During the World War II, we, Japan, rescued the Jewish refugees in Lithuania, from Manchuria through Shanghai by Manchuria Railway, from there, to Japan, and to the US by ship, prepared by Japan Mail Shipping Line or NYK Line. Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki received Jewish refugees in accordance with the Japanese national policy, and rejected reproach brought by Nazi Germany! We Japan seriously considered the rescue of the Jewish refugees. Ambassador Sugihara Chiune was not the only person to have helped Jewish refugees. In 1938, as the major general and the commander of the Harbin special Branch, Higuchi Kiichiro allowed Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi Germany to cross the border from the Soviet Union to Manchukuo. His subordinates were responsible for feeding the refugees, settling them in Harbin or Shanghai, and arranging for exit visas. On December 6, 1938, upon the proposal of War Minister Itagaki Seishirō, the Five Minister Council, the Japan’s highest decision making body at that time, made a decision of the national policy to prohibit the expulsion of the Jews in Japan, Manchuria, and China. Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki received Jewish refugees in accordance with the Japanese national policy, and rejected reproach brought by Nazi Germany! On December 31, 1940, Matsuoka Yōsuke, the director of the South Manchuria Railway Company, promised a group of Jewish businessmen, that we Japan, despite the alliance, would not carry out the Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies, and ordered to run the trains bound for Shanghai to transport Jewish refugees. Colonel Yasue Norihiro organized a third Far Eastern Jewish community conference in Harbin, associated with the director of the South Manchurian Railway, Matsuoka Yōsuke, and Hebrew interpreter Kotsuji Setsuzo, and also arranged a formal visit of Abraham Kaufman to Tokyo. The US did the air raids on Japan, the firebombings on Tokyo, then, the atomic and hydrogen bombings to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the end of the World War II, Matsuoka died in prison in 1946. Itagaki and Tōjō were executed by hanging on December 23, 1948. The fact of Japan’s rescue of Jewish refugees was banned to submit as evidence in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Therefore, we Japan need to tell the fact to people in the world. War criminals? No! They were patriots who loved and defended Japan with devotion. They are enshrined in Yasukuni Jinja Shintō Shrine and Saint Peter’s Basilica of Vatican Palace. The PRC and South Korea now single out Japan and name us the Nazi, despite that China and Korea did not help Jewish refugees.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 15:46:44 +0000
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