The Jewish man who survived World War II in Axis-era Japan

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ ^ | 6/30/18 | BEN SALES

[BBell]

I've read before about Germany trying to pressure Japan to give up the Jews they had and the Japanese respectfully declining this request. It's nice that his parents had the sense to get out of Berlin in 1926 instead of staying behind living in denial.

The Shapiro family in Yokohama, 1941 (Courtesy)

[dfwgator]

Japan also denied handing over Shanghai’s Jews to the Nazis when they occupied it.

[MUDDOG]

Isaac Shapiro’s best friend was a member of the Hitler Youth.

One of the best mathematicians of the 20th century was in the Sturmabteilung (SA), Ernst Witt.

After the war when he was visiting at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a Russian mathematician told him how much he liked one of Witt's theorems.

Witt said, "I came up with that in Russia."

The Russian said, "How interesting! When were you in Russia?"

Witt said, "When I was in the Wehrmacht."

The Russian turned around and walked out.

[BBell]

I looked up Ernst Witt.

From 1937 until 1979, he taught at the University of Hamburg. He died in Hamburg in 1991, shortly after his 80th birthday.

You can take that with a grain of wiki.

[BBell]

The Man in The High Castle.

The Japanese used threats of being deported to the NAZIS to keep the Jews in line.

[MUDDOG]

The German wikipedia entry for Witt has a long discussion of his SA membership, but not the anecdote about the encounter with the Russian mathematician.

Ernst Witt

There are English bios out there, which is where I read the Russian anecdote. I believe it.

[laplata]

Thanks for sharing that story.

[MUDDOG]

Witt’s thesis adviser was Jewish, Emmy Noether, although by the time he submitted his thesis, she had been fired for being Jewish, so he had to have a non-Jew as his official thesis adviser.

Like the guy in the article in this thread, Witt wore his SA brownshirt uniform to school.

[BBell]

All of that is conveniently omitted from the English language wiki.

[Albion Wilde]

ping!

[Albion Wilde]

There is one aspect of this fascinating story that I wish the author had made more clear: that of language.

• He says the parents were "both Russian Jewish musicians, [who] met and married in Berlin."

• Further, the father "played a role in helping Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who saved thousands of Lithuanian Jews. When some of those Jews reached Japan in 1941... Shapiro’s father would translate for them at the American consulate in Yokohama."

• And finally, the son who is the protagonist of this story was fluent enough in English at age 14 to sign on with the Americans as a post-war translator.

Were the parents natural polygots, speaking Russian, German, Japanese, Lithuanian, Hebrew, Yiddish and English? Were they American Jews who learned English in their youth before traveling to Berlin and Japan, and who spoke it at home to their American-looking children? Had they relied on Yiddish in Germany, since they were probably with other Jewish musicians?

We can assume the family also learned Japanese while living there a long time, but when the father translated for the Lithuanian Jews, was it from Lithuanian to Japanese, or from Yiddish or Hebrew to Japanese? Or to English, since they were in the American consulate?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Doubtless the father and the son were fluent in more than one language, but how many?

[laplata]

Interesting stuff. Depending on the circumstances, the Jews were denied recognition for so many things.

[MUDDOG]

They were denied full participation in society until recently (historically speaking), and moreover, they were actively persecuted.

It’s amazing that they even survived, and excel when they had the chance.

I think about it a lot and what it means for how social conditions go toward making both individuals and groups.

[BBell]

I guess you will have to buy the book.

I can assume the Jews were speaking Yiddish as that is supposed to be an international common language amongst Jews, I guess like Latin was to Catholics. The article mentions he attended a British school until the US and Britain declared war on Japan so he probably learned English there. Just assumptions.

[Nifster]

Here is an accurate and in depth biography

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Witt.html

[Nifster]

Maybe maybe not. It is a good story at any rate

Here is a long biography of Witt

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Witt.html

[Nifster]

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Witt.html

[Mears]

And this Japanese official in Lithuania helped many Jews escape.

A remarkable story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara

.

.

[MUDDOG]

That’s where I read it! Couldn’t find the link earlier today.

[jjotto]

http://www.chinajewish.org/SJC/Jhistory.htm

... From 1938 on, some 20,000 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria escaped to Shanghai, the only place in the world that did not require a visa to enter. Among them was Michael Blumenthal, who later became U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in the Carter Administration, and the late Shaul Eisenberg, who founded and ran the Eisenberg Group of Compalnies in Israel.

Between 1939 and 1940, approximately 2,000 Polish Jews escaped to Shanghai, avoiding certain death. Among these, all the teachers and students of the Mir Yeshiva, some 400 in number, miraculously survived...