(JNi.media) A Jewish Memorial Park was inaugurated last week in the Fushouyuan cemetery at Shanghai’s Qingpu District, to mark the 70th anniversary of the War and the survival of the Jewish Refugees who fled to China from Eastern Europe. According to Shanghai Daily.
A memorial stone was unveiled in the park, inscribed with the name of Ho Fengshan, a Chinese diplomat in Vienna who risked his life to issue visas to more than 3,000 Jews. The stone is also inscribed with the names of 24 famous Jews “who had contributed to the development of Shanghai.”
Israeli Consul-General Arnon Perlman called for preserving the memories of Shanghai’s Jews for the benefit of future Chinese generations. “This is something that is very, very important to remember for all of us — whether it’s Jews, Israeli or Chinese — to remember the friendship between China and Israel and between Shanghai and Israel,” Perlman said, according to shanghaiist.com.
The park authorities have began an outreach effort to Jewish communities worldwide, to locate tombstones of other Jews who may be buried in Shanghai, as part of a plan to place all the local Jewish graves in the same park, “as an important memorial venue for both offspring of the deceased and the public to remember the history and the friendship between Chinese and Jewish people,” Shanghai Daily reported.
A Shanghai Jewish Memorial Cultural Fund is being planned to support infrastructure development, maintenance and expansion of the memorial park, as well as to launch non-governmental studies “to preserve historical memories shared by Chinese and Jewish people.”