Avram Chesno, leaning back against the cabin structure, alternately watched the approaching coast and the increasing excitement of his fellow passengers. His nerves, too, were on fire. Chesno knew little of Japan, but he did know something about the current political situation. The Axis agreement, the Tripartite Pact, was not a mere piece of paper. Japan had bought Hitler's line. And wasn't it true that "the enemy of my friend is also my enemy"? What was to prevent the Japanese from simply shooting them, one by one, as they stepped off the ship? They had paid all the fees; none of them had money to give the Japanese. Who would even find out? Who after all, was for Jews these days?
There was no logical pattern from which to reason. Just because the Japanese had been so accommodating up to now did not mean that they might not abruptly turn the tables. The ship slowed as it neared its landing point. The passengers, their trance broken, rushed about gathering together their meager belongings in preparation for disembarking.
With a creaking thump the ship nudged up against the dock and stopped. The refugees were breathless, motionless with anticipation. Only their eyes moved, darting everywhere, seeking hints as to what kind of welcome Japan had prepared for them. A handful of Japanese officials appeared, walking slowly in step from a wharfside shed toward the ship. The officials were in uniform and they were armed. But scarcely had they set foot on the dock than a well-fed European, well dressed in civilian clothes, dashed out of the same building and overtook them. Collectively, the refugees held their breath. A few words passed between the European and the Japanese - words impossible to hear from the ship. Suddenly, the Japanese broke into smiles. Bowing slightly, they gestured the European to proceed as he wished ahead of them. Within seconds, the European was aboard the Harbin Maru, greeting the passengers with a "good morning" and a "welcome to Japan" and "please listen to the following immigration procedures ..." - all in familiar Yiddish!
The refugees exploded with relief. They were safe! This sparkling bright land was more than beautiful. It was beautiful in a way they had feared they might never experience again. Japan was open to them. There would be no firing squad. And to top it all off, the rumors they had discounted - that there were actually Jews in Japan - had been true.
The European's name was Alex Triguboff. He, and two others waiting in the customs shed, would act as interpreters and help with any problems that arose. Then this afternoon, he explained, the refugees would go to the city of Kobe where clean beds and kosher food were waiting for them. The Jews looked at each other, looked at Triguboff, looked at the shore where the clean neat town of Tsuruga was spread out in the sunshine, and laughed. After six thousand miles and eighteen months of defeat and despair, here in this unknown country, they were welcomed.
Chesno was the first off the ship. The dock stretched out before him like a magic carpet. He shifted his sparsely filled suitcase to his left hand and started for shore, grinning to himself and to the world.
Much to Sophie's annoyance, Moishe was in no hurry to get off the ship. In spite of her encouragement he hung back, purposely it seemed, as if he wanted to be the last one processed through immigration. Such was exactly the case. If the line took long enough, Moishe was hoping, the ship would leave again for Vladivostok or wherever boats went from here. But it remained at the dock, stubbornly waiting to make sure there were no fools who had lost their visas and would have to be carried back to Russia. Well, he wasn't going back to Russia. But in the midst of the general excitement, he was miserable: he didn't know what he was going to do. Here, now, having disembarked at last, standing in the customs shed, he could see the folly even of thinking of running off into the countryside. But if they. . . .
"You're the last one, are you?"
Moishe looked up to see a smiling Alex Triguboff. He could not bring himself to return the joy.
"Are you feeling all right?" Triguboff asked. "There will be a doctor in Kobe if you're not."
As the man spoke, the person ahead of Moishe in line finished and a chasm of empty space opened up between him and the immigration desk. His best intentions failed, the words came out: "I don't know what to do. I lost my visa in Vladivostok . . ."
Sophie gasped: "Moishe! Oh, Moishe, how could you?" she began to cry.
Moishe could feel the curious stare of the immigration officer until Triguboff moved casually around, blocking him out of the officer's line of vision.
"Now, pull yourself together. You, stop crying. And you, don't start."
