Hikawa Maru
In 1940–41, before Japan's entry to the Second World War, hundreds of Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution fled to Canada and the USA "via" Japan, and many of them sailed on "Hikawa Maru". In August 1940 a party of 82 German and Lithuanian Jews who had travelled "via" the USSR and Vladivostok reached Seattle on "Hikawa Maru". Later, Rabbi Zerach Warhaftig and his family travelled east from Lithuania to Japan. They left Yokohama on "Hikawa Maru" on 5 June 1941 and landed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on 17 June. He described the trip as "a summer vacation and with the war seeming to be so far away" although, he said "I didn't have a peaceful mind because of the strong responsibility I had to help the Jewish refugees with the troubles they faced."