The last years have been tough on the Old ladies of Shanghai. Only a few people remain who actually lived in Old Shanghai. We just lost a really special one in the recent days.
Liliane Willens (mostly called Lily) was born in 1926 in the French concession. Although she was of Jewish Russian heritage, her father managed to get into a the French community thanks to his excellent French, making the family pass as Romanian. He worked for a Canadian insurance company, offering Liliane and her family a priviledged youth in the French Concession. Although she moved several times, her main home was the Savoye apartment on Route de Say Zoong善钟路 (today Changshu lu). French was Lily’s native language.
She attended the French College Municipal Français, on Rue Vallon (today Nanchang Lu / 南昌路). This was the school of the high society of the Concession, mostly attended by French people. Teaching was following the French national curriculum, taught by French teachers. This was a different class from the Ecole Remy a few blocks away, that was “for the Russians, for the poors” as Lily used to tell. This is also the place when I presented my conference about Stephanie Rosen-Hoa in April 2025. Below picture was taken at the former French College Municipal Français a few years ago, when it was turned into a restaurant. Liliane was always happy to talk about her school time there.
Although Liliane claimed that she was not a good student, this was enough to get her into university in the USA when she finally made it there, graduating with a PhD in French language and litterature. She went on to teach at Boston College and MIT, before working for USAID.
Due to the war and bureaucratic nightmare, she only left Shanghai in 1951, spending a few years as stateless, having no home state to call for. She never forgot about Shanghai though, and finally came back to her beloved home city in 1996. The city had changed, but she recognised most of it. She came back again and again, including in 2009, when I met her as described in post “A date with Liliane“. At that time, she was finalising her book “Stateless in Shanghai”, that came out in 2010. She returned to Shanghai many times, giving speaches about her life in the city and promoting her book.
During one of those visits, she had a chance encounter with a lady that used to live a few steps from her, Elena Nemtzeff (see post “Meeting of old neighboors“), though they had never met in Old Shanghai.
Liliane went on researching new topics such as Russians in Harbin, where her family had come from. She came regularly to Shanghai, until CoVid forced her to stay away from her beloved city. She passed away on 7th Aug 2026, aged 99 and will be sadly missed.
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