A story of Jewish Shanghai, told through music

A rehearsal of Émigré by the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall on Wednesday. (Adam Crane/Courtesy of the New York Philharmonic)

Among all the fabled stories of struggle and survival during World War II, the tale of the Jewish community in Shanghai is not well known. A new musical work, Émigré, which premieres Thursday at the New York Philharmonic, seeks to shed light on that nearly forgotten corner of history.

In the late 1930s and very early '40s, thousands of Jewish people from Poland, Germany and Austria fled the Nazis and made their way to a new home thousands of miles away — in the Chinese port city of Shanghai.