Advocates of the Doomed: the refugee crisis of the 1930s in light of American and international refugee policy

Sugihara
Antisemitism was unheard of in Japan until the 1920s; Japan thought of the Jews as a variety of Christians. However, in the 1920s troops from Japan's Siberian Expedition (1918–22) brought back negative stories and images of Jews they had gleaned from antisemitic White Russians, connecting Jews with the Bolshevik Revolution.

As World War II approached, Japan entered into an alliance with Nazi Germany, and German antisemitic pamphlets were translated into Japanese. Yet antisemitism did not take root or affect the Jewish community in Japan. Some refugees from Nazi Germany and Russia came to Japan in the early 1940s, but they did not remain for long. For example, in 1941 members of the Lithuanian Mir Yeshiva lived safely in Japan until they were transferred to the International Settlement at Shanghai.

These refugees arrived as part of the Fugu Plan, a program arranged by the Japanese that encouraged European Jews to settle in Japan's Manchurian puppet state called Manchukuo. Thousands of Jews were saved when Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese emissary in Lithuania, issued them visas. Only when the Japanese occupied Shanghai did they feel compelled to gather its approximately 50,000 Jewish residents into internment camps for the duration of the war. The Jews living in Japanese cities remained safe.

Karesh, Sara E., and Mitchell M. Hurvitz. "Jews in Japan." Encyclopedia of World Religions: Encyclopedia of Judaism, Sara E. Karesh, Facts On File, 2nd edition, 2016. Credo Reference, https://ric.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/fofjudaism/jews_in_japan/0?institutionId=4947 .

In search of Sugihara: the elusive Japanese diplomat who risked his life to rescue

10,000 Jews from the Holocaust

Author: Hillel Levine (Mazal Holocaust Collection) New York, N.Y.: Free Press, 1996, https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/35718566 D804.66.S84 L48 1996

This is the story of Chiune Sugihara, a diplomat and spy who saved as many as 10,000 Jews from deportation to concentration camps and almost certain death. Because of his extreme modesty, Sugihara's tremendous act of moral courage is only now beginning to become widely known. Unlike Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat whose government sent him to Hungary with the express purpose of saving Jews, and Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who at least initially had a vested economic interest in protecting the lives of "his Jews," Sugihara had no apparent reason to perform his acts of rescue. Indeed, he acted in direct violation of official Japanese policy, which directed all government and military personnel to cooperate with the murderous policies of their Nazi allies. Examining Sugihara's education and background - a background shared with the colonial administrators and military men who committed "the rape of Nanjing"--Author.

The fugu plan: the untold story of the Japanese and the Jews during World War II 

Authors: Marvin Tokayer and Mary Swartz (Mazal Holocaust Collection) New York: Paddington Press https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/4495052  DS135.C5 T64

“This book discusses the Fugu Plan, a plan virtually unheard of when this book (first appeared) in 1979. That short-lived plan was personified by Chiune Sugihara. From November 1939 to September 1940, Sugihara was officially the Japanese consul in Kovno (or 'Kaunas'), Lithuania. In reality, Sugihara had been sent to Kovno to gather intelligence about Soviet and German troop movements in the area. Because he was there, however, and because of who he was, Sugihara became one of the crucial players in the fugu plan--a scheme that, by the war's end, would save the lives of thousands of Jews, as well as the entire Mir Yeshiva, whose scholars would survive to inspire a new era of Jewish learning in the U.S. and Israel.” Publisher’s Summary

Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness

Kirk, Robert, et al., directors. WGBH Boston Video, 2005. https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/60779186  D804.66.S84 S85 2005 DVD

This documentary tells the story of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, consul to Lithuania during World War II. Sugihara defied Tokyo authorities and wrote transit visas that allowed hundreds of Jewish families to flee Europe through Russia to Japan and other countries. Includes home movies, photographs, film footage, and interviews with Holocaust survivors who owe their lives to Chiune Sugihara.

Biography: 

According to the armistice agreement signed after the fall of France in June 1940, France was obligated to turn over to the Germans all persons on the Gestapo’s wanted list - a large number of whom were Jewish intellectuals. The refugees from Germany who had sought shelter in France were once again under German control, and the danger to their person was grave. An aid organization – the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC) – was established in New York with the purpose of helping intellectuals and renowned figures stranded in France, who were in danger of being arrested and turned over to the Germans because of their anti-Nazi stand. With the intervention of the United States President's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, the U.S. State Department, agreed to make an exception to its otherwise restrictive visa policy, and to provide entry visas to a limited number of two hundred refugees. Varian Fry, a classisit by education who worked in New York as an editor for the Foreign Policy Association, was sent by the Emergency Rescue Committee to France. His job was to reach Marseilles, where many of these refugees were staying, and to find a way to get them out. He had a list of two hundred names of those eligible for visas, and a sum of $3,000 on his person. 

