The Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum stands in the Hongkou district of northeast Shanghai, in and around the former Ohel Moshe Synagogue on Changyang Road. Between 1933 and 1941, at a time when most countries were closing their borders to Jewish refugees, Shanghai was one of the very few places that could be entered without a visa. An estimated 20,000 people came, most of them from Germany and Austria, and many settled in this neighbourhood.
The story
Refugees arriving by sea found a city already crowded and under Japanese occupation after 1937. With the outbreak of war in the Pacific, the Japanese authorities designated a restricted area in Hongkou, commonly called the Tilanqiao ghetto, where Jewish residents were required to live. Conditions were hard and crowded, but the community established schools, newspapers, theatres, clinics, synagogues and a lively cultural life, and most of those who reached Shanghai survived the war.
The museum
The synagogue, built in 1927, has been restored and is the centrepiece of the site, with its ark, Torah scrolls and seating restored to their original arrangement. The exhibition covers the refugees' arrival, daily life in Tilanqiao, the relationships they formed with Chinese neighbours, and the wartime politics that shaped their situation. Photographs, letters, passports, household objects and recorded testimony carry most of the weight, and there is material on the survivors who later emigrated to Israel, the United States and elsewhere. Lists of names can be searched by visitors researching family connections.
Practical notes
The museum is a short walk from Tilanqiao station on Line 12, in a residential district that still retains some of the lanes of the period. There is a modest entrance fee, and it is closed on Mondays. Allow about an hour and a half. The nearby streets contain a number of small plaques marking former refugee homes and institutions, and a walking route connects them, which makes the visit more meaningful if you have the time.
