A MEMORIAL park to commemorate the Jews who lived in Shanghai in the 1930s and 40s will be unveiled at the Fu Shou Yuan Cemetery in September.

    The 300-square-meter park in Qingpu District will include a memorial square and a stone tablet area, the operator of the park said yesterday.

    A wall with the names of Jewish people who contributed to the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945) and Liberation War will be put up in the square. Sculptures of known Jewish people will also be erected in the square.

    The stone tablet area will feature old tombstones. The park operator said the Shanghai Jewish Community will assist in the collection. People can call 39820577 for details.

    Shanghai had four main cemeteries for Jewish refugees with nearly 3,700 graves in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but they were damaged or lost in the 1960s and 1970s, according to Professor Pan Guang, director of the Shanghai Jewish Research Center, who proposed building the park last June.

    The design of the park is in the shape of a hexagram, a Jewish symbol, which signifies “misery and hope.”

  “The park is a home for memory, a symbol of long-lasting friendship between Chinese and Jews and a place for people to remember history and pay tribute to their ancestors,” said Yi Hua, deputy general manager of the cemetery.

A Jewish Memorial Cultural Fund will be set up by the Shanghai Jewish Community and the cemetery for the maintenance and future expansion of the park. It will also promote academic research through cultural exchange between Jews and Chinese.

 “By setting up the fund, we hope to protect a precious piece of history,” Yi said.

    In the 1930s and 1940s, about 25,000 Jews took refuge in Shanghai to escape atrocities at the hands of the Nazis back home. Many Jewish refugees took part in the China’s anti-Japanese war.