Without American consular help or visas, Fry acted independently, and often illegally, interviewing 60+ people a day and finding ways to smuggle out those in immediate danger of transport to concentration camps.  Though at first done secretly, the work of Fry and his “volunteers” increased to such dimensions that Fry was eventually arrested by the French police and ordered immediately deported across the Spanish border.

Recalling his departure, Fry noted ”….innumerable images crowded my mind. I thought of the faces of the thousand refugees I had sent out of France, and the faces of a thousand more I had had to leave behind”. According to Fry’s estimate his office dealt with some 15,000 cases by May 1941. Of these, assistance was provided to approximately 4,000 people; 1,000 out of them were smuggled from France in various ways. Among the Jews Fry helped to smuggle out of France were a number of well-known figures, such as Hanna Arendt, Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Siegfried Kracauer, Franz Werfel, Lion Feuchtwanger and many others.

After his forced return to the United States Varian Fry was put under the surveillance of the FBI. For the rest of his life he was avoided by his former colleagues and friends and until his premature death in 1967 at age 59, he made a living as a Latin teacher in a boys' school. Shortly before his death, the French government awarded him with the Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur. In 1994 he was awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Varian Fry’s son planted a tree in his honor at Yad Vashem in 1996. The ceremony was attended by US State Secretary Warren Christopher, who on that occasion apologized for the State Department's abusive treatment during the war years.

The link to the full biography is here. 

A Quiet American: the secret war of Varian Fry

Authors: Andy Marino, Print Book 19991st ed., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/41035405 

D 809 U5 M37 1999

Varian Fry, an American war correspondent, set up a secret refuge escape system in Marseilles to get leading artists and intellectuals out of occupied France.

A Hero of our own: the story of Varian Fry

Authors Sheila Isenberg, New York: Random House, ©2001. https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/45963116 D804.66.F79 I84 2001

"How one American in Marseille saved Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Andre Breton, Hannah Arendt, and more than a thousand others from the Nazis."--Jacket.

Biography

Raoul Wallenberg, (b.1912) a Swedish diplomat, volunteered to serve at the Swedish Legation in Budapest, and saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews during 1944-1945. After the occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944, the Swedish Legation launched a rescue operation to save Jews from being deported to death camps. When Wallenberg arrived in the Hungarian capital on July 9, 1944 to serve as the new legation attaché, provisional passports had been already issued by the legation to Hungarian Jews who had family ties or commercial connections with Sweden. Wallenberg operated fearlessly, developing the rescue operation and took serious risks in order to issue Swedish passports and protective letters to Jews who were otherwise doomed to deportation. This danger was imminent after October 15, 1944, when the fascist Arrow Cross party seized power. Filled with confidence, Wallenberg was able to offer thousands of Jews protection against the Germans and the Hungarian fascist police. During the dark days of horror and death, Wallenberg manifested himself as an angel of hope, issuing in three months thousands of protective letters to persecuted Jews. When Adolf Eichmann organized the death marches of thousands of Jews from Budapest to the Austrian border, Wallenberg pursued the convoys in his car and managed to release hundreds of Jews to whom protective letters were granted. He also released Jews whose names were on lists for forced labor as well as being responsible for renting and maintaining special hostels accommodating Jews in 31 “Swedish Houses.”

Protection was granted by the Swedish Embassy, other diplomatic missions and international organizations. When the Red Army entered Budapest, Wallenberg was taken away by the Soviets on January 17, 1945, and then he disappeared. In the first years after his disappearance, the Soviets claimed that they had no knowledge of a person named Wallenberg. Nevertheless, people who were incarcerated in Soviet prisons claimed that they had met him in various prisons. In 1956, the Soviets finally claimed that he had died in prison in 1947. Since his disappearance, public committees throughout the world have tried to find out what happened to Raoul Wallenberg. After the war, memorial institutions and streets were named after him, films produced, and books and articles have been published about Wallenberg and his contribution to the rescue of Hungarian Jewry. In recognition of Wallenberg’s legendary work, the United States Congress awarded him honorary American citizenship. On November 26, 1963, Yad Vashem recognized Raoul Wallenberg as Righteous Among the Nations.

The link to his biography can be found here.

With Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Memories of the war years in Hungary

Authors Per Anger 1913-2002. Elie Wiesel 1928-2016,(Writer of preface)

New York: Holocaust Library, 1981.  https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/7456136  DL870.A64 A3513

“Never has a man succeeded in modern times to save that many people in such a short time as Raoul Wallenberg did.” -Per Anger

Per Anger worked side-by-side with Raoul Wallenberg to save Jews in Budapest from the Holocaust. In 1944 and early 1945, he assisted Wallenberg, witnessing his extraordinary actions first-hand. After the Soviet Army seized Wallenberg in January 1945, Anger dedicated much of his life to discovering what happened to his colleague and friend.

By the time Raoul Wallenberg arrived on his mission in July 1944, Per Anger and his small staff at the Swedish embassy in Budapest had already saved 700 Jewish lives. Anger had been asked for help by a Hungarian Jewish businessman, Hugo Wohl, when he and his family were facing deportation to death camps. Diplomats from Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal were distributing passports, emigration documents and other papers to protect Jews under the threat of death. Anger recalled desperately thinking that something more needed to be done. He fabricated invalid but official-looking Swedish passports to grant Wohl and other Jews immunity from deportation. When Wallenberg arrived at the embassy, remembers Anger, “he looked at my visas and said, ‘Good, but I can do it better.’” Together Wallenberg and Anger designed the Schutz-Pass, a more elaborate and official-looking version of Anger’s documents.

Anger helped Wallenberg use American funds to buy buildings to shelter Jews who held the forged documents that Wallenberg and his network were distributing across the city, and to place these crowded structures, as property owned by the Swedish embassy, under diplomatic privilege and protection of the Swedish government. Anger recalled Wallenberg’s frequent trips to the railway station to save people being loaded onto trains for deportation to death camps. He accompanied Wallenberg on rescue missions to intercept death marches across the Hungarian-Austrian border. “He always found a solution, and invented a new way of saving people.” He would say to startled Jews on their way to Auschwitz, “Oh, you remember—the Hungarians confiscated your passports,” related Anger. “They ‘remembered’, and we took fifty people away.”

In Sweden after the war, Anger became head of a special commission to look into the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg. He resigned in 1951, frustrated by the lack of cooperation from the Swedish government to aggressively pursue the question of Wallenberg’s fate in Soviet hands. For the rest of his career Anger pursued any leads that came up. In 1979, when he retired after forty years of distinguished diplomatic service to Sweden, he devoted all his efforts to discovering the truth behind Wallenberg’s disappearance. He wrote a memoir, With Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Memories of the War Years in Hungary (Holocaust Library: 1996)

In 1982, Per Anger was honored as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, for risks he took saving the lives of the Jews of Budapest. He was awarded honorary Israeli citizenship in 2000, and in 2004 Sweden established the Per Anger Prize to promote initiatives supporting human rights and democracy. Per Anger died in August 2002 at the age of 88.

Published April 10, 1995, By Wallenberg Committee (University of Michigan) https://wallenberg.umich.edu/medal-recipients/1995-per-anger/ 

Saved to remember: Raoul Wallenberg, Budapest 1944 and after

Authors F J E Vajda (Frank J. E.), (Author) Clayton, Victoria, Australia: Monash University Publishing, 2016 Adams eBook https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/978276777

Vajda pays tribute to those who did not survive, including his father, and to those who did their best to save them, amongst whom the name of Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat, shines most brightly. Saved to Remember is also an account of Vajda’s ongoing campaign to publicly recognise and honour those, particularly Wallenberg, who risked their own lives in the attempt to save Jewish lives.

At a time when the memory of this period of Hungarian history is increasingly contested, Frank Vajda’s memoir is important both for what it reveals of what happened and for what it says of how these events should be remembered.

Lost Hero: The Mystery of Raoul Wallenberg

Authors Frederick E Werbell; Thurston Clarke NewYork: McGraw-Hill, 1982. https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/7733683 D809.S8 W328

Wallenberg's life was an enigma. His fate of one of the great unsolved mysteries of World War II. He was a handsome, aristocratic young diplomat from neutral Sweden, educated in the United States, who saved 30,000 Jews from the jaws of the Nazi death machine - only to disappear, at the war's end, into the silent hell of Soviet Prison.