The very idea was enough to force Moishe to still his trembling lip instantly.
"This has happened before, you know," Triguboff added more gently. After a minute, he led them up to the immigration desk. Speaking in very basic Japanese, he explained the situation to the immigration official. Then he acted as interpreter.
"Where do you want to go to, from Japan?" the official asked.
"America," Moishe answered. Where he wanted to go was America, even though his visa had read "Curacao."
The official looked helplessly at Triguboff. Triguboff looked meaningfully at Moishe. Sophie, for once, caught on faster than her brother.
"Kurasow, Moishe. Kurasow," she whispered loud enough to be heard all over the pier.
"Curacao, I mean," he said quickly, nodding his head in nervous affirmation. "Definitely, Curacao."
Instantly, the official slapped the orange-red stamps on Moishe's documents. His instructions were clear - to permit entry to any of these people who had a visa to another country or had the phrase concerning Curacao in his passport. In all cases, his superior had informed him, consideration even to the extent of leniency was to be shown. "Leniency," the official decided, encompassed universal facts of life like young boys losing things. Besides, as he stated enthusiastically, "No visa to Curacao is required!"
"Kum gezundl," he added, handing Moishe and Sophie their passports. Though it was all the Yiddish he knew, he used it liberally among these poor people. It took so little to make them happy.
Bewildered, but relieved for the first time in four days, Moishe could say nothing but "Danke shein, danke shein!" Triguboff translated the thanks for the benefit of the other grinning Japanese officials and heard them recite the catchphrase that would welcome all the refugees who would follow them across the Sea of Japan. "Do not forget to tell your brothers in America how kind we are to you Jews!" Then he hurried both children off toward the waiting group.
In the forefront of the refugees, Avram Chesno walked slowly along the Tsuruga street, examining everything in as much detail as he could without appearing rudely inquisitive. That fellow on the ship hadn't been far wrong; even close up, the square wooden houses looked like chicken coops. The wide doors slid on tracks instead of opening on hinges. Most of the windows had paper panes rather than glass and many of them were fronted by narrow vertical wooden bars. The sewers were open, just cement ditches alongside the street, with little flat bridges crossing to the entrance of every house or shop.
Trudging away from the dock area, the group came to a narrow shopping street. Most of the shops were open to the street, with goods set out along the front. An old woman, bent over almost double, was sweeping the street with a short-handled broom, swirling up low clouds of dust in front of her flower shop. Avram smiled at a little boy in a fish store, and mortified, the small fellow immediately hid from sight behind a barrel brimming over with fish. A paper store, a cloth store, a tiny grocery store, a restaurant with strange foods set out in the window to whet your appetite. Avram's appetite needed little whetting, but the group kept moving.
Japan seemed so clean, especially after the stinking boat: clean, cloudless sky, clean street, clean shops, clean people. Glancing at his companions, he saw how unkempt the refugees looked. But also, he suddenly realized, how gigantic they were! The buildings were so tiny that these really rather average-height men were virtually at eye level with the eaves of the roofs! The group halted spontaneously at a fruit store - baskets of bright red apples, boxes of orange persimmons, t
he slightly flattened spheres of tangerines stacked five deep in little straw nets, and a strange curved yellow fruit no one had ever seen before. Triguboff bustled around his charges.
"Please don't stop here. Come. The same things are waiting for you on the train to Kobe. Please come. We don't want to miss the train. The yellow things? Banana . . . ba-na-na. Yes, very tasty, very good. Come now. . . ."
They went, turning right at the end of town, and came to an open railway station. It was 2 :o9 and far down the track a train was just coming into view.
Like the others, the Amshenover rebbe noted the approach of the train. He took Mr. Triguboff aside.
"What time does the sun set in Kobe?" he asked.
"At 5:23," Triguboff replied, already prepared for the question. Today was Friday: the twenty-five hour day of shabbos begins with the setting of the sun on Friday evening. No observant Jew - and the Amshenover rebbe was one of the most devoutly observant Jews in the world - would work, or buy or sell, or begin a journey or do many other things, from that moment till three stars had appeared in the Saturday night sky.
