Leading Japanese surgeon urged to step down for praises of Nazism

According to the translations from Twitter, Dr. Katsuya Takasu, a leading Japanese surgeon, talked of “how great Nazism was.”

By TAMARA ZIEVE
Updated: AUGUST 26, 2017 03:18
The Nazi slogan "Arbeit macht frei" (Work sets you free) is pictured at the gates of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland January 27, 2017 (photo credit: AGENCY GAZETA/KUBA OCIEPA/VIA REUTERS)
The Nazi slogan "Arbeit macht frei" (Work sets you free) is pictured at the gates of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland January 27, 2017
(photo credit: AGENCY GAZETA/KUBA OCIEPA/VIA REUTERS)
The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Tuesday urged the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery to take action against prominent Japanese surgeon Dr. Katsuya Takasu, after Tweets of his from two years ago resurfaced, including praise of the Nazi regime and denial of the Holocaust and the Nanjing Massacre.
As well as being a high-profile member of the academy, Takasu is also a well-known media personality in Japan.
Estonia-based Japanese blogger Kino Toshiko alerted the Simon Wiesenthal Center to the Tweets made by the doctor in 2015, and posted English translations of them to his webpage.
According to the translations of the Tweets, Takasu talked of “how great Nazism was,” later explaining that he meant it with relation to the progress made in German medicine under the Nazi regime.
“There is no doubt that the Jews were persecuted.
But we only know it from hearsay and all of it is based on information from the Allies. Aren’t we acting the same as the Chinese people who believe in the Nanjing Massacre? I only want to know the truth,” another Tweet reads.
“I think both the Nanjing and Auschwitz are fabrications,” he stated in another.
In a letter to Dr. Michael Kluska, president of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director of Global Social Action for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, wrote that Takasu’s posts “violate all norms of decency and reveal a person who is a racist antisemite and outright lover of Nazism.”
Takasu had also dismissed the murder of disabled people at the hands of the Nazis as “Allies propaganda.”
Cooper wrote, “[Takasu] claims that ‘The science developed [by] the Nazis is immortal.’...
He dismisses the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of the physically and mentally disabled by the Nazis as ‘Allied propaganda.’ He insults the memory of the victims of the Nazis and of Imperial Japan: ‘I think both the Nanjing [massacre] and Auschwitz are fabrications.’” Cooper concluded the letter to Kluska by writing, “The last thing our world needs today is the embrace of Nazi ideology, under whose banner physicians carried out unspeakable crimes in the name of ‘progress.’ Takasu’s continued membership in the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery should be canceled immediately.”
Takasu has since denied that he is a member of “that Jews organization,” but he appears as a member of the Academy on a 2016 listing.
The Jerusalem Post contacted the Academy for comment.