Japanese Ambivalence toward Jewish Exiles in Japan

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.