And this is pretty cool... Here is a much much more interesting story of Jewish history, mostly in my own words- During WWII and the Holocaust, despite being Axis and Germanys ally, Japan was a actually a sanctuary for Jews. They prohibited the expulsion of Jews from Japan, and near the end of the war, Germany asked for their help devising a plan to eradicate those in Shanghai, where many Jews sought refuge at the time (and it pretty much became Jewish Occupied by then end of the war), but instead of helping Germany the Japanese continued to provide all Jewish refugees with food, shelter, and medical care. Those who were trying to flee occupied Poland were essentially trapped between blockades keeping them from the Soviet Union, the Mediterranean Sea, their only hope for escape being through Lithuania which was a neutral country, but went back and forth being occupied in June 1940 by (belligerents) Soviet Union, then Germany, the. Soviet Union again. So most of them were sent to the Dutch West Indies with Japanese passports. The Japanese Consul to Lithuania at the time was Chiune Sugihara, and despite his orders he gave over 6000 Hapanese entry Visas to the Jewish refugees, who otherwise in all likelihood wouldve ended up as statistics, casualties of the war and the Holocaust. The only European Yeshiva that survived the Holocaust, along with his group of 400 students, only survived because of Sugihara putting his career, and possibly even his life, on the line to help so many. Throughout the war Germany pressured Japan to establish anti-semitic policies, and Japan never once considered it. This makes me sad that they are the ones we dropped a bomb on... But there were a lot of other things going on at the tine and ... Yeah so anyway, one quote from an article I pulled up. Sugihara is said to have cooperated with Polish intelligence, as part of a bigger Japanese-Polish cooperative plan. They managed to flee across the vast territory of Russia by train to Vladivostok and then by boat to Kobe in Japan. The refugees, 2,185 in number, arrived in Japan from August 1940 to June 1941. So anyway, Jews in Japan during WWII..... I think that these sort of details always get lost when kids are taught about wars, and these sort of stories should not be left out, showing there are good people everywhere and not to generalize or stereotype.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 17:44:15 +0000
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