Japanese and Jews in Shanghai

Abstract

Abstract The actions of the Japanese government and military before and during the Holocaust saved tens of thousands of Jews in Shanghai from murder by Japan’s Nazi allies. Because the Japanese were brutal aggressors in East Asia, because their treatment of the Chinese population was genocidal, because the details and organization of Japanese sexual abuse of Korean women are still matters of international dispute, approaches to the Japanese treatment of European Jewish refugees begin from a negative standpoint. Japanese authorities have not investigated or revealed these actions, and Japanese academics have only just begun to consider this issue worthy of study. Discussion of Japanese policy in Shanghai is often dominated by evidence of antisemitism in Japan, the creation of the Designated Area in 1943 to confine Jewish refugees, and the brutally officious behavior of Kanoh Ghoya. The issuance of life-saving visas by Chiune Sugihara, Japanese Vice-Consul in Kovno, is treated as exceptional humanitarianism. This study focuses on the decisions and behavior of Japanese authorities toward European Jewish refugees in Japan and in Shanghai which allowed them to survive.