The Fugu Plan

by Marvin Tokayer

  Yankel directed him toward a major intersection, the site of the eight-story Kobe Daimaru Department Store.

  The two youths stepped out of the elevator at the roof level. They had tried to be casual about stepping into the elevator in the first place. But this was only Gerson's second ride in an elevator. The two youths grinned nervously and clutched the hand rail as the uniformed woman operator took the car up apparently without paying them any attention.

  A typical Japanese department store, Daimaru had installed swings and slides up on the roof where children could play while their parents were shopping in the store below. But at this early hour, the play area was deserted. Self-consciously, Yankel introduced his friend to the fine and hitherto unknown joys of swinging on a swing and sliding down a slide. Childhood had never been like this! But gradually, as the elevator brought up a steady flow of young children, the boys began to feel their age. Standing off by themselves in a corner of the roof, Yankel pointed out the few landmarks that he knew: the main railway station, the big shopping area called Motomachi and the general area of Jewcom Headquarters, though the building itself was much too small to be picked out from this distance. Then, quietly, they began the rhythmic wrapping-on of the long leather phylactery straps which would hold in place two small leather boxes - one at the forehead, one on the inside of the left arm - which are worn during the recitation of morning prayers. The elevator came and went, the children played, the sun streamed down; and two young Jews praised God for having made the world and put them in it.

  Twenty-five minutes later they were under arrest, behind locked doors at a police station.

  When Michael Ionis arrived, summoned from Jewcom Headquarters by the police, he found Yankel and Gershon, pale with fear, seated motionless on hard wooden chairs, not comprehending any of the rapid Japanese exchanged by the policemen surrounding them and also bewildered by the English, which the sergeant in charge had been trying to speak. Ionis scarcely looked at them before asking the sergeant what the problem was.

  "They were up on the roof of Daimaru Department Store this morning, police sergeant Okuda reported, taking pictures of the dock area and the railway lines with some kind of a camera on their foreheads. We think they also had a secret radio transmitter."

  Ionis was relieved at the note of doubt in the voice of the sergeant. Obviously there was something in this that Okuda and the Japanese police didn't understand either. Ionis could not imagine yeshiva boys engaging in anything so worldly as military espionage. However, the truth would have to be brought to light very carefully to keep the sergeant, and by extension, the whole Kobe police force, from losing face.

  "I see," he said, nodding gravely. "You have taken from them, of course, these, well, cameras and transmitters.

  "Of course, Ionis-san." Okuda pointed to a table a few feet away. There were the embroidered bags, the tefillin (could anyone have mistaken the straps for antennae? Ionis wondered), two small prayer books (that apparently had been taken for the transmitters), two handkerchiefs and two nets of tangerines. "You realize, I am sure, that spying is a very serious business," the sergeant said.

  "I do understand of course. If any of our people do any such thing, you are quite right to put them under arrest." He was silent for an instant, so as not even to seem to be taking charge, then said: "Perhaps if we merely asked the two young men about the camera and the transmitter. . .?"

  "Please do so, Ionis-san. We have been unable to question them at all."

  For the first time, Ionis turned to the two prisoners. He took care to speak calmly and carefully, in Yiddish. "This situation is, potentially, very serious. I want you to answer me calmly, with no hysterics, no gestures, just spoken words as I am speaking to you now. Do you understand? . . . Good. Now, they think you were spying from the roof of Daimaru Department Store."

  Yankel let out a small cry. People were executed for spying. Without doubt, they would be sent out of the country, back to Russia, for spying. He wasn't guilty of spying! But maybe this was God's way of punishing him for deeds he definitely was guilty of. Why had he done it? Why had he stolen from his friends? Lo tignovl Thou shalt not steal! Why had he tempted God by not obeying the commandment?

  "Were you spying?" Ionis asked as Yankel began trembling almost uncontrollably.

  "No, no!"

  Behind Ionis, the police sergeant, comprehending the negative answer, pointed toward a table where the youths' phylacteries lay. "Just a second," the Jewcom official said in Japanese. Then, turning back to the two students, he asked, in Yiddish again, "What were you doing on the roof, then?"

