Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

Discussions on the Holocaust and 20th Century War Crimes. Note that Holocaust denial is not allowed. Hosted by David Thompson.
LAstry2
Member
Posts: 215
Joined: 02 May 2022, 13:14
Location: USA

Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#1

Post by LAstry2 » 21 Aug 2022, 18:31


User avatar
Max
Member
Posts: 2632
Joined: 16 Mar 2002, 15:08
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#2

Post by Max » 22 Aug 2022, 01:35

OK
Kaufman was a Jew, but
: ^^Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia! ^^ is a bit of a stretch.
Are you sugesting that he was executed becase he was a Jew?
Even then ...
Holocaust????
Greetings from the Wide Brown.


LAstry2
Member
Posts: 215
Joined: 02 May 2022, 13:14
Location: USA

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#3

Post by LAstry2 » 22 Aug 2022, 17:56

Im remarking that japan as a ally of germany and italy became an accessory to the Shoah....(there was even a Jewish Ghetto in Shanghai China for jewish refugees from europe) ,,as for Kaufman he did techanically died in Shoah although he was killed because he was a POW and Not because of his religion {Jewish Allied POWS in Europe were of course subject to everything from slave labor in KZ camps to executions)

User avatar
wm
Member
Posts: 8753
Joined: 29 Dec 2006, 21:11
Location: Poland

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#4

Post by wm » 22 Aug 2022, 18:24

The was no Holocaust in Asia.
The Jews were interned, as most Europeans, because they were enemy aliens or were suspected of supporting the Allies.

User avatar
Waleed Y. Majeed
Member
Posts: 4145
Joined: 13 Nov 2004, 12:37
Location: Aarhus, Denmark

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#5

Post by Waleed Y. Majeed » 22 Aug 2022, 19:24

And “western” allied troops/pows were not executed in Europe on the grounds of religion. And as far as I know the Japanese were not antisemitic during WW2.

Waleed

User avatar
wm
Member
Posts: 8753
Joined: 29 Dec 2006, 21:11
Location: Poland

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#6

Post by wm » 22 Aug 2022, 19:49

Of course, even the Polish soldiers of Jewish origin from 1939 were safe in German camps.

User avatar
Harro
Member
Posts: 3233
Joined: 19 May 2005, 19:10
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#7

Post by Harro » 23 Aug 2022, 07:33

wm wrote:
22 Aug 2022, 19:49
Of course, even the Polish soldiers of Jewish origin from 1939 were safe in German camps.
Source?

gebhk
Member
Posts: 2623
Joined: 25 Feb 2013, 21:23

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#8

Post by gebhk » 23 Aug 2022, 12:05

Hi Waleed

The flaw in the argument that
“western” allied troops/pows were not executed in Europe on the grounds of religion.
is that the Nazis murdered Jews on the grounds of ethnicity not religion. And I think you will find a lot of evidence that, for example, colonial troops taken prisoner in 1940 were far more likely to be murdered out of hand than white ones. Off course the Germans responded murderously whenever they met strong opposition and, at least if the accounts of a number of Polish participants are anything to go by, the colonial troops could be relied on to put on a better 'show' than most of their Metropolitan counterparts. Which brings me to my main point, which is that that the vain attempt to explain away a hugely complex multifactorial phenomenon like the murder of POWs with a single-factor explanation is a useful ploy for demagogues and single-agenda politicians talking to the choir, but somewhat useless as a means of understanding the issue.

gebhk
Member
Posts: 2623
Joined: 25 Feb 2013, 21:23

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#9

Post by gebhk » 23 Aug 2022, 12:45

Hi WM
Of course, even the Polish soldiers of Jewish origin from 1939 were safe in German camps.
Literally true. In the spring of 1940, the 600-700 Polish officers defined as Jews by the Nuremberg Laws were registered and were sent to Stalag IIB (Hammerstein) with the intention of sending them 'home' (ie to the Ghettos). However, after a few weeks the German authorities changed their collective mind and the officers were sent back to their original Oflags, where they remained to the end of the war and, despite some selective ill-treatment (such as the creation of internal Ghettos in 4 Oflags, where conditions were worse; or the occassional deprivation of red cross parcels) they mostly survived the war. POWs were under the jurisdiction of the Wehrmacht and Himmler's repeated attempts to have the POW status of Polish officers with Jewish ethnicity revoked were rebuffed by the OKW.

However and, sadly, it is a big 'however', the circa 60K Polish-Jewish NCO/EM POWs were sent 'home' and shared the fate of their civilian fellows. Few survived.

So it is fair to say that if you were a Polish-Jewish soldier taken prisoner, if you were in the small minority that ended up in an Oflag you were relatively safe. Otherwise not in the least.

