Morning Edition, June 16, 2006 · A new Jewish center has just opened in Shanghai, the first of its kind in China in 50 years. During the World War II, the city saved an estimated 30,000 Jewish lives by welcoming refugees fleeing the Nazis. But Shanghai's Jewish history has been all but forgotten there. Now, some are struggling to bring this chapter of the city's story back to life.
Israeli journalist Dvir Bar-Gal is on a quest to recover the lost Jewish gravestones of Shanghai. Once there were four Jewish cemeteries here. But they were destroyed decades ago and the headstones scattered outside the city.
Villagers, either through ignorance or simple pragmatism, had put many of the gravestones to new uses. Bar-Gal says he has found more than 85 Jewish headstones in villages outside Shanghai, where they've been used as washboards, stepping stones and construction materials
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