Fugu Plan

The '''''' was a scheme created in the 1930s in centered around the idea of settling Jewish refugees escaping Nazi-occupied Europe in Japan's territories on the Asian mainland to Japan's benefit. The Plan was first discussed in 1934, and solidified in 1938 at the Five Ministers' Conference, but the signing of the Tripartite Pact in 1941, along with a number of other events, prevented its full implementation.

The plotters believed that the Jews could be quite beneficial to Japan, but also quite dangerous. Therefore, the plan was named after the Japanese delicacy "fugu", a puffer-fish whose poison can kill if the dish is not prepared exactly correctly.

The Plan

At its core, the Fugu Plan was a scheme to convince thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Jews to settle in the puppet state of Manchukuo or possibly Japan-occupied Shanghai, thus gaining not only the benefit of the supposed economic prowess of the Jews but also convincing the United States, specifically , to grant their political favor and economic investment in Japan. The plan was partly based on a naive acceptance of European anti-Semitic mythology, as found for example in ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion''., but the American Jewish organizations insisted on stalwartly showing their patriotism, and giving no hint of treasonous activity.

In 1942 the Japanese government officially rescinded the decision of the Five Ministers' Conference, fully and officially removing their already near-nonexistent support for the near-extinct Fugu Plan. Nazi Colonel Josef Meisinger, chief of the Gestapo arrived in Shanghai. He attempted to convince the local Japanese authorities to "exterminate" the Jewish refugees, or to put them to work in salt mines; in short, he brought and Final Solution to Asia. The national government in Tokyo would not stand for this, and Meisinger's plans were reduced to simply the creation of what came to be known as the Shanghai ghetto: Jews in Shanghai were now forced to live in a "Designated Area for Stateless Refugees" on February 18, 1943. Jews were permitted to leave the one-square-mile area in Hongkew district, but only after procuring a pass from the Japanese official who overlooked the area. By the end of the war most of the Jews were starving. The ghetto was bombed just months before the end of the war, by planes seeking to destroy a radio transmitter within the city.

Importance

The Fugu Plan, as envisioned by Yasue, Inuzuka, and others, had failed. Those Jews who did find their way to Japan, and to Japanese-controlled China, were not brought over in especially large numbers; far fewer made the trip than had applied for visas. The Jews were not helped in any large-scale or particularly official or organized way by the national government in Tokyo. And perhaps most disappointingly for the planners, those Jews who did settle in Kobe, and then in Shanghai did next to nothing to revive or bolster the Japanese economy. These refugees who had come to Japan with literally nothing but the clothes on their back were not the wealthy and philanthropic American bankers and corporate leaders Yasue and Inuzuka had heard of, nor did they have the ability to elicit favor or aid for Japan from these men. Nevertheless, several thousand Jews were rescued from almost certain death in Nazi Europe by the policies surrounding Japan's temporary pro-Jewish attitude, and Chiune Sugihara was bestowed the honor of the Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government in 1985. In addition, the , one of the largest centers of rabbinical study today, and the only European yeshiva to survive the Holocaust, survived as a result of these events.