Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum

Tickets: how much and how to buy

Adult tickets are CNY 20. Full-time students up to 23 pay CNY 10 and visitors aged 60 and over pay CNY 15. Children up to 1.3 m get in free with an adult (two per adult), as do visitors with a disability card. All of this comes from the museum's official visitor guide.

Every ticket is issued in your name, so foreigners show a passport. Unofficial reports say the easiest route is simply buying at the desk with your passport; the museum's official WeChat account also sells tickets, but booking there can fail without a Chinese phone number. The official site no longer mentions compulsory advance booking — that was a 2020 pandemic rule.

Bring some cash yuan in small notes, or set up Alipay or WeChat Pay with your foreign Visa or Mastercard before the trip. That also covers the audio guide and a coffee at the museum café.

Opening hours

The museum opens Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00–17:00, with ticket sales and last entry at 16:00. It's closed on Mondays, and public-holiday arrangements are posted separately. Older listings give last entry as 16:30; the museum's own site now says 16:00.

Free guided tours in Chinese start at 10:00 and 14:00, though times can shift on busy days. Groups of 20 or more can book a paid tour by phone three to five working days ahead. Weekday mornings are the calmest time to see the small synagogue rooms.

What was the Shanghai Ghetto?

In the late 1930s, as Nazi persecution in Germany and Austria escalated, most countries closed their doors to Jewish refugees. Shanghai was the exception: the International Settlement could be entered without a visa. Around 20,000 refugees arrived, mostly by ship from European ports and later overland via Siberia and Japan, with the biggest wave in 1939.

Some officials risked their careers to help. Ho Feng-Shan, China's consul general in Vienna, issued visas for Shanghai that let Jews leave Austria; Yad Vashem has recognised him as Righteous Among the Nations. In Lithuania, Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara issued transit visas that brought, among others, the Mir Yeshiva to Shanghai by way of Japan.

Most refugees settled in poor, crowded Hongkou, north of Suzhou Creek, alongside Chinese neighbours. On 18 February 1943, under German pressure, the occupying Japanese authorities proclaimed a Designated Area for Stateless Refugees there, and everyone who had arrived after 1937 had to move into it. Life meant cramped rooms, passes to leave the area, and scarce food and work.

The area was liberated on 3 September 1945. Within a few years nearly all the refugees had moved on — to Palestine and Israel, the US, Australia and Canada. Ohel Moshe, built in 1927 by Russian Jews, had been a place of prayer and community for them; since 2007 it has told their story.

What to see inside

• Ohel Moshe Synagogue — a three-storey grey-brick building with a red roof, restored from archive drawings, with its Torah ark, reader's platform and original floor tiles. It's no longer used for prayer.
• Escape to Shanghai — routes, ocean-liner documents and the story of consul Ho Feng-Shan.
• Life in Hongkew — a reconstructed refugee dormitory room (a "Heim"), shop signs, family photos and displays on cafés, schools and sports clubs.
• The 1943 Designated Area — an interactive map showing how the neighbourhood changed under the Japanese order.
• After the war — departures after 1945 and the return visits of refugees' families since the 1980s.
• Courtyard and Name Wall — a copper wall of refugees' names and a memorial sculpture, plus a café.

Walking the old refugee quarter

The museum sits in the Tilanqiao historic area, where some wartime houses still stand, though many have gone. Across the street at 67 Changyang Road is a full-size 2015 rebuild of the White Horse Café, opened in 1939 by a refugee family from Vienna.

A few minutes away, Huoshan Park holds a 1994 memorial stone in Chinese, English and Hebrew marking the refugee district. At 119–121 Huoshan Road, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee opened its Shanghai office in 1938 and ran hostels, canteens and a hospital. Give the neighbourhood an extra 30–60 minutes.

Is the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum worth visiting?

Yes, if you're interested in WWII, Jewish history or a side of Shanghai far from the skyscrapers. It's small, cheap and personal — passports, letters and family photos rather than grand displays — and combined with the surrounding streets it makes a rewarding half-day.

On a first one- or two-day visit focused on the Bund, Pudong and the old town, it's a reasonable skip: it's off the main tourist circuit. The subject is heavy for young children, but school-age kids can manage it with a parent: the focus is on rescue and everyday life, and you can move quickly past the hardest documents.

Refugees museum vs other Shanghai museums

Refugees museum details are from its official website. The other two are from YesGo's pages on those places; free entry to the planning centre is unofficial.

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How to do it right

• Start with the courtyard and synagogue, then follow the halls in order — the exhibition runs chronologically from escape to post-war departures.
• The CNY 10 audio guide was Chinese-only according to unofficial reports, so read up on the Shanghai Ghetto beforehand.
• Photos are fine without flash, tripods or selfie sticks; some rooms ban photography — follow the signs.
• Leave big bags in the self-service lockers at the entrance.
• Afterwards, have a coffee at the rebuilt White Horse Café across the road and stroll to Huoshan Park.

Questions