Shanghai International Settlement
Following the Battle of Shanghai in 1937, the city was occupied by the army of Imperial Japan, except for the Shanghai International Settlement which was not occupied by the Japanese until 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Before 1941, the Shanghai International Settlement allowed entry without visa or passport. By the time when most German Jews arrived, two other Jewish communities had already settled in the city: the wealthy Baghdadi Jews, including the Kadoorie and Sassoon families, and the Russian Jews. The last ones fled the Russian Empire because of anti-Semitic pogroms pushed by the tsarist regime and counter-revolutionary armies as well as the class struggle manifested by the Bolsheviks. They had formed the Russian community in Harbin, then the Russian community in Shanghai.