Hunt for Jewish history

By Dong Zhen  |   2008-11-21  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

THE managers of the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum said they are working to collect more artifacts and artwork from Shanghai and overseas to enrich the facility's exhibits and better document this important part of the city's history.

The government-operated museum, at 62 Changyang Road, was established in the former Ohel Moshe Synagogue, a religious and cultural center used by Jewish refugees in Shanghai during World War II.

Nearly 15,000 people from 50 foreign countries and regions have visited the museum since it opened in October last year, museum managers said.

The synagogue is located near the former Jewish neighborhoods around the Tilanqiao area in Hongkou District.

District government spent US$1 million last year on a major renovation to restore the synagogue to its original look and opened the museum at the same time. The managers of the museum have been working to enrich the exhibits and artwork ever since.

Two galleries, in separate buildings outside the synagogue, have been completed and opened to the public over the past six months.

One gallery is exhibiting more than 100 photos and sculptures, while a short movie detailing Jewish history in Shanghai is played on a multi-screen video system. The other gallery is used for displaying artwork.

Chen Jian, the museum's curator and a district government official, said there is an urgent need for more exhibits.

"It's not only meant to make the museum more attractive to visitors but for the sake of preserving this special history," Chen said.

"Witnesses to this history, including the Jews who used to live in Shanghai and the old Shanghai residents, are passing on. So we need to gather precious historical evidence such as photos and papers as quickly as possible to add to our exhibits," he said.

The museum managers are planning to further develop the third story of the synagogue with more interactive content.

An interactive database was launched in June in a bid to complete the name list of the nearly 30,000 Jewish refugees who fled Europe to Shanghai and granted asylum around the Tilanqiao area.

So far, 14,800 refugee names have been stored in the database.

The names include those that museum management collected from memoir books and historical materials as well as those supplied by overseas visitors to the museum. A computer tied to the database is available for free use.