Preserving the Shanghai Ghetto: Memories of Jewish Refugees in 1940’s China

The Tilanqiao neighbourhood of the Hongkew district in Shanghai, China had become in the mid-1940s, as a result of European discrimination against the Jews, a Noah’s ark for sheltering Jews and contained a large number of elite Jewish people from Central Europe, endowing it with cultural prestige. This illustrated collection of remembrances, and history of the neighbourhood’s contemporary reconstruction, puts the Shanghai Jewish experience into multiple perspectives. Due to its historical and cultural position, and its historic architectural style, the Hongkew Ghetto has been listed as one of twelve historical and cultural areas in Shanghai, the smallest in geographical size yet holding an outsized historical legacy. AUTHORS: Zhang Yanhua is director of the Training and Research Department of the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for Asia and the Pacific. Wang Jian is a researcher at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, member of the governing board of the Chinese Academy of Social Science, deputy director of Shanghai International Studies Center and deputy director of the Center of Jewish Studies Shanghai.