Former Jewish refugee donates wedding gown to Shanghai museum

(JTA) — A Holocaust survivor whose wedding photo hangs in the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum donated her gown to the museum.

Betty Grebenschikoff, a Berliner who found refuge in Shanghai during the Holocaust, made the donation on Monday during her fifth visit to the Chinese city. Grebenschikoff, who now lives in the United States, had noticed the photo on her previous visit to Shanghai.

The dress was handmade by her husband’s mother, who worked in a Shanghai wedding dress store. Two of her daughters wore the gown at their weddings, according to the Shanghai Daily newspaper.

On Tuesday, Grebenschikoff visited the small home in which she, her parents and her sister lived between 1939 and 1948, when she married a Russian swimming instructor at the city’s Park Hotel.

Museum curator Chen Jian told the Shanghai Daily that the museum has collected information on some 15,000 Jews who found refuge in Shanghai during the war.