On this day in 1938, Jews from mostly Central and Eastern Europe began to arrive in Shanghai, China as refugees fleeing the impending Nazi onslaught. While Jewish community leaders sought refuge for their people anywhere in the world that would welcome them, most countries turned Holocaust refugees away. Shanghai, however, welcomed between 17,000 and 20,000 Jews from Central and Eastern Europe.By 1941, about 20,000 Jews had found refuge and settled in Shanghai. By 1943, Japan had entered the war and its troops occupied most of the east coast of China, including Shanghai. Under pressure from Germany, they forcibly relocated all the Jewish refugees into a ghetto that was just one square mile from the Hongkew District, known today as ‘Hongkou’. Having made the 8,000-mile journey by sea, surviving a perilous journey while crossing all of Siberia just to get to China, the refugees arrived in the ports of Shanghai, where they were met with kindness from most of the Chinese people. One heroic account was that of Feng Shan Ho, the Chinese Chief Consul to Vienna, who risked his life and career to issue thousands of visas to Jewish families in Austria, openly defying the orders of Nazi Germany. Mr. Ho is remembered as the “Chinese Schindler,” eventually losing his job for his actions. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japanese forces shut down Shanghai to any further immigration and deported any Jews who had sought refuge in mainland Japan on the way to Shanghai. Representatives from American Jewish organizations like the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) were already on the ground in Shanghai, setting up soup kitchens and providing whatever aid possible to the refugees. After 1941, American Jews were classified by the Japanese government as enemy aliens and were closely monitored, but were permitted freedom until 1943, when American aid workers were rounded up and interred in detention camps. By then, American aid workers had already managed to set up emergency relief through kitchens that fed over 10,000 refugees every day. After the war, between 1946 and 1953, the JDC helped over 16,000 Jewish refugees emigrate from China, most bound for Israel or the United States.