THE STREETS OF SHANGHAI, CIRCA 1938-1942
“The Last Refuge: The Story of Jewish Refugees in Shanghai” (2003), directed and written by Xiaohong Cheng and co-produced by Noriko Sawada, tells the story of the roughly 18,000 Jews who between 1938 and 1942 escaped Eastern Europe to Shanghai, which required no documentation upon entry.
Shanghai’s prewar Jewish neighborhood could no longer contain the influx of refugees fleeing the Nazis, and the Jews were relegated to a ghetto, where they lived — free from the genocide their families and friends were encountering in their native lands — from 1943 until China’s liberation from the Japanese in 1945.
Shown publically for the first time, the film — originally a master’s thesis — interweaves original footage with reenactments of survivors’ experiences and interviews with a historian and a Jewish military chaplain who participated in the liberation of Shanghai. A question and answer session with the director follows the screening, as well as a talk by Marcia Reynders Ristaino, author of “Port of Last Resort: The Diaspora Communities of Shanghai.”
“The Last Refuge” adds to the documentary record firmly established by 2002’s “Shanghai Ghetto.”
Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave., S.E.; July 8, noon-1:30 p.m.; free. (202-707-5422 or www.loc.gov/loc/events/julaugindex.html)
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30