An Australian anthropologist once said that there were two distressful but unyielding peoples in this world. They are Jews and Miao people of China. After 1937, a large number of European Jews fled to China’s Shanghai by Italian ships. At that time, Shanghai in this world was the only one metropolis without dispelling those unfortunate Jews. Shanghai took in 25,000 Jews at that hard time! The number of Jews in Shanghai is the summation of the entire Jewish refugee that Canada, Australia, India, South Africa and New Zealand took over! 

Those Jews hastily put away their houses and farmland that they lived from generation to generation. They carried their luggage and rushed to the crowded ships for survival and went around half an earth and finally the ship slowly stopped in a port. An absolute strange oriental city appeared. They hesitated whether this city accepted them or not and what their destiny would be in the future? 

On 18, February 1943, the Japanese authority ordered all the Jews came to Shanghai after 1937 must moved into the segregation zone for refugee without nationality. This segregation zone is located in Tilanqiao area of Hong Kou District in Shanghai. This segregation zone was comprised of 15 places. The houses, alleys and streets in these districts were small, narrow and beat-up. The refugee from Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary and other countries lived here. The passports of there refugee were all print the sign of “J” to show their identity of Jews. 

More youngsters rarely understand the history of segregation zone, but the aged men lived in Shanghai know much about that. During the Second World War, there are 25,000 Jewish refugee crowdedly lived in this bad zone, and this zone was surrounded by abatis. The entrance and exit of the zone was guarded by the Japanese soldiers. The Jews must show their respects and gratitudes to those Japanese soldiers and show their identity cards for checking, some time their luggage was also examined by those Japanese soldiers. After Jews entered this segregation zone, they were able to get out on condition that they got the permits from Japanese illicit authority. On the permit, the time of get-out and the bound that they could go were both written. 

Thanks to shanghai local people’s selfless and generous help by virtue of airdropping food (the local people used to throw the food into the segregation zone), Most of those Jews survived miraculously from this dehumanized reign from Japanese illicit authority. At that hard time, the shanghai grass-roots gave those Jews a lot of vital and timely help when they lived together. The local people vacated their own houses for those Jews and helped Jews hunt for jobs. They also provided diversity of help to Jews in life such as looking temporarily after Jewish children and lent them the basic equipments for living. Shanghai people also arranged Jewish children went to school with Chinese children together like Huoshan-Road Primary School accepted many Jewish children for education. 

There were over 6,000,000 Jews were killed in Europe, but those Jews removed or fled to Shanghai all survived except those old people and ill people. Moreover, there were also 408 young Jews born in Shanghai. Today, many old Jews who lived in Shanghai at that rough time always said Shanghai was their second hometown and Shanghai people were always their family-members and bosom friends.