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Historic Groups that Started Innocent then Took an Evil Turn

Khalid Elhassan November 8, 2020 32 min

Harley-Davidson - Harley-Davidson WLA — Harley-Davidson WLAs. Motorcyclist

4. Innocent Japanese-Brazilians Were Led to Believe that Japan Was Winning the War

Japan’s Foreign Minister signing his country’s surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2nd, 1945. Wikimedia

During WWII, Shindo Renmei took a turn towards ultra-nationalism. With most Japanese-Brazilians cut off from reliable news, Colonel Kikawa and his followers stepped in to exploit their innocent countrymen. They filled the information vacuum with “news” that amounted to little more than wishful thinking. As Japan reeled from defeat after defeat, Shindo Renmei told the Japanese immigrants that Japan was marching from triumph to triumph. The claims included a decisive Japanese victory in Okinawa, where America lost 400 warships. Victory was secured in no small part by a Japanese superweapon, the “High-Frequency Bomb”, which killed Americans by the hundreds of thousands and forced the Allies’ unconditional surrender.

Many believed that or if they did not, they knew better than to say so. If for no other reason than that Shindo Renmei also took it upon itself to punish “defeatists” in the Japanese immigrant community. Those who voiced doubts about how well the war was going for Japan were shunned, boycotted, and sometimes violently assailed.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.