Hi Harro

Source = Wirtualny Sztetl (https://sztetl.org.pl › slownik › zydzi-polscy-w-oflagach)

gebhk
Member
Posts: 2623
Joined: 25 Feb 2013, 21:23

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#10

Post by gebhk » 23 Aug 2022, 16:44

Hi Waleed
And as far as I know the Japanese were not antisemitic during WW2.
You are quite right, in the main. Of course Japan had and has its share of conspiracy nuts who subscribed to the 'Jewish international conspiracy' theory, like everywhere else (in fact, oddly, there seems to be more of them now in Japan than there were during WW2), but there is little or nothing to suggest there was popular and/or government-sponsored anti-semitism in Japan during WW2 or the run-up to it. The Shanghai Ghetto came into being because the Japanese authorities allowed themselves to be persuaded by the Germans, in particular the mission of one Josef Meisinger, that the post-1937 emigration to Shanghai from Europe (most of whom were Jews) posed a security threat - not entirely a baseless accusation, since some Jews did participate in the resistance movement. The reason this argument was used, it is suggested, was precisely because the Germans knew the Japanese were not anti-Jewish and that therefore the usual claptrap wouldn't work. Be that as it may, the fact is that the Hankou District of Shanghai and, more widely, Japanese-occupied China and Japan itself provided a safe haven for many thousands of European Jews, which cannot be said for pretty much the rest of the world at this time. The Japanese authorities, politely but firmly, refused to hand over Jewish refugees to the Germans despite several of requests. Many of these refugees arrived on transit visas signed by Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese vice-consul in Lithuania and most of the circa 20K Jews in Shanghai survived the war.

Thus the idea that the death of Wallace Kaufman was somehow part of the Shoah seems somewhat preposterous, but that's just my opinion. If we accept that, then we must logically accept that all the other hundreds of allied pilots killed by the Japanese under the auspices of the 'Enemy Airman's Act' and, perhaps, even random acts of murderousness, regardless of ethnicity, were killed in the Shoah. Sorry but, for me, that is a step too far.
Last edited by gebhk on 24 Aug 2022, 08:32, edited 3 times in total.

User avatar
wm
Member
Posts: 8753
Joined: 29 Dec 2006, 21:11
Location: Poland

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#11

Post by wm » 23 Aug 2022, 18:20

gebhk wrote:
23 Aug 2022, 12:45
However and, sadly, it is a big 'however', the circa 60K Polish-Jewish NCO/EM POWs were sent 'home' and shared the fate of their civilian fellows. Few survived.
Although after their release, they weren't POWs or soldiers anymore.
They were sent home (and the Polish soldiers sent to work) because the Germans believed the Jews were bad workers.
This and (the other one - that Jews weren't rounded up for slave work in Germany) created lots of bad blood in occupied Poland.

michael mills
Member
Posts: 8999
Joined: 11 Mar 2002, 13:42
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#12

Post by michael mills » 07 Sep 2022, 02:58

Many of these refugees arrived on transit visas signed by Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese vice-consul in Lithuania
Only a minority. Most of the European Jewish refugees who arrived in Shanghai had not come from Lithuania, and for the most part they had left Europe before the outbreak of war. After their arrival in Shanghai they were assisted by the existing Jewish community of the city, which was part of the British colonial expatriate community and was mainly Asian origin, from Iraq or India.

There is a substantial and essentially false myth about Sugihara as the valiant rescuer of Jews from German clutches. The fact is that he issued visas in the period between the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in October 1939 and its annexation in August 1940, when all foreign consulates in Lithuania were closed down by the Soviet authorities. Sugihara himself left Lithuania in September 1940, ie some nine months before the German occupation of Lithuania, so he was in no way saving Jews from German persecution.

Furthermore, Sugihara's main aim in issuing visas was not to save Jews, but rather anti-Soviet Polish agents whom he had worked with before the war, and who were in real danger from the Soviet occupiers in a way that the Jews were not. The Jews to whom he issued visas were just an add-on; they were Jewish refugees from Poland who had found out he was issuing visas to Polish citizens and approached him on that basis.