  "I didn't know it was . . . restricted," Yankel said, trying to keep his voice from trembling away entirely. "I took Gershon there for morning prayers and to show him the view . . . and to show him the swings. There are no signs. No one stopped us."

  "No, it's not a restricted area. But the police say you were observed with a camera and a radio transmitter. Do you have such things?"

  Yankel looked at Gershon who could not restrain himself from declaiming the impossibility of it all, from trying to show that his pockets were too small to contain anything as large as those objects. When Gershon stood up, several of the Japanese policemen started toward him. Terrified, Yankel grabbed his friend by the jacket, roughly pulling him back onto the chair.

  "Shush, shaa, Gershon! Don't get them excited!"

  Gershon retreated. "We have no radio," he said, and was quiet.

  Ionis nodded and turned to Okuda. "Please excuse his outburst. They say they were not spying. They say they went up to the roof to pray - they wanted to be closer to God, just as Shinto shrines are so often on top of hills to be closer to heaven."

  Ionis knew the analogy was not entirely accurate. But it seemed to have the desired effect on Okuda who seemed willing at least to listen to an explanation.

  "Sergeant, these boys are country boys. They don't know anything about cameras or radio transmitters. Perhaps there may possibly have been . . . ummm, some confusion in this matter."

  "What are those?" Okuda asked, pointing to but not touching the phylacteries.

  Ionis picked up one of the leather boxes, explaining how it was placed on the head and the arm, explaining that it was definitely not a mechanical device of any kind. Okuda took it gingerly, shook it, and signaled to one of his men to bring tools to open it with. When the officer returned with a hammer and a chisel, both the students started to protest. A gesture from Ionis silenced them. Better to lose the phylacteries than their lives.

  After Okuda had satisfied himself that, as Ionis had said, the leather boxes contained only inscribed parchment, he stood in silence for a moment.

  No one said a word. The two boys looked cautiously at each other. Yankel silently vowed if he ever got out of this, he would never again venture further than the front door of the yeshiva.

  "Who was it who observed these boys on the roof?" Ionis asked.

  "The elevator operator," the sergeant replied. "A Japanese lady."

  The emphasis on "Japanese" confirmed Ionis's understanding of the nature of the problem. A Japanese would not be wrong when making an accusation against a foreigner. If it should turn out that the foreigner was in the right, Japan would lose face. The overwhelming nationalism that had been growing since the early thirties had infected even small encounters like this. It was utter nonsense. But this was no time to discuss reality.

  "Certainly a Japanese lady would never wrongly accuse anyone," Ionis said. "Could it be, Okuda-san, that perhaps she had never before seen someone wearing these leather boxes and long straps? No doubt, they do look a bit strange. And she would have been quite right in calling it to the attention of the police . . . just to investigate even if not actually to accuse anyone of spying."

  Okuda's eyes narrowed with suspicion, but Ionis continued.

  "Of course, it is we ourselves who have made the mistake. We have brought these people here without sufficient introduction to the people of Kobe. Do you think we co
uld rectify this mistake by explaining who these people are and explaining that they have come to Japan because Japan has been the only country in the world humane and kind enough to let them come?" Okuda crossed his arms over his chest. Ionis did have a point. Japan was indeed the most humane country in the world. But she might not appear so if he clapped these two in jail without being able to prove they were spying. Foreigners were nothing but trouble. He had been specifically ordered on the one hand to look out for spies, but on the other hand word had come down, all the way from Gaimusho he had heard, to treat them with respect and understanding and even some latitude as far as applying the precise letter of the law to every small infraction.

  At least, he thought, this foreigner was wise enough to take the responsibility for the mistake.

  "All right," he decided. "Do that - do a better job of telling people who these visitors are. Japanese are very patriotic, Ionis-san. If they see anything strange from a foreigner, they will definitely report it to us."

  Having ended comfortably with a threat, Okuda felt free to dismiss all three of them. At a gesture, one of the guards unlocked the door. Ionis bowed, Okuda nodded in return. Gershon and Yankel fairly flew from the police station. No one said a word till they had returned to the Jewcom office. Then both boys exploded in loud, tension-releasing expositions of their absolute innocence in the entire matter while Ionis recounted the story to Ponve.

