An exhibition entitled No Child's Play is being held until May 3 at the old Shanghai Ohel Moishe Synagogue, in memory of the 1.5 million children who were among the 6 million Jews who died during the Holocaust.
Ilan Maor, Israeli Consul General in Shanghai, said that the site in Shanghai was chosen because more than 20,000 Jewish refugees found shelter in Hongkou District, where the synagogue is located, from 1938 to 1945.
Located at 62 Changyang Road, the Ohel Moishe Synagogue was built in 1927 and was used by Jewish refugees as a place to gather and worship during World War II.
"In fact, Shanghai offered shelter to over 30,000 Jewish refugees during World War II, and approximately 7,000 of them were children," said Pang Guang, dean of the Shanghai Jewish Studies Institute. The institute is a branch of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
According to Maor, April is always regarded as the month for mourning victims of the Holocaust among Jewish people.
Curator Yehudit Inbar said that No Child's Play, unlike other Holocaust exhibitions, does not focus on history, statistics or descriptions of physical violence.
Instead, the toys, games, artwork, diaries, and poems displayed here highlight some of the personal stories of the children, providing a glimpse into their lives during the Holocaust.
Over 20 valuable archives and photos from Shanghai and around the world are in display, recreating scenes from the lives of Jewish children during that period.
Inbar said that children were the most fragile and vulnerable of victims, yet in some ways they were also the strongest. They developed unique skills for survival, among them fantasy, creativity and play.
Three of the photos exhibited show the dolls and teddy bears of the Jewish children in camps or ghettos.
Experts said dolls and teddy bears became integral parts of the lives of the children during the Holocaust. In many cases, these toys accompanied them throughout the period and were a primary source of comfort and companionship.
For some children, the teddy bears and dolls were the most meaningful possessions left to them at the end of the war. Even today, as adults, their attachment to those toys is so great that they have difficulty separating from them.
"In embarking upon the research for this exhibition, we thought that our findings would be limited to the children's moments of comfort and consolation," Inbar said.
"Now we have learned that far more was involved. Fantasy, creativity and play were the manifestations of a basic instinct for survival, a prerequisite for life."
(China Daily April 26, 2004)