Proclaiming Raoul Wallenberg to be an honorary citizen of the United States

Authors: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1981. https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/797892816 Adams eDocument

US citizenship is an honor that has been conferred on only one other foreign person - Winston Churchill

Searching for Wallenberg

Authors Bernard Hammelburg New York, NY : Filmakers Library, 2002.  Adams eVideo https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/767806007

Both an historical documentary and a revealing investigation, this film contains newly discovered archival material and exclusive interviews with witnesses from the former U.S.S.R. who claim to have seen Wallenberg in the Soviet Gulag years after the Soviets officially declared him dead. Produced in association with The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States. Just before the liberation of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army, in 1945, Wallenberg disappeared. Arrested as a suspected spy, Wallenberg became one of the first victims of the Cold War and Stalin's paranoia. He was taken to the notorious Lubianka prison in Moscow, where he spent most of the next two and a half years. On July 17, 1947, in what became one of the biggest mysteries of the twentieth century, he vanished. Over the past half-century, the efforts of his powerful family and the Swedish and American governments failed to produce satisfactory answers to their queries about Wallenberg's fate. Searching for Wallenberg tells the legendary story of Raoul Wallenberg, who as a Swedish diplomat in Budapest in 1944, saved tens of thousands of Jews from Nazi deportations and certain death. He accomplished this through intimidation, manipulation and sheer courage.

Letters and dispatches, 1924-1944

Authors Raoul Wallenberg 1912-1947; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

New York: Arcade Pub., 1995 https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/31009814 D809.S8 W32 1995

One of the most remarkable and stirring episodes of World War II involved a young Swede from a distinguished banking family named Raoul Wallenberg. Wallenberg had watched the progress of the war and the treatment of the Jews from his neutral country with growing horror and the burning ambition to do something. When in June of 1944 he was approached to oversee a rescue operation of Hungarian Jews being deported to the death camps by Adolf Eichmann, he accepted this clearly perilous and probably hopeless mission without hesitation. Hurriedly accorded diplomatic status by his own government, Wallenberg arrived in Budapest in early July of 1944. By the time of his arrest by the Soviet army on January 17, 1945, roughly six months later, he had helped to save the lives of over 30,000 people. Gathering together several elements of Wallenberg's written record, Letters and Dispatches, 1924-1944 marks the fiftieth anniversary of his tragic and still mysterious disappearance and offers some answers.

The Danish nation

Spectacular rescues by mass resistance also occurred, as for example, the rescue of 7,000 Danish Jews in October 1943. The combination of a mass resistance, the proximity of receptive neutral Sweden, advance warnings of Nazi deportations, and identification with the persecutees by a whole nation made this episode almost unique.  https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/righteous-gentiles-and-holocaust-rescuers/  

Denmark was the only occupied country that actively resisted the Nazi regime's attempts to deport its Jewish citizens. On September 28, 1943, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German diplomat, secretly informed the Danish resistance that the Nazis were planning to deport the Danish Jews. The Danes responded quickly, organizing a nationwide effort to smuggle the Jews by sea to neutral Sweden. Warned of the German plans, Jews began to leave Copenhagen, where most of the almost 8,000 Jews in Denmark lived, and other cities, by train, car, and on foot. With the help of the Danish people, they found hiding places in homes, hospitals, and churches. Within a few weeks, fishermen helped ferry some 7,200 Danish Jews and 680 non-Jewish family members to safety across the narrow body of water separating Denmark from Sweden.

The Danish rescue effort was unique because it was nationwide. It was not completely successful, however. Almost 500 Danish Jews were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia. Yet even of these Jews, all but 51 survived the Holocaust, largely because Danish officials pressured the Germans with their concerns for the well-being of those who had been deported.

Compared to other nations that came under Nazi Germany’s control, Denmark enjoyed several advantages that helped make the rescue of its Jewish population possible. It was only lightly occupied and, until August 29, 1943, had a largely independent government that had not adopted antisemitic measures, such as marking Jews. Copenhagen, where Denmark’s small Jewish population was concentrated, is less than twenty miles from Sweden, which, as the roundups began, announced it would admit them. In addition, the German military and even most Nazi officials in Denmark made little effort to prevent Jews from escaping. The situation was very different in countries like the Netherlands and Poland that had much larger Jewish populations and that came under total occupation and direct rule by Germany. There, the possibilities for rescue were far smaller and the risks far greater. Nevertheless, without the Danes’ widespread support for Jews and active resistance to Nazi policies, few if any Jews would have survived the Holocaust in Denmark.  https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/rescue-in-denmark

The Rescue of the Danish Jews: moral courage under Stress

Authors Leo Goldberger (Mazal Holocaust Collection) New York: New York University Press, 1987. https://ric.on.worldcat.org/oclc/15629940

A distinguished group of internationally known individuals, Jews and non-Jews, rescuers and rescued, offer their enriching first-person accounts and reflections that explore the question: Why did the Danes risk their lives to rescue the Jewish population? Source: Publisher