Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum

Memorial Museum In The Former Ohel Moishe Synagogue, Hongkou, Recording The Roughly 20,000 Jewish Refugees Who Reached Shanghai Between 1933 And 1941 · Shanghai, Shanghai

In the late 1930s almost every country on earth was closing its doors to Jews fleeing Germany and Austria, and Shanghai was the exception - not out of generosity but because the treaty port's divided administration meant nobody was checking papers, and a refugee could land without a visa at all. Somewhere near twenty thousand came. They settled in Hongkou, a poor district north of the creek, and opened cafes and clinics and newspapers in a city where they knew no one; in 1943 the Japanese authorities confined them to about a square mile of it, the Designated Area for Stateless Refugees, which they shared with a hundred thousand Chinese neighbours who were themselves under occupation and desperately poor. Almost all of them survived the war. The museum occupies the old Ohel Moishe Synagogue at the centre of that quarter, and its wall carries the names of more than thirteen thousand of them.

62 Changyang Road, Hongkou District, Shanghai, Shanghai, China

Generally open around 9:00-17:00 with last entry before closing, and a modest admission charge bought at the door or through Chinese travel apps. The museum may close one day a week or for commemorative events - confirm before a special trip. It is a SMALL museum in a 1920s synagogue with a modern extension, and it becomes congested with tour groups, so weekday mornings are much the best. ALLOW TIME FOR THE STREETS OF THE OLD DESIGNATED AREA OUTSIDE, which need no ticket and are half the visit.

Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum on Spottos · Explore more places on Spottos