Abstract
Although Jewish and political exile in Shanghai during World War II has been relatively well examined through a multitude of publications,1 the research situation with regard to exiles in Japan is—even considering there were far fewer of them—unpropitious.2 Above all, there has been little research that encompasses exiles in the entire Japanese-controlled area of military power during the war years—consisting of the Japanese “puppet state” of Manchukuo, Shanghai, Taiwan, Korea, and parts of South East Asia (such as the Philippines), and which contextualizes them as one.3 This is a significant gap, as Japanese Jewish policy must be viewed against this background, specifically in Manchukuo (with the capital Harbin) and also in Shanghai, where tens of thousands of Jews were subject to Japanese rule.
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Notes
Compare this to the bibliographical details in: Patrik von Zur Mühlen, “Ostasien,” in Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigranten 1933–1945, eds. Claus-Dieter Krohn, et al. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998), 336–349, which details the level of research up to 1997.
Further important works are, among others: Amnion Barzel, Leben im Wartesaal. Exil in Shanghai 1938–1947 (Berlin: Jüdisches Museum, 1997);
Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, Japanese Diplomats and Jewish Refugees: A World War II Dilemma (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998);
Georg Armbrüster and Mchael Kohlstruck and Sonja Mühlberger, eds., Exil Shanghai. Jüdisches Leben in der Emigration (1938–1947) (Teetz: Hentrich & Hentrich, 2000);
Astrid Freyeisen, Shanghai und die Politik des Dritten Reiches (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2000).
Aside from this scholarly research, many biographical memoirs of the persons affected have been published detailing their time in Shanghai: Ernest G. Heppner, Shanghai Refuge: A Memoir of the World War II Jewish Ghetto (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993);
Evelyn Pike Rubin, Ghetto Shanghai (New York: Shengold, 1993);
Vivian Jeanette Kaplan, Ten Green Bottles: Vienna to Shanghai. Journey of Fear and Hope (Toronto, ON: Robin Brass Studio, 2002). In 1997 the film “Exil Shanghai” (dir. Ulrike Ottinger) premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival (at the Internationalen Forum des Jungen Films). In 2002 the American documentary film “Shanghai Ghetto” (dirs. Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir Mann) was released.
Thomas Pekar, Flucht und Rettung. Exil im japanischen Herrschaftsbereich (1933–1945) (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 2011), represents a first attempt at such a full contextualization.
Karl Löwith, Mein Leben in Deutschland vor und nach 1933. Ein Bericht. Mit einem Vorwort von Reinhart Koselleck und einer Nachbemerkung von Ada Löwith (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1986), 115.
Bernd Martin, for example, stressed “the complexity of this alliance,” as well as the “vicissitudes” and the “rivalries and misunderstandings,” that are observable in this relationship. Bernd Martin, Deutschland und Japan im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1940–1945. Vom Angriff auf Pearl Harbor bis zur deutschen Kapitulation (Hamburg: Nikol, 2001), 14.
David H. Kranzler, The Japanese, the Nazis, and the Jews: The Jewish Refugee Committee of Shanghai 1938–1945 (New York: Yeshiva University, 1976);
and David Kranzler, “Shanghai Refuge. The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai 1938–1949,” in Jews in China. From Kaifeng… to Shanghai, ed. Roman Malek (Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 2000), 401–415.
Birgit Pansa, Juden unter japanischer Herrschaft. Jüdische Exilerfahrungen und der Sonderfall Karl Löwith (München: Iudicium Verlag, 1999); her book is structured upon her Master’s thesis from the Japanese Seminar at the University of Heidelberg.
Karl Löwith, Mein Leben in Deutschland vor und nach 1933. Ein Bericht. Mit einem Vorwort von Reinhart Koselleck und einer Nachbemerkung von Ada Löwith (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1986).
Gerhard Krebs and Bernd Martin, ed., Formierung und Fall der Achse Berlin-Tōkyō (München: Iudicium Verlag, 1994). This volume also contains the essay: Françoise Kreissler, “Japans Judenpolitik (1931–1945),” 187–210.
