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(More customer reviews)This interesting work sheds light on the obscure and often times hope inspiring story of the Jews who escaped from Eastern Europe and found their way to safety in Shanghai, Kobe and Harbin in Japan China and Japan. This is part history and part inspirational story, combining the stories of a large number of refugees into a number of long biographical sketches. The story is sweeping, from the ghettos of Lithuania as the storm clouds of Nazism blow across Europe, to a history of the Jews of the far east.
Probably the strongest part of the text, from a historical sense, is the history of far eastern Jewry and the Jewish settlements, however improbably, in Shanghai, China, Harbin in Manchuria and Kobe, Japan. In addition to Tientsin these were the major Jewish communities in Asia. Most of their residents were Russian Jews who had accepted Tsarist offers of freedom of religion to settle in Manchuria when the Russian owned Port Arthur, before 1905. The other communities were more diverse. As war gathered the Japanese high command and its `Jewish experts' embarked on a radical plan of settling Jews, who because of the `Protocols' were perceived as both the controllers of Communism and Capitalism, in Japanese imperial territory and thus enriching Japan through the assets and know how of the European Jews.
The story gets more complicated and has some problems in blending this with the stories of individual refugees and their reconstructed adventures and interactions. Nevertheless the story of the Japanese imperial obsession with Judaism and Japanese anti-Semitism is fascinating, as if the `Fugu plan' to resettle the Jews. There is much new material in this important text, including the Kogan papers and information about the saving of the Mir Yeshiva is fascinating. An important book to the history of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Seth J. Frantzman
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews During World War II
If someone who is rich and powerful comes to you for a favor, you don't persecute him – you help him. Having such a person indebted to you is a great insurance policy.There was one nation that did treat the Jews as if they were powerful and rich. The Japanese never had much exposure to Jews, and knew very little about them. In 1919 Japan fought alongside the anti-Semitic White Russians against the Communists. At that time the White Russians introduced the Japanese to the book, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."The Japanese studied the book and, according to all accounts, naively believed its propaganda. Their reaction was immediate and forceful – they formulated a plan to encourage Jewish settlement and investment into Manchuria. People with such wealth and power as the Jews possess, the Japanese determined, are exactly the type of people with whom we want to do business!The Japanese called their plan for Jewish settlement "The Fugu Plan." The "fugu" is a highly poisonous blowfish. After the toxin-containing organs are painstakingly removed, it is used as a food in Japan, and is considered an exquisite delicacy. If it is not prepared carefully, however, its poison can kill a person.The Japanese saw the Jews as a nation with highly valuable potential, but, as with the fugu, in order to take advantage of that potential, they had to be extremely careful. Otherwise, the Japanese thought, the plan would backfire and the Jews would annihilate Japan with their awesome power. The Japanese were allies of the Nazis, yet they allowed thousands of European refugees – including the entire Mirrer Yeshivah – to enter Shanghai and Kobe during World War II. They welcomed these Jews into their country, not because they bore any great love for the Jews, but because they believed that Jews had access to enormous resources and amazingly influential power, which could greatly benefit Japan. If anti-Semites truly believe that Jews rule the world, why don't they all relate to Jews like the Japanese did? The fact that Jews are generally treated as outcasts proves that people do not really believe that Jews are anywhere near as wealthy or powerful as they claim. It proves that anti-Semites do not take their own propaganda seriously.
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