Poles in Japan

The first non-clergymen Poles to arrive in Japan were the famous adventurer Maurycy Beniowski and his close companion Antoni Straszewski, who arrived in 1771 after a daring escape from Russian exile in Kamchatka.^[3] It was also the first Polish ship to arrive in Japan, as they sailed under the Polish flag aboard a seized Russian galiot.^[3] Beniowski's expedition was warmly received by the Japanese, an exchange of gifts took place, and sailing southward, Beniowski stopped at several Japanese islands.^[3]

The most sizeable Polish community of early 20th-century Japan lived in the Karafuto Prefecture, which further grew since 1925, as many Poles fled Soviet Russian persecution in northern Sakhalin.^[4][5][6] Poles in Karafuto engaged in unrestricted social, cultural and economic activities, and a Polish library was established in Toyohara.^[7] In 1924, Karafuto was visited by Polish ambassador to Japan Stanisław Patek, and many local Poles were granted Polish citizenship and passports.^[5] Some 300 Poles lived in Japan, according to estimates from 1929.^[8] In 1930, two Catholic churches were built in Toyohara and Odomari, co-funded by Poles from Poland and Karafuto.^[9] Only a handful of Poles lived in other parts of Japan.^[10]

In 1920–1922, 769 Polish orphans rescued from Siberia, were admitted by the Japanese in Tokyo and Osaka, before their return to Poland.^{[citation needed]}

There are Polish associations in Tokyo and Osaka, and a Polish school in Tokyo.^[2]

• Maximilian Kolbe (1894–1941), Conventual Franciscan friar
• Nicole Fujita (born 1998), model and tarento
• Bronisław Piłsudski (1866–1918), ethnologist
• Zeno Żebrowski (c. 1898–1982), Conventual Franciscan friar

• Japan–Poland relations
• Polish diaspora
• Immigration to Japan
• History of the Jews in Kobe