  Jewcom's president leaned back in the chair. He had been sick enough to be in the hospital until just a few days before and was glad not even to have heard about this latest problem till it was solved.

  "You did a good job, Michael. Proof or no proof, that sergeant could have tossed these two into jail just on suspicion for days and days. Does it sometimes seem to you that we are being treated exceptionally well? I'll grant you that the Japanese in certain circumstances can be very kind and humane. I've seen it long before this situation began. But in the past, say, six or seven months, since business began to pick-up, so to speak, there have been so many courtesies. For example, this new business of delivering everyone's bread ration here so that the refugees don't have to stand in line . . . and before, when they did have to stand in line, the officials took care to make sure nobody pushed ahead of them. And the farmers sending in boxes of apples and tangerines and eggs for the children. And those times in the bathhouse when our newcomers couldn't help but stare at all the naked Japanese. . . ."

  Yankel and Gershon had, by this time, calmed down. However, the mention of "naked bodies in bathhouses" brought them back into the conversation.

  "Baths with Japanese? Naked?" Both boys spoke at the same time. Gershon was scandalized; Yankel was intrigued.

  "Of course, naked, how ever do people bathe?" Ionis asked, amused. "And yes, with Japanese. Do you have a bathtub in your heim? Or did you perhaps think that the bathhouse you use was built especially for you?"

  Both boys shook their heads - they hadn't thought about it at all.

  "Bathing is a very friendly, communal thing here, you know. The women are all together on one side of the curtain and the men together on the other. . . ."

  "Except when a woman comes into the men's section to wash her husband's back," Ponve mentioned.

  Gershon's eyes practically bulged from his head.

  "Well, before the Japanese officials kindly set aside a few bathhouses for us," Ionis continued, "people had no choice but to bathe with the Japanese - or go dirty. The Japanese weren't used to having foreigners in their bath. But when our boys, just off the boat, walked naked out of the locker rooms into their bath they were thunderstruck. Dozens of naked men and women, all in the room together; they couldn't get used to it. The story even got into the newspaper. 'The refugees,' it complained, 'seemed to be doing more gazing than bathing!' True enough, they all ran out - none even got wet."

  The two boys looked away, grinning self-consciously and then, after a few more minutes of thanks to Ionis for having rescued them from the police, they hurried back to their yeshiva. The two officials stared after them, lost for a moment in thought, and then Ionis returned to Ponve's original question about a reason for all the recent courtesies to Jewcom.

  "I agree with you absolutely," he said. "The Japanese have been kind. And Okuda could have thrown away the key on these two. But to tell you the truth, Anatole, I don't know why it should be so. Maybe they really do feel sorry for us because of the mess in Europe. Maybe they like the way it looks - Jews fleeing Europe and seeking refuge in Japan. That was what I said to him, and maybe it's not such an inaccurate way of putting it. In fact, doing some kind of public relations on that theme might be a good idea. Some explanation of the background of the refugees - especially the religious boys. ... If I saw someone putting on tefillin without knowing what they were, like that poor little elevator operator, I'd think it a little strange, too, to say the least!"

  The phone rang and Ponve picked it up. "Hello? Ah hello. Dr. Kotsuji!" he said, smiling. Abruptly, however his smile disappeared. Barely audibly, he asked a few questions into the phone, then quietly hung up.

  "Who was that?" Ionis asked.

  Ponve replied without changing expression. "The Japanese Embassy in Moscow has stopped issuing transit visas."

  Ionis was stunned. "Why? When? Is he sure?" he asked exactly the same questions Ponve himself had asked not two seconds before. "As of today. The official reason is, there is a bottleneck in Vladivostok - too many refugees, not enough ships to carry them to Japan, and the ones already here don't seem to be going on very fast. Kotsuji was absolutely sure the announcement said 'stopped' not 'temporarily suspended' or 'commenced for a period of moratorium' or anything of that sort. Stopped. The end. Finished."

