Rosdy combed archives in Germany and Austria, while Grossman worked collections in America, where many Jews from Shanghai wound up after the mass exodus from China that followed the communist takeover in 1949. There was so much material, all over the world, different pieces, here and there. It was a real puzzle to put this all together. Present-day interviews with these four are intertwined with extraordinary images of Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s. The film includes a rich vein of research material, backed by evocative period tunes plus an original score by the renowned John Zorn.
Intimacy is added in actual letters from refugees to friends and family back home.
The simple structure enhances the impact of the story. One gets chills hearing a refugee tell how none of the Jews in Shanghai even knew about the Holocaust until the war was over. To be sure, there were hardships aplenty in Shanghai, where the influx of tens of thousands of impoverished refugees overwhelmed the abilities of the existing Jewish community, as well as the ruling Japanese, who eventually herded them into the Hongkew ghetto. Food was scarce and survivors vividly describe suffering through the bitter Shanghai winter in rags and homemade sandals. Unlike in Europe, though, the Jews in Shanghai's ghetto fared no worse than the population around them.