The rebbe thought only a second before firmly setting down his bundles, and declaring: "Today, we do not take this train. We will spend shabbos here and go to Kobe on Saturday night." Triguboff hastened to assure him. "Rebbe, you needn't worry about not being safely in Kobe by 5:23. Japanese trains are extremely punctual. We will arrive at 4:15, in plenty of time."
The old man had no experience with Japanese trains, but he had had a great deal of experience with Polish trains. They never went anywhere on time.
The previous shabbos he had spent on the Trans-Siberian train. But there had been no choice. It is axiomatic that one may forego Sabbath observance if it is a matter of life and death. Escaping from Europe surely was that. And traveling according to the TransSiberian schedule had been the only way to escape. But now the travel was no longer a question of life and death. The rebbe shook his head.
"We cannot begin our stay in this country by violating the Sabbath. It would be too much. We will wait here until Saturday night."
Seeing the rebbe refusing to board the train, the other refugees also remained on the platform.
Triguboff looked at the conductor who, in turn, was looking puzzled at the refugees. There were only four minutes till departure and the refugees looked as if they were determined to camp right here on the platform.
"Rebbe, I swear to you on my father's name, the train will arrive in Kobe at 4:15! By 5:23 everyone will be settled in clean houses, prepared to welcome in a peaceful and blessed Sabbath. Please get on board now. You must, really, or it will leave without us."
The rebbe was unmoved. He knew he couldn't trust any train to arrive promptly. And how could he trust the word of a man who didn't even keep his head covered?
The conductor blew his whistle.
"Rebbe, you see, it is 2:13. This train will definitely leave on time."
The rebbe looked at the big platform clock hanging overhead. It was indeed 2:13. He stroked his beard but held his ground.
"All right, if you want to stay all Friday night and Saturday here, on a freezing cold railway platform, if you want to subject your followers and fellows to another twenty-four hours of privation, that is your responsibility. I am going to get on this train, and in exactly two hours, I will step off the train in Kobe station and fifteen minutes later will be at the shul, waiting to greet the Sabbath. You and your fellows will be here, hungry, cold, tired. There is no hotel in Tsuruga and the people here speak only Japanese."
Triguboff boarded one of the three cars which had been added especially for the refugees. The conductor blew the warning whistle.
Chesno was distraught. He hadn't overheard the earlier parts of the conversation, but Triguboff's last words explained it all. Once even a casual observance of the Sabbath had been alien to him, but he had come this far with these people and would be living with them in Kobe for some time to come. He paced back and forth along the chilly platform, but made no move to board.
The rebbe looked at the clock. As the minute hand made its tiny mechanical hop to exactly 2:15, the train whistle sounded and the wheels began to move. It was cold. It would be colder. A shabbos of no food, no rest, no comfort did not fulfill the commandments of honoring the Sabbath with joy. With more hope in his heart than confidence, he stepped aboard the train as it inched forward.
As if suddenly released from an invisible force, the refugees raced for the train, jumping through the doors, scrambling through the windows, clinging to the railings as it slowly gathered momentum. By the time the final car had passed the end of the platform, even the slowest had managed to get aboard. The engineer shook his head in amazement at the customs of these strange foreigners and accelerated to normal departure speed.
Chesno, sorting himself out from the mass of humanity which had landed on top of him, also shook his head. But it didn't matter. Due to whatever powers that be - even, conceivably, God Himself they were in Japan.
PART TWO
JAPAN 1941
SECURITY IN AN ALIEN LAND
8
LAID OUT along the shallow indentation that forms the harbor, the port of Kobe looked as if a great tidal wave had washed in and deposited a thick mass of commercial buildings on the narrow strip of flat land that stretched inland for less than a quarter mile before rising abruptly into a ridge of hills, so steep, they could support only small shops and houses. In the upper reaches, high enough to catch a fresh breeze even during the stifling summer rainy season, were the Western-style houses of Kobe's foreign residents. Prewar Kobe was one of Japan's largest cities and, after Yokohama, its second busiest port. Since I937, when the war with China began in earnest, Kobe had become a major military depot. Its docks were stacked with tarp-covered artillery pieces, camouflaged tanks and military-green bales and boxes. Soldiers and sailors filled the streets, ordered and purposeful by day, carousing at night. Commerce thrived on the war.
