It’s fascinating that curry was associated with the British. Then, later, Indian Curry became a thing, but less common. In a different article (which I need to find) it says the curry restaurant was owned by a guy organizing for Indian independence, and got Japanese VIPs to align with Indian nationalists against the British Empire. That’s to say, the movement to liberate India from British control was aligned with the Axis.
Anti-Western Imperialism and anti-Communist
Something I didn’t know, but articles like the above had me wondering about Japan collaborating with anti-British movements in Asia. This describes an Axis-enabled diplomacy by Japan with the Muslim world.
The following is more of a shit-talker page, but it has some info about Axis support for Palestine. The page is anti-Palestinian, trying to link Palestinans with Nazis.
https://www.instagram.com/arabreich/
One thing I thought was interesting was the post about swastikas on oranges from Palestine being sent to Germany. The Germans were offended that their symbol was being used for advertisement. (The irony is that, in the US, before WW2, the swastika was used for advertisement all the time.)
This trade made me think of a story my mother told about getting stuff during WW2. She was in Japan, and a child. One thing they got was a bunch of scarves. They had the fishnet pattern, like the khufiya. They also got sugar.
During wartime, everything was in short supply, so Japan turned to countries not as directly involved in the war at that time, or were hostile to Britain. This included some parts of the Arab world.
Japan and Jewish Refugees
Despite being aligned with Germany, Japan took in Jewish refugees during WW2. However, it wasn’t totally altruistic. The roots for this were in Japanese Imperialism, to settle Jewish people in Manchuria.
The weirdest part of this story is that some Japanese leadership had believed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and were expecting the refugees to be wealthy, and maybe even set up a secret government that would move western money into Japan. They refugees were not only not wealthy, they were poor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_settlement_in_the_Japanese_Empire
USSR and its Jewish Oblast
Stalin was paranoid about Jews, and created an area, a kind of “homeland” for Jewish people, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast
In the USSR, they wanted the area to be a buffer against White Russians attacking the USSR. Ironically enough, Japan also wanted Jews to be a buffer, against Chinese, mainly Chinese Communists. Japan supported White Russians as part of their anti-Communist goals.