial wall, he should

first consult with the German book “Exil Shanghai: 1938-1947”, which was co-authored by

Sonja Mühlberger. According to the Shanghai municipal archives, Ms. Mühlberger was one of

the three teenage Jewish girls commissioned by the Japanese military to conduct an unofficial

census of stateless refugees in the Hongkou District before establishing a “Shanghai Ghetto”

specifically for them. Reportedly, Ms. Mühlberger and the other two workers intentionally

misspelled the names of many Jewish refugees, in anticipation of a genocidal purge in case the

Japanese decides to liquidate the tens of thousands of Jewish refugees later in the war. During

the planning and production stages of the memorial wall, Ms. Mühlberger, together with several

academics who have studied Shanghai refugees during WWII extensively, consulted the museum

organizers and sought to correct many biographical records before they would appear to the

public on the wall and in the online database. The verification process is still ongoing, and the

museum is fully engaged to presenting the most candid information on this census restoration

project, its volunteers said.

Walking toward the back of the museum are two exhibition halls, one permanent and another

temporary. They coordinate with the former synagogue site, complementing the narratives by

showcasing the history of the Jewish refugees in Shanghai in multiple novel-style chapters. The

exhibition inaugurates with the prelude of Jewish refugees’ exodus to Shanghai and concludes

with refugees bidding farewell to the city after the V-J Day in August 1945, when these former

residents opted to resume their normal life back in the West as Chinese Communists closed in on

Shanghai in a formidable southward offensive.

The presentation mode of the exhibit is typically of an educational museum, copious in texts,

with English and Chinese illustrations docked next to one another, and accompanying

multimedia materials in video and audio formats. Stringing together all items and scenarios in

these halls is an articulate chronology largely between 1938 and 1945, a period roughly

coincides with WWII when most Jewish refugees lived in Shanghai. Owing to dense

arrangements apparently caused by space limits, some artifacts and textual information were

actually placed behind display glass in front, obstructing the fluidity of the viewing experience,

but for the most inquisitive, always counting a few in almost every museum, could crank their

necks from the rear side of the glass and peruse the obscured contents.

The dark anteroom ushering into the permanent exhibition hall is another must-see. A space

illuminated exclusively by seven candles installed on a bronze menorah stand, the small chamber

features a five-minute mini-documentary and an ethereal memorial for Yitzhak Rabin’s 1993

visit to the former Ohel Moshe Synagogue in 1993. A two-time premier of the State of Israel

who was assassinated after a Tel Aviv peace rally two years later for signing the Oslo Accord

with the co-founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization Yasser Arafat, Mr. Rabin

dedicated these words to this faraway community during his trip to Shanghai: “To the People of

Shanghai for unique humanitarian act of saving thousands of Jews during the Second World

War, thanks in the name of the government of Israel.” This memo was scribbled down in Hebrew

originally and was then translated into English, and now both versions are set in the off-black

stone tablet behind the glowing seven-branch menorah, adding to the solemnity of the scene.

Winding through three exhibitions, visitors would return to the atrium deep in the museum. Next

to the entrance of the temporary exhibition hall, a world flag display was mounted on a square

marble tile, flying national flags of countries represented by visitors who have been to the

museum. At one point, a male participant in an Israeli tourist group paused to study these

countries and found it particularly interesting that many citizens from the Muslim world had

visited the site, including those of United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia,

Egypt, Bahrain, Turkey, Tunisia, Nigeria and Bangladesh, before letting out a whisper when he

discovered that Saudi Arabia’s flag was nowhere to be found, perhaps over the fact that the latter

is the most powerful religious patron to well over one billion Sunni Muslims on this planet.

In front of the souvenir shop at the southeast corner of the museum, many sets of tables and

chairs created some room for museumgoers to schmooze after their visit.

In an intensely windy recent afternoon, two Israeli travelers expressed their views about the brief

experience while taking a short rest in the open-air lounge area. At times, the gale was so strong

that they were startled by the rocking parasol stands and a fallen potted plant behind.

Ronnie Inbar, a financial analyst from Giv’at Tam, Israel, was traveling with her aunt, Ronit

Lifshitz from Ramat Gan, Israel. Living only miles away from one other near Tel Aviv, the two

had traveled throughout their home country and often journeyed together to historic locales

related to Jewish heritage around Europe, such as Berlin, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau. The

two said that they discovered the Shanghai museum through a random search on TripAdvisor, a

trip-planning website, which lists the refugee museum as the 20th out of 1,264 things to do in

Shanghai as of this Monday, even above Pudong New Distrct, a futuristic financial and

technological district that is home to some of the highest skyscrapers in Asia. Ms. Inbar said that

she decided to visit the museum on their last day here before flying to Macau, both to explore

Jewish heritage in an unexpected place and to seek a catharsis of a similar escapade made by her

grandfather long before she was born. She said that soon after Kristallnacht in late-1938, when

storefronts of Jewish businesses across Germany were shattered on two nights of frantic

vandalism against “the profiteers and parasites”—a blatant jab on Jewish owners of small

businesses—her grandfather fled a small town near Munich of southern Germany, while his

parents and two sisters who stayed in Germany perished afterwards. She said by coming to the

museum, she learned about the encounters of many thousands of Jewish refugees on the run, who

like her father, survived the war against all odds.

First time in China, Ms. Inbar described herself as avowedly secular. Dressed in a floral-

patterned blouse and her curly hairs left naturally untended, she cut a Jewish woman from the far

left of the national political spectrum, as opposed to more conservative women who would cover

their hairs and limbs for modesty reasons.

