Hirohito Leaves $15.4 Million

Despite having been stripped of much of his holdings after World War II, Japan’s late Emperor Hirohito has left his family $15.4 million in stocks and savings accounts, according to news reports. Hirohito never wrote a will, but his aides have come up with a plan to divide his estate between his widow, the Empress Dowager Nagako, and his eldest son and the new emperor, Akihito, according to the reports. Hirohito’s estate would have been worth billions more if reforms imposed on Japan after the war by Allied occupation authorities had not forced him to relinquish holdings, including the Imperial Palace and several imperial villas, to the state. The palace declined comment, saying a public announcement now would be premature. Under Japanese law, heirs to property must claim their inheritance within six months of the owner’s death and the tax administration office must announce the claims within four months after that. It will be the first public accounting of the imperial family’s private finances since shortly after World War II. Hirohito died Jan. 7 at age 87.

--In New York, the Anti-Defamation League paid tribute posthumously to another Japanese man, Sempo Sugihara, who helped thousands of Jews escape the Nazis during World War II. The league presented its “Courage to Care Award,” which recognizes exceptional acts of rescue made by non-Jews in behalf of Jews, to Sugihara’s widow, Yukiko, and his son, Hiro, during a Holocaust remembrance ceremony. Sugihara, who died in 1986, saved about 4,000 Polish and Lithuanian Jews in August, 1940, by issuing them Japanese transit visas enabling them to travel across the Soviet Union. The ADL said that as the 39-year-old consul in Kovno, Lithuania, Sugihara continued to issue the visas “despite repeated objection by his government,” which was weeks away from an alliance with Nazi Germany. He stopped issuing visas only when he was ordered out of the country Sept. 1.

--First Lady Barbara Bush came clean about the goings-on in the White House. During a visit to The Learning Bank, an adult learning center in Baltimore, Mrs. Bush told reporters that the family dog, Millie, likes to shower in the bathroom in the presidential suite. “Millie, of course, doesn’t take them alone, because she’s too short to reach up,” the First Lady said. “But someone, a very high public official, elected to office, takes a shower with Millie every week or so. They took one yesterday,” she said. As she left the center, Mrs. Bush said: “I hope that same public official won’t be sore at me.”