By I940, there were approximately three thousand Occidental foreigners residing in Kobe, about one hundred of them Jews. Most of the aliens were engaged in some aspect of the import-export business. For them, the Sino-Japanese War trade helped make up for the normal trans-Pacific shipping which had been curtailed by America's "moral embargo" on trade with Japan. And even beyond the realm of business, prewar Kobe was a comfortable place to live. For all its commercial importance, it had a very different air to it than the other two cities that had foreign populations of any size: Tokyo and Yokohama, the latter situated so close to the capital as to be practically an extension of it. Not a political center, Kobe was out of the international limelight. Let the capital worry about how its local actions were viewed by the rest of the world, Kobe had no such problems. Since the city owed much of its development to Western interests and enthusiasm, there was traditionally a warm feeling of mutuality and cooperation between the Japanese and the foreigners, the gaijin - a feeling which continued undiminished into early I94I. For foreign residents, Jews and non-Jews alike, provided they had reasonable incomes and did not feel totally at odds with the sea of Japanese around them, life in Kobe was comfortable, cosmopolitan and relatively secure.
The Jews who lived in Kobe during the 1930s and 1940s were predominantly Russians who had emigrated to Manchuria in the early twentieth century when the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway had opened up that vast, empty land. During the worldwide economic reorganization of the thirties, Manchurian businesses began to pay more commercial attention to Japan - all the more so after the two countries became politically enmeshed in 1932. Textile firms, tea firms, silk, cotton and fur traders began sending representatives to Kobe to promote their interests there.
One of these representatives was Anatole Ponevejsky who had, as a child, emigrated with his parents from Irkutsk to Harbin. In
1937 he moved again, this time with his own wife and children, to Kobe to look after the Japanese branch of the family textile business. On the occasion of th
at move, he had shortened his name to Ponve.
Ponve was a very warm, kind person, continually and deeply involved with his fellow men. Though not religiously observant, he was very much committed to maintaining and furthering Jewish ideals. Thus, in 1937, shortly after his arrival, he founded the Jewish community (Ashkenazim) of Kobe, and became overseer of its community center - a cluster of rooms in a narrow lane at the foot of the steep hills.
The community of Kobe was, of course, very much aware of Japan's professed friendship for Jews. Its delegates to the 1937,
1938 and 1939 conferences of Far Eastern Jewry in Harbin had heard General Higuchi proclaim Japan's sympathy for the Jews. It had seen the honor accorded the delegates to the conference by Colonel Yasue. They had been deeply moved by the short speech delivered by Dr. Kotsuji - impressed less by its simple content than by the fact that it was written and spoken by a Japanese in excellent Hebrew. There had been fears in November 1938, at the signing of the cultural agreement between Germany and Japan, but the Jews of Kobe were reassured by the normality of their day-to-day dealings with the Japanese, who remained as friendly after that date as before.
With their own apparent security, however, they contrasted the increasingly perilous position of their fellow Jews in Europe. Thus, in June of 1940, the community responded immediately and enthusiastically to a cable from Lithuania asking help for a few refugees. The request was a simple one: Would Ponve, on behalf of the community, simply write a letter to the Japanese government guaranteeing support for seven people while they were in transit through Japan on their way to America? Ponve spent the afternoon, a Sunday, writing the letter, and the next day submitted it to the several government offices that would have to approve the arrangement. Then he sent a confirmation back to Vilna. Two days later came another request, then another . . . until three or four were arriving daily. In early July, Ponve called a meeting of the twenty-five member families of the community.
The Fugu Plan Page 14