“I celebrate holidays and stuff like that, most recently the Jewish New Year last week back in

Israel, and by the way, today is Yom Kippur,” said Ms. Inbar, referring to a major religious

holiday around September, better known as “the Day of Atonement”, when the pious fast for 24

hours after sunset to absolve themselves from sins they committed the year before. “We are

supposed to be fasting and being at home. For us to come to this museum, we are driven not by

religious feelings but national sentiments, something emotional. We see ourselves as Jews even

though we are not religious, and I think the world sees me as Jewish as well.”

Ms. Inbar added further that this visit served as a meaningful denouement of their three-day trip

in Shanghai and it was a highly personal tribute for their relatives, both the dead and the living.

When tipped off by a volunteer nearby, she expressed satisfaction over a detail of the museum.

“It’s very nice to know that Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum is the only one celebrating life

of survivors rather than depicting a doomsday of Jews meeting their murderous ends,” she said.

“With little prior knowledge about the Shanghai Jewry, I however enjoyed most sections of the

museum, and I feel proud to be here as an eyewitness.”

Her aunt, Ms. Lifshitz, a travel agent in Israel who had been to Beijing before, was eager to pile

on with her own thoughts. She had been to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the

Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, and many memorials and cemeteries for Jewish victims

during WWII in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. At one point, she grew emotional and

wiped away tears in her eyes.

“What I feel as an Israeli and as a Jew is that wherever I go, where there is something to do with

the Jewish people, I feel that I am obliged to be there,” said Ms. Lifshitz. “For me this is very

emotional because I feel very connected to Jewish people when I am outside Israel. I will do

everything to go see this kind of places.”

If visiting the museum is a reunion with the past for foreigners coupling with empathetic

splashes of personal intersections, for many Chinese, this museum is a testament to the

benevolence of the Chinese nation throughout its ancient history.

Zhang Ming, also known as Phillip, a recent retiree from Sichuan Province in the country’s

southwest, beamed about the symbolic weight of the charitable Shanghainese who went all out to

accommodate Jewish refugees some seven decades ago.

“The Chinese who lived in Shanghai at the time, who were total strangers to many foreigners,

accepted the great influx of refugee population without an eyebrow raised,” Mr. Zhang said.

“This is a museum site that should make every citizen proud, because it proves what China has

been consistently doing throughout thousands years of its history.”

Once a small business owner who stayed overseas, Mr. Zhang now split his time between China

and Australia, where he has lived intermittently since the early 1990s. A scion of an intellectual

family, Mr. Zhang was penalized after finishing high school for his “intelligentsia” background

and was banished to the countryside for manual labors during the first years of the Cultural

Revolution, before leaving for Australia decades later to start a small business. Conversant with

the social setups of both the East and the West, Mr. Zhang was marveled about China’s

popularity among Jews he encountered in Australia and Israel. He further proved the point by

saying that those of Jewish heritage who had met him always relish the interactions and were

thrilled about hearing that he came from China. In view of the highly volatile U.S.-China

relations currently, he also posted a patriotic challenge: If anyone is suspicious about the

peaceful nature of China, he should come visit this museum in search for a fragment of truth.

Although he was completely awestruck by a precious and fleeting moment of history the

museum preserves, Mr. Zhang said that the government should not be content about its efforts of

historical and cultural preservations.

“More civil institutions need to get involved to broaden the bandwidth of bilateral relationships

between China and other nations,” he said, commenting on the fact that the Shanghai Jewish

Refugees Museum was blessed by a special fund from the municipal government and therefore

an official act from the Party. “China is lagging behind other developed nations in maintaining

its many historic sites of great educational and political values. The central government and the

Party should approach this issue first, and through consultations and negotiations, provincial and

local authorities should coordinate with decision-makers at the top in a joint effort to strengthen

China’s ‘soft power’ by reviving more places like this.”

Li Xuejun, a professor also from Sichuan Province who declined to disclose which schools he

teaches at to avoid drawing attention to himself, spoke similarly of unreserved humanitarianism

Shanghai residents extended to refugees during WWII, which he said through a wider prism also

reflected the charity of the entire nation.

“Can you imagine what kind of humanism this is, that at a time when Shanghai residents were

themselves devastated by Japanese warplanes and full-fledged ground occupation, they still keep

arms wide open to receive these Jewish refugees?” Mr. Li said, choking up with pride and honor.

“The Chinese government should definitely take charge of sponsoring and operating many more

such memorials and make clear of the fact that ours is a philanthropic and steadfast people with

remarkable collective ethics and upright characters.”

Besides three exhibitions and a memorial wall for reflection, the museum is also projecting its

mission beyond a simple device for re-education. Just outside the worship hall, on the façade of

the former Ohel Moshe Synagogue, a jumbo-size poster advertises a performing troupe coming

to this address.

Titled “Shalom, Shanghai”, a musical drama at the former synagogue being performed in its

fourth edition, is a play set in a Jewish-run café in Shanghai during WWII. As the first major

international artistic rendition on this subject ever to take place in China, it is performed by an

eight-people cast from both U.S. and China. Directed by Lee Breuer, who has directed 14 OBIE

award-winning productions and was nominated for a Tony Award, Mr. Breuer accepted the

invitation from the Shanghai Theatre Academy to direct the play’s third edition, from which the

fourth has been adapted. Furthermore, the play returned to the Shanghai Jewish Refugees

Museum from the Malanhua Theatre in Shanghai, the venue for its previous edition, according to

the information on the poster and a 2013 press release on Facebook.

Ruminating on the museum’s far-reaching impacts and its future prospects, Ms. Zhang, the

college volunteer, said she had many wishes for her workplace on the road ahead as she was

leaving the post next month.

“I definitely wish more people could learn about this episode in history and hope that this place

could become a hallowed ground for more Jews from Israel and elsewhere to acquire new

insights about a flashpoint in their heritage,” she said.