In 1941 Meisinger tried to influence the Japanese to exterminate approximately 18,000–20,000 Jews who had escaped from Austria and Germany and who were living in Japanese-occupied Shanghai.[26] His proposals included the creation of a concentration camp on Chongming Island in the delta of the Yangtze,[27] or starvation on freighters off the coast of China.[28] The Japanese admiral responsible for overseeing Shanghai would not yield to pressure from Meisinger; however, the Japanese built a ghetto in the neighborhood of Hongkew[29] which had already been planned by Tokyo in 1939: a slum with about twice the population density of Manhattan. The ghetto was strictly isolated by Japanese soldiers under the command of the Japanese official Kano Ghoya,[30] and Jews could only leave it with special permission.