Heinz Eberhard Maul, Japan und die Juden. Die Judenpolitik des Kaiserreiches Japan während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (1933–1945) (Bonn: University Diss., 2000); and
Heinz Eberhard Maul, Warum Japan keine Juden verfolgte. Die Judenpolitik des Kaiserreiches Japan während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (1933–1945) (München: Iudicium Verlag, 2007).
Martin Kaneko, Die Judenpolitik der japanischen Kriegsregierung (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 2008).
Marvin Tokayer and Mary Swartz, The Fugu Flan: The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews during World War //(New York: Paddington Press, 1979).
David Goodman and Masanori Myazawa, Jews in the Japanese Mind: The History and Uses of a Cultural Stereotype (New York: Free Press, 1995).
For this, he later received the Japanese “Order of the Rising Sun” from the Japanese Emperor and was the first foreigner to ever do so. Geoffrey Wigoder, Dictionary of Jewish Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 461.
An example of this is Hugo Burkhard who, after seven years’ imprisonment, was released in 1940 from Buchenwald so that he could immigrate to Shanghai. Hugo Burkhard, Tanz mal Jude! Meine Erlebnisse in den Konzentrationslagern Dachau, Buchenwald, Getto Shanghai 1933–1948, 2nd ed. (Nürnberg: Reichenbach, 1967), 141.
He translated the Protocols of the Elders ofZion into Japanese in 1936; in 1938, he observed the Nuremberg Rally, where he met with, among others, Alfred Rosenberg and Julius Streicher. Shiöden described himself as the “Streicher of Asia.” Louis W. Bondy, Racketeers of Hatred: Julius Streicher and the Jew-Baiters’ International (London: Newman Wolsey Limited, 1946), p. 245. After World War II Shiöden was denounced as a war criminal but not prosecuted.
Hadassah Ben-Itto relates in his book about the Protocols an anecdote told by Professor Ben-Ami Shillony—head of East Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of several groundbreaking books and essays on the Japanese-Jewish relationship. In 1978 some Japanese guests presented him with a bound copy of the Protocols as a well-meaning hospitality gift; the Japanese had read this book in preparation of their trip to Israel and “they were in awe of the Jews, because they had implemented the ambitious plan outlined in the book with so much success.” Hadassa Ben-Itto, Die Protokolle der Weisen vonZion. Anatomie einer Fälschung (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1998), 372.
See also: Ben Ami Shillony, The Jews and the Japanese. The Succesful Outsiders (Rutland, VT; Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1992).
The incompatibility of these stances in concreto remains in force even when one acknowledges both as branches of the same root. For comparisons to this problem, see: Frank Stern, Im Anfang war Auschwitz. Antisemitismus und Philosemitismus im deutschen Nachkrieg (Gerungen: Bleicher, 1991); and
Hanno Loewy, ed., Gerüchte über die Juden. Antisemitismus, Philosemitismus und aktuelle Verschwörungstheorien (Essen: Klartext, 2005).
Hillel Levine, In Search of Sugihara: The Elusive Japanese Diplomat Who Risked His Life to Rescue 10,000 Jews from the Holocaust (New York: Free Press, 1996). It may be worth noting that the present Emperor Akihito honored Sugihara specifically during his visit to Lithuania in May 2007, during which he and the Empress Mchiko visited a monument dedicated to the memory of Sugihara in Vilnius.
Yasuhiko Shima, “Emperor honors ‘Japan’s Schindler’,” in Asahi Shinbun (May 28, 2007). http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200705280065.html (retrievable March 5, 2013). This signifies a belated recognition by Japan of Sugihara and his efforts in Lithuania.
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Cho, J.M., Roberts, L.M., Spang, C.W. (2016). Japanese Ambivalence toward Jewish Exiles in Japan. In: Cho, J.M., Roberts, L.M., Spang, C.W. (eds) Transnational Encounters between Germany and Japan. Palgrave Series in Asian German Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137573971_9
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