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I'm trying to locate a Jewish twin brother who came to New York from Shanghai via Japan in 1938. #usa

小川和久
 

My name is Kazuhisa Ogawa, Project Professor University of Shizuoka,Japan. 
 
I am looking for the identities of Jewish twin brothers, and I would greatly appreciate your help and advice.
 
The purpose of this research is to write a biography of my mother, who was born in 1903.
 
I am not proficient in English, so I will use machine translation and itemize the survey items.
 
My mother told me about the following 14 points.
 
1) They are adult male twins.
2) I don't know their name.
3) In 1938, they escaped from Shanghai to New York via Yokohama.
4) They were persecuted by the Nazis and are thought to have fled from the Austrian area.
5) It was my mother's friend, Ernst Stoeri, who sent them into defection.
6) Stoeri was the Austrian Honorary Consul General in Tokyo until 1938.
7) Stoeri is also Jewish, and his brothers were killed in the Dachau concentration camp.
8) Stoli was also detained by the Japanese military police in Tokyo on the orders of the Gestapo.
9) The twin brothers were part of a wealthy American family, and the wealthy family was apparently involved in the oil business.
10)They contacted Stoeri to offer him the right to sell oil in Asia as a reward for helping their escape.
11)Then, they sent a tanker to Japan as a sample.
12) My mother suggested that the Japanese Navy buy that oil.
13)However, while the Japanese Navy faltered, ironically, the German ambassador, Major General Ott, bought it.
14) That one incident led my mother to accuse the Japanese military of incompetence, which was suppressed until the end of the war.
 
What I would like to know are the following 8 points. Please only tell me what you know.
 
・The names of these twin brothers.
・Age at the time
・Where have they escaped from?
・Date of arrival in New York
・The name of the family living in the U.S. that took them in.
・The twin brothers were able to offer Storie the rights to sell oil in Asia because the family, who lived in the U.S., was involved in the management of what company?
・The factual basis for sending a sample tanker to Japan
・What happened to the business relationship between the American company and Germany after the German Ambassador Ott bought it?
 
The facts as they turn out will not be used for any other purpose than to describe my mother in her biography.
Kazuhisa Ogawa,
Richard Werbin
 

Do you know their parents' names?
Are you certain of 1938?

This is the only entry I found from Yokohama, Japan. I do not think this is the correct person. British.

Name: Ronald E M Cameron
Gender: Male
Ethnicity/ Nationality: British (English)
Marital status: Married
Birth Place: England
Other Birth Place: Morley Yores England
Last Known Residence: Isogoku Yokohama, Japan
Place of Origin: Japan
Departure Port: Yokohama, Japan
Arrival Date: 24 Apr 1935
Arrival Port: New York, New York, USA
Years in US: No
Citizenship Intention: No
Height: 5 Feet, 6 1/2 Inches
Hair Color: Fair
Eye Color: Gray
Complexion: Fair
Person in Old Country Residence: Yokohama, Japan
Person in US: Mrs E Cameron
Person in US Relationship: Mother
Mother: E Cameron
Ship Name: Kiyosumi Maru

 
--
Richard Werbin    New York, New York     JGSNY Membership Vice President
R Jaffer
 

Based on the year 1938, here are the most likely families to send an oil tanker:
  •  He reorganized an existing bankrupt NY company in 1933 for which he had been a driver, Leon Hess (1914–1999), founder of the Hess Corporation (now led by his son, John B. Hess (1954–)) and former owner of NFL's New York Jets[27]
  • This company was absorbed in 1922, but son Jacob might have been influential enough to have a tanker sent.  Louis Blaustein (1869–1937), Lithuanian-born co-founder (along with his son Jacob) of the American Oil Company (1922)[14]
  • In 1930, Fisher joined his father's Keystone Oil Refining Company, a motor oil reclamation business, in Detroit as a $15-a-week salesman before forming his own company in 1932.[1][3]  Max Fisher (1908–2005), founder of the Aurora Gasoline Company, once one of the largest gas station chains in the Midwest[16]
  • Although young, this man joined his father's oil business prior to 1938. Benedict I. Lubell (1909–1996), founder of the Lubell Oil Company[31]

Roberta Jaffer
Waltham, MA, USA
Mark Halpern
 

Dear Ogawa-san:

You outline a very difficult search, but knowing that the passengers left Yokohama to the United States in 1938 is helpful as is that these men were twins and Jewish and their final destination was New York. However, there were no passenger ships that sailed from Yokohama to New York in 1938. The routes to New York were for the passenger to sail from Yokohama to Seattle, Washington, San Francisco, California, or Los Angeles (San Pedro), California and then take a train across America to New York. 

