Zoom talk, Feb 9, 2025,

Thank you to Connecticut College Art Gallery Curator Julia Wintner and Hillary Stern of Temple Bnai Israel (CT) for organizing and moderating the talk. We had great interest with an audience of 50!

Mapping the History of the Vanishing Shanghai Jewish Refugee Quarter.

The second part of her ‘Involuntary Journeys’ mapping series is built on empathy and resilience – still relevant for today’s refugee crises. She researches the little-known history of about 20,000 Jews escaping the Germany of her grandparents to Shanghai between 1934 to 1941 – and their continued escape from that city in the late 1940-ies. At an initial stay in Shanghai she documented the few remaining old streets, and continued to research further historical data, newspaper, and photo sources as a research fellow at NYU Tel Aviv at archives in Israel. This Spring 2025 Mechthild is a Research Artist at both NYU Berlin and the Berlin Jewish Museum Archive to contribute with her work to their online mapping project “Jewish Lives”.