There is a certain excitement to being in the former library of the Shanghai Jesuits, hunching over old newspapers in a dim reading room. Shutters closed, shimmering reading lamps, heavy wooden desks. It doesn’t take too long to get immersed in the past. The environment helps if only you are able shut out a soft male voice set on eternal repetition – the faint but steady sound of the visitors’ introduction to the building. But what’s this atmosphere compared to the thrilling moment when you realize that you aren’t alone reading the now-tattered pages from the 1940s? Well, you are alone, but you discover that someone before you left their comments on the margins with a red pencil. Judging from the vehemence of the note, it must have been written by someone contemporary, responding to what they were reading, back on that March 11, 1940, in wartime Shanghai. That adds a layer between you and the first author who you thought you were alone with.
1) The Biblioteca Zikawei (Xujiahui Library 徐家汇藏书楼) from the outside (by M.M.); 2) from the inside (by Michelle Qiao, Shanghai Daily) 3) (Baidu.com)
The main page of the Gelbe Post (March 15 1940 issue) [Read more…] about “How does a Hungarian Jew get to make an appeal for Austria?” A 1940 anonymous marginalia on the page of a Shanghai daily newspaper