Japanese diplomats and Jewish refugees
Subtitle: a World War II dilemma
By: Pamela Rotner Sakamoto.
Publisher: Praeger
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Westport, Conn
Language: eng
Number of pages: 188
Subjects: Sugihara, Chiune, 1900-1986; Jews -- Japan -- History -- 20th century; Refugees, Jewish -- Japan; World War, 1939-1945 -- Jews -- Rescue -- Japan; Righteous Gentiles in the Holocaust -- Japan -- Biography; Japan -- Ethnic relations
Description: In the late 1930s and early 1940s, European Jews traveled east to seek refuge in the West. Three thousand refugees transited Japan and China, and more than 21,000 spent the war in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. Japanese diplomats in Europe were caught off guard by the flood of visa applicants, and the Foreign Ministry belatedly confronted a refugee problem. Unexpected visitors became uninvited guests.

Vice Consul Sugihara Chiune might have faded into history as a minor diplomat in Lithuania had he not issued thousands of transit visas to refugees, including those who fulfilled few visa requirements. Sakamoto demonstrates how he helped thousands escape Europe; in the end, as she points out, a number of Japanese diplomats saved Jews by issuing visas, but very few issued visas to save jews.
Notes: Includes bibliography (p. [171]-182) and index.