Josef’s Toy Wheelbarrow-Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum

The bamboo wheelbarrow, donated by Josef Rossbach, a former Jewish refugee, is 220mm long, 130mm wide and 90mm high. It is the first physical object collected by the museum.

In 1939, Josef's parents and grandparents fled to Shanghai. Josef was born in 1944 in Hongkou where he spent five unforgettable years. At that time, his Chinese neighbor supported his family with a wheelbarrow. After a day’s work, the neighbor often put Josef in his wheelbarrow together with his own kid and rode them along the streets for fun. For Josef, it was a sweet memory of joyful childhood in Shanghai that he would never forget. Once when Josef was sick, his parents bought this bamboo toy wheelbarrow to cheer him up.

In 2010, Josef donated the toy wheelbarrow that he had kept for decades to Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum. He said, “Toy wheelbarrow and Hongkou, all this is part of my life. During those years, the Chinese gave us a lot of help. But for the Chinese people, we might have been killed.”