Refugees Saved by the Japanese Are Identified-- Part 1

From the December 17, 2015, Chicago Tribune "WWII refugees saved by Japanese are ID's" by Chris Carola.

This is a story I had never heard of before.

Early in World War II, a Japanese tourism official by the name of Tatsuo Osako helped rescue Europeans escaping from the Nazis.

Now, 75 years after seven of those refugees gave him photographs of themselves to express their gratitude, a team of Internet sleuths have identified four of those seven.

Osaka, who died in 2003, was a tourism bureau clerk based in the Japanese port city of Tsuruga who assisted Jewish and other Europeans making the voyage from the Soviet Union Pacific port of Vladivostock to Japan in the period of time before Pearl Harbor.

--GreGen