A jewish woman who lost her passport while living in the city more than 50 years ago received the document back yesterday during a ceremony at the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Memorial.

Zhu peiyi, a local antique collector, returned Gerda Brender's passport at the memorial hall on Changyang Road, an area that used to be the city's Jewish Ghetto, in front of hoards of media members.

"I owe a lot of thanks to Mr Zhu," Brender told Shanghai Daily yesterday.

Brender's parents brought her to the city from Italy in 1938, when she was only four years old, to escape the Nazi Holocaust. They stayed in the city through 1949.

Half a century later, her passport appeared at a local flea market, when Zhu saw it and decided to buy it.

"I just did a good deed in a natural way," said Zhu yesterday. "I realized my wish as an old Chinese saying goes, returning the lost to its owner."

Steven brender, Gerda Brender's son, accepted Zhu's request to help him look for the owner of another old passport he bought the same time: Manfred Lichtenstein, a male born on August 24, 1932.

Michelle spiro, Brender's daughter who is 50 years old, said: "Shanghai is heaven."

During the Second World War, more than 30,000 Jewish refugees fled Europe for Shanghai, where many lived in what is currently known as Hongkou District.

(Shanghai Daily April 15, 2005)