I think there may be records in Japan of passengers embarking in 1938 in Yokohama to all three ports. You should find out if these records exist and, if they do, then have someone or yourself go through the records to find two male passengers of the same age who might be Hebrew or Jewish that are heading to New York. I did a similar search of US arrival records and there were over 9,000 male passengers traveling in 1938 from Yokohama to those three ports on the West Coast of the United States. It will take a great deal of time to go through this list to possibly find the twins.  

I will also be sending your original posting to my friend in Japan. Maybe he has some ideas. I will provide him your name and email address.

I wish you success in your search.

Mark Halpern

 

On 2021-10-13 8:52 pm, 小川和久 wrote:

My name is Kazuhisa Ogawa, Project Professor University of Shizuoka,Japan. 
 
I am looking for the identities of Jewish twin brothers, and I would greatly appreciate your help and advice.
 
The purpose of this research is to write a biography of my mother, who was born in 1903.
 
I am not proficient in English, so I will use machine translation and itemize the survey items.
 
My mother told me about the following 14 points.
 
1) They are adult male twins.
2) I don't know their name.
3) In 1938, they escaped from Shanghai to New York via Yokohama.
4) They were persecuted by the Nazis and are thought to have fled from the Austrian area.
5) It was my mother's friend, Ernst Stoeri, who sent them into defection.
6) Stoeri was the Austrian Honorary Consul General in Tokyo until 1938.
7) Stoeri is also Jewish, and his brothers were killed in the Dachau concentration camp.
8) Stoli was also detained by the Japanese military police in Tokyo on the orders of the Gestapo.
9) The twin brothers were part of a wealthy American family, and the wealthy family was apparently involved in the oil business.
10)They contacted Stoeri to offer him the right to sell oil in Asia as a reward for helping their escape.
11)Then, they sent a tanker to Japan as a sample.
12) My mother suggested that the Japanese Navy buy that oil.
13)However, while the Japanese Navy faltered, ironically, the German ambassador, Major General Ott, bought it.
14) That one incident led my mother to accuse the Japanese military of incompetence, which was suppressed until the end of the war.
 
What I would like to know are the following 8 points. Please only tell me what you know.
 
・The names of these twin brothers.
・Age at the time
・Where have they escaped from?
・Date of arrival in New York
・The name of the family living in the U.S. that took them in.
・The twin brothers were able to offer Storie the rights to sell oil in Asia because the family, who lived in the U.S., was involved in the management of what company?
・The factual basis for sending a sample tanker to Japan
・What happened to the business relationship between the American company and Germany after the German Ambassador Ott bought it?
 
The facts as they turn out will not be used for any other purpose than to describe my mother in her biography.
Kazuhisa Ogawa,
Hilary Osofsky
 

I would check Ancestry's California Passenger Lists. My son-in-law's g-g-grandparents had been living in Japan before emigrating to the U.S. in 1906. I found the record of their voyage from Yokohama to San Francisco among those lists, as well as the record of his g-g-grandfather's initial 1902 exploratory voyage, which departed from Hong Kong for San Francisco.

Hilary Osofsky
Susanna Vendel
 

I suggest you read "Under the shadow of the Rising Sun - Japan and the Jews during the Holocaust Era" - edited in Boston 2016. 
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/27351/1002657.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
It is the history of that period and gives a lot of information about different institutions, names of politicians (Japanese and Internationals) involved with the rescue
of Jews refugees, oil business, etc.
Even if there is no mention of the persons you are looking for, the text and the "End notes" can give you some tips on where to search further. 
I hope you will succeed in your work and wish you good luck!
Best regards,
Susanna Vendel, Stockholm
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