Retired lawyer, 95, worked at 'Tokyo Trials' as legal secretary after WWII, knew Japanese leaders
Elaine Fischel practiced law for nearly six decades before retiring last year in her mid-90s.
But it was her work in Japan as a legal secretary, before she went to law school, that provided some of the most indelible memories in her career.
Then a staff secretary for the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, she got a call from someone she knew that changed her life. He was aware she wanted to go to law school and suggested that working for the prosecutors handling the so-called Tokyo Trials after World War II would be a good experience, Fischel tells Fox News.
But after she arrived, Fischel decided she wanted to help defend the Japanese leaders charged as war criminals at the trials, which were officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. The trials, which began in 1946, were held at the headquarters for the Imperial Japanese Army. Prosecutors and judges from nine countries oversaw the trials of more than two dozen Japanese military leaders and politicians accused of playing critical roles in wartime atrocities.
“I wanted people to know that America is a great country,” Fischel said. “We sent our lawyers there to defend the enemy, and I don’t think any other country would do that. To me, it was an example of the United States at its best.”
Initially prejudiced against the Japanese and angry about Americans she knew who had died in the war, Fischel came to realize that the accused men, who she says were routinely polite, had a softer side, as well as families and friends who cared about them, the article recounts. Eventually, she came to know a number of the disgraced leaders well, since her job included visiting them in their cells and recording their requests, which led to conversations. In the end, most were executed, sentenced to life or died in prison, although about a dozen serving life terms were pardoned and released in the 1950s.
Invited to parties along with members of the Japanese elite, Fischel also became a tennis partner and friend of Prince Takamatsu, a Navy captain who was the younger brother of Emperor Hirohito.
The author of Defending the Enemy, a book about her experiences in Japan, the 95-year-old Fischel is now working on a book about her work as an attorney after she earned a law degree at the University of Southern California.
Although one of only a small number of female attorneys in practice during much of her career, “I always saw being a woman as an advantage, it made you stand out,” she told a Fox reporter. “I had my own way of doing things—and I’m pretty proud of that.”
