To the Editor:

As a survivor of three years of Japanese occupation of the Philippines, the psychological warfare of the “charming and able” (no doubt) Captain Inuzuka, and the naval warfare of Admiral Yamamoto, I feel that the article published in COMMENTARY entitled “Nipponese-Jewish Friendship League” (April 1953) calls for some comment. . . .

If the Nipponese feel such strong identification with Jews as the article states, they certainly gave no evidence of such feeling during the war years. In fact, in 1943 General Tanaka, head of the occupation forces of the Philippines at that time, suggested that all Jewish residents be deported. And none of us was aware that Captain Inuzuka—“nominal commander of the occupied Philippines”—was a great philo-Semite! Before any former member of the Manila Jewish community could ever accept a feeling of kinship toward the Japanese, he would have to forget that the Japanese Imperial government and army imprisoned and tortured Jews; and that within one week they stabbed or burned to death sixty of his brethren. All of us would also have to blot from our memories the worldly possessions which we lost, and our Temple Emil which the Japanese first converted into an ammunition dump and then destroyed. . . . No, Chaplain Wolf did not have to recite a broche upon seeing Prince Mikasa.

Lotte Hershfield
Charlotte, North Carolina

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