日系人部隊及びテキサス第36師団退役軍人レセプションでの祝辞 2005年4月16日
在ヒューストン日本国総領事 加茂佳彦
Houston is a showcase city for opportunities and aspirations. Many amazing stories have come from here and one would not easily win a fellow Houstonian’s sense of disbelief by just one more extraordinary tale or incredible coincidence. Two exhibitions that will be held at the Holocaust Museum Houston, however, will challenge this by shedding light on true stories that have often been left untold.
HMH is commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Europe by opening two independent exhibitions entitled “Unlikely Liberators” and “Sugihara: Japanese Righteous Gentile” on April 15. “Unlikely Liberators” is the true story of the liberation of Dachau Concentration Camp by the Japanese-American 522nd Battalion in 1945. The other portrays a Japanese diplomat, Chiune, Sugihara, the Japanese rendition of Oskar Schindler told about in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 movie, Schindler’s List. Vice Consul Sugihara issued thousands of transit visas to Japan and saved as many as 6000 Polish Jews, risking his career in the process.
On my first visit to HMH last Autumn I was amazed to learn that Ms. Edith Hamer, a HMH volunteer and docent, was one of the survivors of the Nazi ordeal thanks to a Sugihara visa. She proudly showed me the page of her old passport on which the transit visa to Japan was meticulously written in Japanese by Sugihara.
Back in 2003 I had a chance to visit the former Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania in which Sugihara lived and worked. The small house nestled in a residential neighborhood is now the Sugihara Memorial Museum and displays his office and living quarters with original items of the time.
HMH has collected actual documents, photographs and artifacts from Lithuania and Japan for this exhibition. This rare exhibit eloquently tells us a remarkable story of true righteousness and human integrity.
The other exhibition called “Unlikely Liberators” is also not to be missed. Who would have thought that the last days of the WWII European Front would set the stage for what could be called the unlikely trio of Japanese Americans, Jews and Texans to make history? The heroic battalion units composed of second generation Japanese American volunteers rescued “the Lost Texas Battalion” in northern France in 1944 and liberated European Jews from the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1945. The “Unlikely Liberators” exhibition displays photographic images of the liberation of the camp by the 522nd Battalion composed of Japanese Americans handpicked by General Eisenhower to help lead the Allied Offensive in Europe and honors what it accomplished. This story of the volunteer battalions of second generation Japanese Americans is touching and worth revisiting. They volunteered to join the segregated battalions to be assigned to the fiercest battle fronts in Europe. They fought bravely and often to the death in order to prove their allegiance to the United States and to make their parents incarcerated in internment camps proud of them. On October 18, 1963 then Texas Governor John B. Connally honored the veterans of the 442nd Regiment by conferring on them the title of “Honorary Texans.” The pride that the Japanese American units had in the job they had done mitigated the bitterness that all Japanese Americans had to swallow in their struggle to establish themselves as genuine Americans.
Today it is said that Japanese Americans are at a crossroads in their pursuit of opportunities and aspirations in the United States. While they have deep roots in affluent middle class America, they tend to pay less attention to their ethnic roots. Their consistent efforts to assimilate with mainstream America have sometimes made them less assertive in political empowerment than other ethnic minorities.
I don’t mean to sound derogatory of the Japanese Americans by any means. Rather, I commend their endeavors. They have become true Americans by transcending ethnicity and have been nurtured by their past experiences. Japanese Americans ascribe to the same characteristics that any nation values and admires: diligence, decency and tolerance to name a few. With these merits and, like it or not, their Japanese heritage, they have made many unique contributions to make the United States even greater and they will continue to do so.