I went with my friends Anne and Andrea for a walk through the Jewish ghetto of Shanghai. This area was home to many Jewish refugees during 1937-1941. It was a historical walk and it taught me a bit of history that I didn't know about Shanghai. The Jewish ghetto is located in the Hongkou district and was home to many foreigners. Mainly missionaries and others who couldn't afford to live in a better area. Shanghai experienced several waves of Jewish immigration. The first happened in the late 1840's with the arrival of the Sephardic Jews. They were businessmen who made their fortune in opium and property. They built large estates and as many as seven synagogues and were responsible for some of Shanghai's finest architecture. The Sassons, who emigrated from Baghdad in the mid-19th century were the first Jewish family to make a fortune in Shanghai and is known for the Peace Hotel and a villa estate now know as the Cypress Hotel. The second wave of Jewish emigrants comprised of Russian Jews fleeing the Bolsheviks at the beginning of the 20th century. They were then followed in the 1930's by the third wave of European Jews who were fleeing Hitler and who landed in Shanghai because it was the only city in the world that would accept "stateless refugees." Just before World War II, the number of Jews in Shanghai topped 30,000.
In February of 1943, the Japanese army who had occupied Shanghai since 1938, forced the "stateless Jews" into a "Designated Area" in the Hongkou district (north of the Bund). Tens of thousands of Jews lived in facilities abandoned by the missionaries and other foreigners. They lived in this area until the end of the war.
We walked around the area and saw some of the interesting architecture styles and visited the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Memorial Hall. One of the things that I was able to do was listen to the locals go about their day. We were the attraction for the locals since a large group of foreigners were wandering through their neighborhood. My friends and I met a man who told me a bit of history about where he lived and upon chatting, I found out he was 88 years old. We even met an 80 year old man who was able to speak English very well because he was a teacher at a university in Shanghai.
My friends and I were quite taken back by the architecture found in this area and most of all, I was happy that I was able to utilize my Mandarin and Shanghainese to speak to the locals.
