QUAN Furong, 92, flashes a hearty smile as he points out the three-story house on Zhoushan Road where former US Secretary of Treasury Michael Blumenthal lived during the worst days of World War II.

The house is in the center of the neighborhood in northeast Shanghai’s Hongkou District that became a “designated area for stateless refugees,” or more informally, the Shanghai Ghetto, in 1943. During the war and for a time thereafter, it was a refuge for some 23,000 Jews, including the Blumenthals, who fled Germany and other European countries during the height of the Holocaust.

Half a block down the road, at the intersection of Zhoushan and Huoshan roads, Quan points to another stately three-story house with a steeply slanting roof. “This is my home,” he says.

Quan’s family moved into the house at the end of 1942, when he was 20, shortly before the area got its official refugee status from the Japanese invaders. In this house they hosted Jewish families during the war, and now, so many decades later, it is where others wishing to better understand the area’s history contact Quan for interview or just to chat.

Quan’s house is full of life, thanks in part to the busy convenience store and a small mom-and-pop shop that occupy about half of the ground floor.

Although located in one of the most battered areas of the city, the Shanghai Ghetto was able to offer refuge for those who managed to endure the war, working and living among the impoverished Chinese residents who shared the ghetto with them. With the defeat of Japan in 1945, the Jewish refugees soon began exiting China — many to America or Australia, while a few returned to Europe. Today, the old Jewish ghetto is occupied by newer Chinese residents whose families moved into the area after the war.

That makes Quan something of an anomaly, says Kitty Han, public relations manager of the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum. His old friends are long gone or deceased, and the Chinese residents of the neighborhood with whom he comes in contact every day are recent arrivals. Even the elderly residents turn out to be much younger than Quan.

Seventy years is a long time. “Most people who lived here during that time have already passed away, and those who were here when they were extremely young can’t really remember anything,” says Han. “But Quan is different. He was in his 20s at the time and can remember clearly what happened.”

Quan avidly shares what he knows about an episode in history that is increasingly fading out of human recollection. He talks about the days of the Jewish ghetto as if they happened yesterday.

“Six Jewish families lived in my house,” Quan says while walking southward down Zhoushan Road past Blumenthal’s old residence.

He stopped briefly to point to a memorial plaque that commemorates Blumenthal’s occupancy in the dwelling. He also pointed out various modern businesses that were once small Jewish-owned delis and tailor shops, but are now private establishments owned by Chinese merchants. Zhoushan Road terminates at the intersection of Huoshan Road, and directly across the street from the intersection, the front entrance of Quan’s house faces north.

“Ours is a very big house and we rented the rooms out separately to the Jews,” Quan says, explaining that his family once occupied the entire three-story structure. But in the days of the war, his family, which owned a tailoring business, had sufficient space so that they could accommodate the influx of Jewish refugees.

“At that time, we were not aware of the concept of a ghetto,” Quan says. “We knew which areas had more Jewish people and which had less. For example, we knew that there were a lot of Jewish people on Tangshan Road and in the San Yi Li area. But that was about it.”

Quan says one of the bigger advantages of sitting out the war in Shanghai was that the city had largely maintained its enterprising spirit, despite Japanese occupation.

“In Shanghai Jewish refugees were allowed to work and thrive, and a lot of them had jobs,” Quan says. “For example, there was a middle-aged Jewish woman in her 40s who lived in my house. She worked for the Jardine Matheson (Yi He Yanghang), a part of the British-owned Jardines (one of the largest foreign trading companies in Asia at the time) on Beijing Road.”

Quan’s tenant was obviously among the luckier ones. A common practice of the Jewish refugees was to hang signboards on themselves, usually one in the front, the other in the back. The boards would advertise the owner’s occupation with a word such as “tailor” or “barber.”

“That was their way of self-promotion, kind of like ‘walking advertisements’,” Quan says.

And it worked. Many Jewish people did find jobs by promoting their services and expertise, and even those who could not secure regular employment often made enough cash on the side to pay their basic expenses. Quan’s family once hired a Jewish varnisher in his 50s who had such a signboard.

“He worked non-stop from morning to lunchtime, had a brief lunch break, and then continue working until evening,” Quan recalls. “And he did a wonderful job.”

Quan was profuse with complimentary phrases when he talked about Jewish people’s diligence and trustworthiness. “They were very hard-working and reliable, and treated their job with total earnestness and sincerity. Jewish people used to say to me, ‘those who have their own skills are able to find a job anywhere in the world. With skills, they will always be able to survive.’ And I totally agree,” Quan says.

Now, 70 years after the end of World War II, Quan still walks the streets of the Hongkou District every day amid a new generation of residents who have nothing particularly in common with either the former Jewish or Chinese inhabitants of the ghetto.

Yet, the reminders of the ghetto have never been stronger since the war than they are today, and with good reason. Government funding has preserved various old buildings in the area and has also resulted in the renovation of the old synagogue as a ghetto museum.

“When China opened its doors to the outside world, many Jewish people started returning here, beginning in the 1990s, and asked, ‘oh, where is the synagogue’?” he says.

“So we found the original blueprint of the synagogue in the Shanghai Archives and rebuild the synagogue based on the design,” Han says. “We think it is a very important stage for international relations, and we have the obligation to tell the story.”

In this sense, Quan still has a vital mission in life. One of the very few people who can provide a living highlight to the history of the Shanghai Ghetto, he is a walking reminder that tens of thousands successfully escaped a massacre that claimed millions.

Considering that the Hongkou District is an area that is increasingly enclosed by glamorous modern skyscrapers, Quan’s house and the other structures remaining in the former ghetto are also a defense against the normal human tendency to forget the past and move on.

“The day might eventually come when the living memory of the Shanghai Ghetto ceases to exist. But I will try my best to tell the stories to as many people as possible,” Quan says.