Shanghai: A Wartime Haven – Marking Seventy Years Since Liberation
The Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre has concluded a new exhibition titled, Shanghai: A Wartime Haven. The exhibition marks the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Shanghai ghetto, a temporary safe haven to nearly 17,000 Holocaust refugees who had escaped Europe with no where else to go. The opening of the exhibition, on 31 August 2015, coincided with the week in which a one-off Chinese and Hong Kong public holiday (3 September) was held likewise marking the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of Greater China by Allied forces.
The exhibition was being displayed in two locations simultaneously. An in-depth presentation was found in the Oasis walkway, a well trafficked public space in Central Hong Kong. Quite appropriately, the exhibition was also being displayed in The Peninsula Hotel. Following liberation, scores of Shanghai refugees were offered succour within The Peninsula Hotel, housed in the ballrooms which served as makeshift barracks. The Peninsula exhibition adds a special focus on the role the Kadoorie family personally had in aiding the refugees in both Shanghai and Hong Kong during their extended post-war transit stopover.
For more information on the remarkable story of Shanghai’s Jewish refugees in Hong Kong’s Peninsula Hotel, please see Five Star Refuge: A Week at the Pen.