During the Second World War, approximately 20,000 Jewish refugees fleeing German-occupied Europe were given an area of approximately one square mile in the Hongkou District of Shanghai by the Japanese Empire, designated the Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees, one of the poorest and most overcrowded areas of the city.
The new Ashkenazi Jews that immigrated to Shanghai began arriving from 1933, firstly German Jews following the Nazi Party's rise to power.