It is important to realise that the Japanese regarded the Jews present in Shanghai simply as citizens of their respective places of origin. Thus Jews with British, French or US citizenship were regarded after December 1941 as enemy aliens and were interned as such. By contrast, Jews with German or Austrian citizenship were regarded as citizens of an ally of Japan, until Meisinger arrived and informed the Japanese authorities that Jews who emigrated from Germany or Austria had been stripped of their citizenship and were no longer under the protection of Germany, and in fact should be regarded as potential enemy agents. As a result, Jewish refugees from Germany were also interned along with those with citizenship of Japan's enemies.

gebhk
Member
Posts: 2623
Joined: 25 Feb 2013, 21:23

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#13

Post by gebhk » 07 Sep 2022, 20:43

Hi Michael

That is why I said 'many' rather than 'most' etc. I can't believe Sugihara believed that all the Jews he was issuing visas to were Polish agents (and Japanese-Polish intelligence cooperation is a strange tale in its own right) and I am sure that is not what you are saying, but regardless of the numbers (and these are still hotly debated, of course) he did provide a significant number of visas to Jews on a humanitarian basis. While, clearly, Polish agents' lives would not have been worth a bent nickel if their occupation became known to the Soviets, the outlook for many Jews in the new Soviet reality was not rosy either, given that they were over-represented in business and the professions. And while there is no discussion that bad as things were for many Jews under Soviet occupation, they became entirely awful for all Jews when the Germans took over. So while Sugihara, as you quite rightly say, was not ripping Jews from German clutches directly, as is often supposed, his action nevertheless saved a great many lives even if indirectly.

What you say regarding the internment of Jews in Shanghai I think is right on the money and I think the point is well made that it had nothing to do with anti-semitism. And calling the Restricted Sector in Shanghai a Ghetto also seems a stretch especially given that its original Chinese inhabitants, in the main it seems, never left.
Last edited by gebhk on 08 Sep 2022, 14:42, edited 1 time in total.

michael mills
Member
Posts: 8999
Joined: 11 Mar 2002, 13:42
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#14

Post by michael mills » 08 Sep 2022, 13:59

As I understand it, the Jews who approached Sugihara in Kaunas were members of a Hassidic sect, followers of a certain rabbi who had been based in the eastern part of Poland and had moved to Lithuania when their home area had been occupied by the Soviets in September 1939. It remains unknown why he agreed to issue visas to them as well as to the Polish agents who were his main concern, but it is implausible that he foresaw that they would become victims of a future German invasion

I think it unlikely that those Jews would have been in any danger from the Soviet occupiers of Lithuania. The Soviets targeted Jews who were politically active as members of organisations regarded as hostile to the Soviet Union, and deported many of them after the full takeover and annexation of Lithuania in July 1940, but otherwise they did not harm the Jewish population as such. Jews in business and the professions had their property confiscated and lost their independence, but were usually rehired as managers of their former businesses or as employed professionals, provided they were not overtly anti-Soviet.

Religious Jews, particularly the ultra-Orthodox such as members of the Hassidic sects, were regarded by the Soviet occupiers as backward and superstitious, but not as dangerous, so they were not particularly persecuted, they just had their schools and institutions closed down.

After the war, Sugihara was dismissed from the Japanese consular service, and he subsequently claimed that it was because he had defied the wartime Japanese Government's regulations in issuing visas to Jews. However, the real reason for his dismissal was his involvement in anti-Soviet activities before the war, which made him persona non-grata to the first wave of US occupation officials, who were drawn mainly from the Department of State and were mainly very pro-Soviet and targeted Japanese officials who had been involved in anti-Communist and anti-Soviet activities. It was only in 1947, after the start of the Cold War, that the "reverse purge" occurred, with the pro-Soviet US personnel being replaced by anti-Soviet ones, who reinstated many of the purged Japanese officials. For some reason Sugihara was not one of those reinstated, and it seems unclear why.

gebhk
Member
Posts: 2623
Joined: 25 Feb 2013, 21:23

Re: Jews died in Holocaust...in Asia!

#15

Post by gebhk » 08 Sep 2022, 15:15

I don't think Sugihara ever said that his motivation was to save Jews form the Germans - and indeed it would have been odd had he done so. Most clearly, I think, he said these people were desperate to leave, they were human beings whose plight he wanted to alleviate, so he made it happen. He also, I think, said 'there is nothing wrong with saving lives' but it is unclear whether this was post-hoc rationalisation or that he believed at the time that the recipients of his visas were at risk of their lives, from the Soviets presumably. While the history of Lithuania is well out of my wheelhouse, as I understand it, in the parts of Poland taken over by the USSR in 1939, Jewish Poles suffered a disproportionately greater level of repression than non-Jewish Poles. Given those antecedents and the recent events in the Soviet Union generally it is not unreasonable that the better- educated and therefore better-informed, which the Jews tended to be, often wanted out quite desperately. Be that as it may, we will never know because you can never know what is in peoples' hearts. I find it hard enough to understand my own motivation half the time!

Regarding why Sugihara was not reinstated - perhaps it was simply that he very publically broke protocol and ignored instructions: a transgression the Japanese establishment was unlikely to forget or forgive. But, again, we will probably never know for sure.

Post Reply

Return to “Holocaust & 20th Century War Crimes”