The Japanese military during World War II confined in restricted areas an undetermined number of Jews in Shanghai and at least 275 German Jews in the Dutch East Indies, according to declassified diplomatic documents released Wednesday.
The documents show that the military issued a proclamation in February 1943 that the Jews living in Shanghai as "stateless refugees" be confined in one location.
The documents did not refer to the number of Jews confined in Shanghai. Hiroshi Bando, a professor emeritus at Meiji University who specializes in Jewish affairs, said they may have numbered more than 10,000.
The documents said the order was made for military reasons as well as to ensure that Jewish merchants in Shanghai would not engage in black-market operations and other illegal activities.
The Japanese military began rounding up German Jews shortly after the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, came under Japanese occupation. By April 1944, 275 German Jews had been forced to live in restricted areas, according to the documents.
The documents show that the Japanese government received inquiries beginning in
1952 from some of the interned Jews asking whether German authorities had been involved in Japan's confinement policy.
The Foreign Ministry launched an inquiry and determined that Japan had received "no communication nor instruction from local German authorities" where the Jews were confined by the Japanese military, the documents said.
Bando said many newspapers and magazines in Shanghai were published by Jews and the reporting often ran counter to official Japanese views.
"That apparently angered the Japanese military," he said.