Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum

The Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum was established in 2007, with the Moshe Synagogue at its heart. The museum documents the history of European Jewish refugees who escaped Nazi persecution and fled to Shanghai in the 1930s and 40s.

In Danny’s own words:

In thinking of the evolution of our Foundation’s relationship with SJRM, it’s a bit amazing! The Spungen family has been involved with China since my parents first visited there in 1973 (a year after President Nixon went to China in 1972). My first time in China was in the spring of 1981. In April 2005, I took my family to China as part of our trip to Thailand after the terrible December 26, 2004 tsunami. During that family trip, we took a tour of the Shanghai Ghetto. The tour was nice, but I didn’t recognize its importance at the time… I was still 100% focused on ball bearings!

By 2010 I was fully engaged in Holocaust education. My first visit to the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum (SJRM) was on December 6, 2010. At that time, my Holocaust history focus was on Operation Bernard, and I was starting to think about the creation of the 2013 Shanghai Memory coin project with the Shanghai Mint. By 2011, when we had our Holocaust artifacts exhibit at the Shanghai (Pudong) Concordia School, we had already developed a strong relationship with Professor Xu Xin and Nanjing University. I first met the SJRM Director Mr. Chen Jian on March 14, 2011, along with the Jewish leader of Shanghai, Mr. Maurice Ohana. The seeds were planted and kept growing. By 2014 our relationship was much stronger and today, Mr. Chen Jian and I are very close.  We have hosted him and his staff at our home and had a very nice event for him in Chicago during his last visit in July 2025.

The museum is an extremely important grantee of the Foundation. Approximately 18,000 Jewish people found refuge in Shanghai during the WWII era. Their stories of survival and their incredible amount of document and artifacts are priceless! With a population of 1.4 billion people in China, the museum is a very important conduit for reaching their population where they are at, and one that the Foundation is very proud to support.