A young Ruth Simon poses with her father's Chinese business associate surnamed Wu in Shanghai in the 1940s. Photo: Courtesy of Nina Admoni

It's been 65 years since Nina Admoni left Shanghai, a place that holds so many troubled and happy childhood memories for her and thousands of Jews around the world.

"It's been so long since I left my 'home' to Shanghai. The people there, the place where I lived, are so close to me, it's like it was yesterday in my mind," the 80-year-old Israeli told the Global Times during an interview in her home in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Admoni was one of thousands of Jews who sought shelter in China to avoid being murdered by Nazis during World War II.

A community of 30,000

According to the Center of Jewish Studies Shanghai (CJSS), some 25,000 Jewish refugees from Europe streamed into Shanghai between 1939 and 1941. Shanghai's Jewish community, which dates back to the 19th century, numbered 31,000 during the 1940s.

Born in Warsaw in 1932, 7-year-old Admoni, along with her parents who were surnamed Wurtans, were forced to leave their home after Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

"We were travelling along the narrow roads and would have to run for cover in the ditches whenever we heard planes approaching," said Admoni, recalling the horror of German planes attacking a line of refugees.

Following an exhausting and harrowing week-long train trip to Lithuania, Admoni's family was able to obtain a transit visa from the Japanese Consul. Her family and other refugees finally arrived in Kobe, Japan where they were anything but welcome.

As an ally of Germany the Japanese expelled all 2,000 Jewish refugees who had landed there. Denied visas to the United States and other Western countries that refused to accept the desperate refugees, the Jews travelled to Shanghai, which was one of the world's largest open ports where visas were not required.

Admoni's family and other Jews decided to settle in what they had hoped would be a safe haven in Shanghai.

No visa required

Admoni's family arrived in Shanghai in August 1941, to find a dynamic, cosmopolitan city, parts of which were governed by various nations that occupied so-called international concessions in various neighborhoods around the city.

With the help of existing Jewish communities and local citizens, Admoni's family moved to a "nice" apartment at No. 925 Joffre Road (today's Huaihai Road) in the French Concession.

"When I arrived in Shanghai, local Chinese people gave us a lot of help," Ruth Simon, whose family fled to Shanghai from Germany and Austria in the 1930s, told the Global Times.

"I still remember a Chinese man named Mr Wu, who knew my father through business. He arranged for us to live free in a decent place when we first arrived in Shanghai. We appreciated that so much," said Simon.

Many of the refugees were highly talented as was Simon's neighbor Alfred Wittenberg who was over 60 years old and a well-known violinist. Wittenberg fled Germany and settled in Shanghai in 1939 where he lived until his death in 1952.

"I can clearly remember him playing the violin every day, even when the bombs were falling on the ghetto," said Simon.

Shanghai government records show after the war Wittenberg was hired by one of his Chinese students, Tan Shuzheng, who served as deputy director of Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Wittenberg worked as a professor at the conservatory until his death.

Admoni and Simon and many other Jewish children attended the Shanghai Jewish School as they settled into a new life in their second home.

"We can still remember when we were uncontrollable in school; the common punishment was forcing us to study monologues from Shakespeare's plays. We can all recite most of Hamlet and Julius Caesar today in our sleep. We also had to write the name and address of our school 500 times: 'Shanghai Jewish School, 544 Seymour Road,'" laughed Admoni.

Less than six months after arriving in Shanghai, Admoni and her family were again forced to live the nightmare they had tried to escape in Europe. In December 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and moved to brutally occupy Shanghai.

Confined to a ghetto

Three top Nazi German officers arrived in Shanghai in July 1942 to persuade the Japanese occupiers to exterminate the Jews in Shanghai.

The Japanese ordered all Jews in Shanghai to move to a designated area, Hongkew, in today's Hongkou district in Shanghai. Jewish people are not allowed to leave the area without a pass from a Japanese officer.

By the end of 1943, the one-square-mile area had been turned into a teeming ghetto with a population of 100,000 Jews and Chinese. 

"During this time of suffering our Chinese neighbors in Hongkew held no animosity toward the stateless Jews. On the contrary, they felt a common bond with us and whenever possible, they would give us a hand," Admoni recalled.

Admoni said she often played with her Chinese friends and neighbors sometimes would come to their home to teach her mother how to cook Chinese food.

In August 1945, after the US dropped two atom bombs and Japan's surrender, the war was over. Jews and Shanghainese alike cheered the end of the dark days.

By autumn that year the Shanghai Jewish community started to learn the horrific details of the Holocaust.

Every Jewish home fell into a deep sorrow that touched their Chinese neighbors' hearts who shared their loss and offered condolences by visiting their homes and synagogues where prayer meetings were held in memory of those who had perished.

"As we began to learn of the extent of the tragedy we realized how lucky we had been to find this haven in Shanghai. Regardless of our complaints we had not even once gone really hungry," Admoni said.

In 1947, Admoni's family and thousands of Jewish refugees said goodbye to their Chinese neighbors to join relatives in the United States.

Admoni met her husband, Nahum Admoni, in Berkley, California and they emigrated to Israel in 1954. Admoni worked in different positions in government and later became the Executive Director of Israel-America Chamber of Commerce and Industry until she retired in 2005.

Despite the passing of so many years, Admoni said she'll never forget Shanghai. She has twice visited Shanghai in 1992 and 2011 and she plans to return with her family again this year.

Visiting old neighbors

"I saw my old house in Hongkew is still there. It was so touching when I talked with the Chinese people who now live there. It was the best time of my childhood in Shanghai," the old woman said.  

"When I said goodbye to them, we both had tears in our eyes. We once lived together under Japanese rule and this shared experience made us like one family," said Admoni.

"It is a history that we can't forget, and Jewish people should always remember that China lent us a hand when we needed it most," said Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu at a celebration commemorating the 20th anniversary of China-Israel diplomatic relations in Tel Aviv on January 24.

Preserving history

A series of cooperative activities including forums, exhibitions and design competitions were held between students from Shanghai Tongji University and Tel Aviv University. They were offering suggested designs for the Sino-Jewish Innovation Center that will open in April and is dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage and the Shanghai neighborhood where many Jewish refugees lived.

"We are working to protect the heritage and to promote the city's new development today," said Professor Moshe Margalith who heads the Tel-Aviv Institute and chairs UNESCO Modern Heritage.

Wang Jun, chief researcher of the Urban Planning and Design Institute at Tongji University, said that their heritage work would include many modern elements.

Pan Guang, director of CJSS, who has studied Jewish history in China for several decades, said it was amazing to have such a place in Shanghai dedicated to preserving the memory of Jews.

In 2011, during Admoni's second visit, she was surprised to find a photograph of herself in an exhibition at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, where the Ohel Moshe Synagogue once stood, which was the center of the Jewish community in Shanghai during World War II.

"I told everyone who came to see the exhibition about my story and that I was the little girl in the picture," she said.

With the help of the Consulate of Israel in Shanghai, the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum has built a database containing the personal information of some 15,000 Jews who lived in Shanghai during the war. The database allows people to find where the refugee families lived during their stay in Shanghai.

Last May the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum and the German Ministry of Culture jointly sponsored a large scale exhibition in Berlin and Hamburg detailing the lives of Jewish refugees in Shanghai during the World War II. A similar exhibit will be held this month in Israel.

Chen Jian, head of the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, told the Global Times that it is a traditional virtue of Chinese people to be open, hospitable and tolerant, not only of Jews but also of people from other nations. 

"By commemorating this history today, we cherish it and are inspired by its spirit, which can help us look toward a brighter future between Chinese and Israelis," Chen said.

Leah Garber contributed to this story