Words echoing the past: The Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum in Hongkou District, Shanghai, reminds visitors about the Jews who sought refuge in the city during World War II. (Photo : Getty Images)
After a musical comes a documentary.
“The Memory of Life - the Jews in Shanghai,” produced by Shanghai Radio and Television News Center, premiered in Hillcrest Jewish Center in Queens, New York, last September and will then be shown in universities and other cities in the country, reported the Global Times.
Attended by Jewish and Chinese guests as well as by some local politicians and similar VIPs, the screening was part of the activities slated for commemorating the time China welcomed thousands upon thousands of Jewish refugees during one of the darkest moments in history.
“The film has a strong sense of the people’s desire for peace, not war,” said Guo Yuntao, the secretary-general of the Global Governance for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Close to 40 surviving Jewish who sought refuge in Shanghai during the Second World War granted interviews to the crew behind the documentary.
The crew spent eight months traveling to different countries such as Austria, Israel, Germany, and the U.S. to reach these people. Some historians and scholars also shared their knowledge and views.
The event coincided with the 71st Regular Session of the U.N. General Assembly, which opened at the U.N. Headquarters in New York on Sept. 13.
Guests also had the chance to view a photo exhibit called “Jewish Refugees and Shanghai.”
Among other venues, the documentary will be screened in Harvard University, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and at the US Congress.
Just last year, Shanghai Heng Yuan Xiang Theater Development Company staged an original musical about Jewish refugees.
“Jews in Shanghai” premiered at the Shanghai Culture Square in Shanghai’s Huangpu District on Sept. 3, 2015 and ran for four days. A month after, it opened the 17th edition of the China Shanghai International Arts Festival held on the same venue on Oct. 16, 2015, according to online reports.
Director Xu Jun co-wrote the musical with author-professor Rong Guangrun, former president of the Shanghai Theater Academy, and Guo Chenzi, an associate professor.
Featuring Chinese and Israeli artists, according to Rong, the musical reflects “mankind's pursuit of peace, and the love and care that transcend national and racial boundaries,” reported the Global Times.
For a tangible testament of the foundation of Chinese-Jewish friendly relations, there stands in Shanghai’s Hongkou District the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum. It features permanent and rotating exhibition halls.
On Sept. 1, the museum welcomed sculptures of two men who bravely made heroic acts during World War II (1939- 1945), reported Shanghai Daily.
Guan Weiyong, chairman of the CPPCC Hongkou District Committee, and Silvia Neureiter, Austrian Consul General, unveiled the figures of Chinese diplomat Ho Feng-Shan (1901-1997) and Jewish doctor Jakob Rosenfeld (1903-1952).
As Consul General in Vienna from 1938-1940, Ho issued visas to people who wanted to go abroad--particularly to Shanghai--to escape the horrors of the war in Germany.
He disregarded a directive--to limit the issuance of visa--by his superior Chen Jie, the Chinese Ambassador in Berlin.
Rosenfeld worked as a health minister under the government of Mao Zedong. He earned the rank of a general, and people referred to him as “General Luo,” according to Ynetnews.