  Until now, there had been a tiny patch of hope, a skin-tight narrow way out for all the Polish refugees in the Russian-dominated Baltic states. Even after the departure of Sugihara from Kovno, the so-called "Curacao visa" had been continued to save lives. With the tacit consent of the Dutch, more than one of these rubber stamps was still circulating among the refugee communities. And if one were adventurous enough, daring enough, to go to Moscow, one could, usually, on the basis of the Curacao stamp, get a transit visa from the Japanese Embassy there. The Moscow visa officer was not Sugihara; he did not issue visas wholesale only on the basis of the Curacao visa. But if one could talk a good story, if one seemed to have a firm final destination, or if one happened to catch one of the clerks on a particularly good day, a transit visa could sometimes be had.

  At first, only a few had been brave enough to venture even deeper into the den of the Russian bear. It meant leaving the poor, but at least familiar, security of the refugee community in Lithuania, going to a strange embassy in a strange city, and finally applying for the exit permit in Moscow. And all along, during the minimum of three weeks it would take for the process to work itself through, how did one live? How did one eat? And how could one defend himself if picked up by the omnipresent NKVD?

  As the situation in Vilna grew worse, however, increasing numbers of the refugees had decided to take this one last chance. In mid-February, 1941, the occupying Soviets had forced the universal registration of all refugees. Any found not to be engaged in "productive work" were to be shipped to the one place where workers were always needed - Siberia. By mid-March scores of refugees were lining up every morning in Moscow at the Japanese Embassy in Moscow. Everyone had a destination visa - almost all of them for Curacao. Everyone needed only a Japanese transit visa, and a little luck with the NKVD which had continued to let out of the country most of those who had the required documents.

  "You think the jam-up in Vladivostok is the real reason?" Ionis asked.

  "No. That situation has been worse before than it is now." Ponve shook his head slowly back and forth. "I don't know the reason. I have never understood why the Japanese let any refugees in, and I don't understand now why they are stopping them. The Japanese are like God - totally unpredictable. How many Jews do you suppose there are now in
Moscow? How many who have already burned their bridges behind them in going there in the first place? Who need only the transit visa to be saved?"

  "I don't know."

  The gloom in the sun-filled room was overwhelming. The natural reaction - "I'm sorry for them but thank God it's not me" had long since been washed away by identification on the part of both men. The door that had been slammed in the faces of the refugees lined up outside the Japanese Embassy in Moscow, had been just as brusquely slammed in their own faces. The noose was growing tighter, and the victims still didn't know the reason for the judgment.

  Foreign Minister Matsuoka received the news that the deed had been done while he was resting in his Berlin hotel room. He nodded without speaking and gently ran his finger across his short black moustache: truly, it was a masterful stroke of diplomacy.

  10

  ZORACH WARHAFTIG, one of the pioneers among the Polish refugees, had left Vilna, crossed Russia and arrived in Kobe in October I940. Warhaftig, however, was quite unlike the bulk of those who had come later. A young, talented, Warsaw lawyer, and a devoutly religious man, he had close, high-level ties with the leading world-wide Jewish organizations: he had been a member of the executive board of the World Jewish Congress in Warsaw and he also had influence with the Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish Agency in New York, the Va'ad Hatzalah and the Union of Orthodox Rabbis which was particularly concerned about the fate of the yeshiva scholars. Moreover, for the six months since his arrival in Japan, Warhaftig had been acting on behalf of the principal religious Zionist organizations, watching over the passage of those fortunate enough to have destination visas to the other side of the Pacific or to Palestine.

  From his temporary home in Yokohama, the lawyer Warhaftig had devised several very creative schemes for saving the lives of his fellow refugees. During the winter of 1940-1 alone, he had been able to help hundreds of refugees get transit visas by guaranteeing the Japanese Embassy in Moscow that the Palestine Committee, of which he was the head, had firm destination visas just waiting for them in Japan. This approach foundered only when someone in the Gaimusho investigated and reported that the Japanese branch of the Palestine Committee consisted only of Warhaftig and two assistants . . . and, unlike the Central Palestine Committee in Palestine itself, had no access whatsoever to visas. But the things that Warhaftig had been able to accomplish up to now were mere drops in a bucket compared to the potential of the plans he devised after the cut-off of the Japanese transit visas.