Passports, Entry Visas, and Transit Visas: Japan's Policy toward Jewish Refugees (1935-1941) 1 Japan's immigration laws in the 1930's stipulated that nationals of foreign countries would be admitted to Japanese territory if they possessed a valid passport and an entry or transit visa for Japan issued by a competent Japanese consular authority. Visitors also had to show that they possessed the financial means to cover their stay in Japan. The interior ministry was in charge of implementing this

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... aw, but visas were issued by Japanese consulates world-wide, thus making the foreign ministry the dominant factor. Until Hitler's rise to power in Germany in January 1933, the Japanese authorities did not have to deal with the problem of a large number of Jews wishing to reside in or travel through Japanese territories. Their policy toward Jews was similar to that applied to all other foreigners. During the early years of the Nazi regime in Germany, there was no need to formulate a special policy toward Jewish refugees, since until 1935 the number of German Jews who wanted to leave Germany and settle in Japan or Manchukuo was tiny. But after 1935, and especially after the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws in September of that year, Japanese diplomats predicted that the number of Jews wishing to leave Germany would increase, and that dealing with them would require certain changes of policy. And indeed, after the anti-Jewish laws were enacted in Germany the trickle of Jews wishing to leave Germany grew into a stream and Japan now faced, for the first time in its history, the question of how to deal with Jewish refugees seeking shelter in Japanese territory. The stream soon became a torrent consisting of hundreds and then thousands of Jews who desperately wanted to either settle in Japan or its territories or to travel through Japan to other destinations. A special policy toward German Jews was also urgently required in view of the fact that their status as holders of German passports had changed.