Both nations enjoy historically friendly relations, embracing close cooperation and mutual assistance in times of need.

[2] The Japanese poem Porando kaiko by Ochiai Naobumi about Fukushima Yasumasa travelling in 1890s mentions the Polish struggle for freedom.

[3][4][5] Fukushima established contacts with members of the Polish resistance movement and exiles to Siberia in order to obtain detailed information about the common enemy of the Poles and the Japanese—Russia.

[2] Polish travelers Karol Lanckoroński and Paweł Sapieha, as well as ethnographers Bronisław Piłsudski and Wacław Sieroszewski, among others, wrote about Japan.

In return, they offered intelligence and sabotage activity on the part of Poles, as well as obstructing the mobilization of the Russian army by all possible means.

Through the military attachés in Paris and London, Japan gave Poland 33,000 sterling and other funds (this is an approximation, 20 Japanese embassies).

[2] During Bolshevik rule in Russia, the Japanese government undertook a rescue operation to help Polish children deported to Siberia.

Finally parting reluctantly, the orphans sang “Kimigayo” - Japan's national anthem - when they boarded the ship bound for Poland, thus expressing their feelings of gratitude.

Based on the rescue of Polish children from Siberia through Japan, the movie Warushawa-no Aki (English: Autumn in Warsaw) was made, directed by Hiroki Hayashi.

The most sizeable Polish community of early 20th-century Japan (including the interbellum) lived in the Karafuto Prefecture, which further grew since 1925, as many Poles fled Soviet Russian persecution in northern Sakhalin.

The Japanese relied heavily on the new Polish secret service for training in decryption and continued their close military co-operation even after the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II.

The Japanese relied on the vast Polish network of spies and allowed the Poles to openly place their agents inside embassies of its protectorate of Manchukuo.

During a private briefing on 5 March 1943, Hitler remarked: They lie right to your face and in the end all their depictions are calculated on something which turns out to be a deceit afterwards!

He was also the brother of the Polish marshal Józef Piłsudski, who established close cooperation with the Imperial Japanese government in order to jointly attack the Soviet Union.

Paying respect to this good friend of Japan, soil from the grounds of the Yasukuni Shrine was scattered around his tomb in Kraków, one of the most culturally and politically significant cities of Poland.

These little-known historical facts about the friendly ties between Japan and Poland have at last been acknowledged publicly, thanks to many laborious years of research by Professor Palasz-Rutkowska in her book, "History of Polish-Japanese Relations 1904-1945."

An additional curiosity may be the fact that from August 27 to September 25, 1926, on the Bréguet 19 A2 plane, Polish pilot Bolesław Orliński together with mechanic Leonard Kubiak made a multi-stage flight from Warsaw to Tokyo, on a route of 10,300 km and back, despite the damage to the propeller and the lower wing on the way (the last 6,680 km of the route was covered by the plane with the left lower wing partially cut off), and a very worn (due to oil loss) engine.

At the turn of 1939 and 1940, the Japanese helped secretly evacuate a portion of the Polish gold reserve, the part held in Lithuanian-annexed Wilno to neutral Sweden.

[18] Chiune Sugihara, Japanese vice-consul in Kaunas, played a key role in the operation and also closely co-operated with Polish intelligence.

[18] The Japanese agents also sheltered Polish-Jewish refugees fleeing occupation from both German and Soviet forces, though at first it was done without proper authorization from the Imperial government in Tokyo.

The children, many from Kobe and nearby areas of western Japan, went to Poland and stayed from 1995 to 1996, while the chaos and loss caused by the earthquake was sorted out.

Japanese cultural exports to Poland including anime, video games, music and food have made a significant impact on young Poles.