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Chiune Sugihara was born on January 1st, 1900, and lived to make his mark on the twentieth century. Thousands of people owe their lives in part to his willingness to buck authority. For his efforts, he was imprisoned by the Soviets and fired from his job by the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
That’s not the way Japanese children of his generation were raised. Sugihara walked to the beat of a different drummer even before the events that made him famous, when he went against his father’s wishes and failed a medical school entrance exam -on purpose. Instead, he enrolled in a Tokyo university where he was recruited by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Sugihara was assigned to Japanese-occupied Harbin, in Machuria, where he perfected his English, learned Russian, and joined the Greek Orthodox Christian church. As his career was taking off, Sugihara’s sense of justice led him to protest the way the Japanese military treated Chinese citizens. Instead of getting rid of the talented diplomat, the Foreign Ministry transferred him several times. He was eventually reassigned to Europe.
Sugihara was sent to Lithuania (with his wife and children) to open a new Japanese consulate in March of 1939. Only a few months later, Hitler’s forces invaded Poland and thousands of Jews fled to Lithuania to escape persecution. In 1940, the Soviet Union invaded Lithuania ahead of the Germans, who were also advancing on the small nation. The Russians ordered all foreign diplomats out of the country, but Sugihara and Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk stayed behind. Zwartendijk came up with a plan to help the Jewish refugees get out and emigrate to a couple of Dutch islands in the Caribbean, but any travel visa would also have to be approved by the Soviet consul and by Sugihara, as the refugees would have to travel through Russia and Japan.
Sugihara wired the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo to get approval for the plan, but he was denied several times. The consul in Tokyo told him to issue no travel visas at all!
Sugihara had a difficult decision to make. He was a man who was brought up in the strict and traditional discipline of the Japanese. He was a career diplomat, who suddenly had to make a very difficult choice. On one had, he was bound by the traditional obedience he had been taught all his life. On the other hand, he was a samurai who had been told to help those who were in need. He knew that if he defied the orders of his superiors, he might be fired and disgraced, and would probably never work for the Japanese government again.
Sugihara discussed the plan with his wife Yukiko and decided to risk his career and his entire future by defying his superiors. The couple then spent 29 days issuing travel visas, up to 300 a day, as thousands of refugees stood in line at his office. Yukiko would prepare and register the visas while Chiune Sugihara would sign and stamp them, hour after hour, without breaking for meals. They would work late into the night until Yukiko would massage her husband’s weary hands in preparation for the next day. Sugihara was under orders to leave, which he could no longer delay. The family departed on September 1st, but he kept signing visas even as he boarded the train. Sugihara then tossed his official stamp out to the crowd, as he hadn’t time to stamp them all. Watch a video account with commentary from a survivor and Yukiko Sugihara.
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The Japanese government was quite unhappy with Sugihara’s disobedience, but they postponed his punishment because they needed his talents during the war. Sugihara was reassigned to the consul in Germany and then to Romania. He was arrested by the Soviets at the end of the war and the entire family spent 18 months in a POW camp in Romania. On his release, Sugihara returned to Japan, where he was fired from the Foreign Ministry. The family fell into poverty as Sugihara worked as a door-to-door salesman, a translator, and eventually a manager for a Japanese trading company office in Moscow. He kept a low profile and only visited his wife and children in Japan about once a year. Saugihara never spoke of his deeds during the war. The Foreign Ministry acted as if he never existed when Jewish refugees inquired as to his whereabouts.
It is estimated that 6,000 Jews were able to leave Lithuania for the east because of the travel documents Sugihara prepared. The became known as the Sugihara Survivors. The refugees traveled through the Soviet Union to Japan, where they stayed for months. Some traveled on to the United States, others to Shanghai, China, and some to the Caribbean islands they had originally planned to escape to.
One of the Sugihara Survivors was Joshua Nishri, who later became the Economic Attache to the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo. In this position he was able to track down Sugihara and let him know, after almost 30 years, that his efforts during the war paid off for many thousands of refugees. Sugihara visited Israel the next year and spoke to many more Sugihara Survivors. In 1985 he was given the country’s highest honor, as Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem named him Righteous Among the Nations.
Sugihara died in 1986. He wasn’t well known in Japan until his funeral drew interest because of the many foreigner visitors who came to pay tribute, including the Israeli ambassador to Japan. When his countrymen learned of his heroism, a memorial park was built in Yaotsu-cho, Sugihara’s birthplace. The Sugihara Memorial Garden stands at Temple Emeth in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. A statue of Sugihara was erected in 2002 in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. The memorial shown in a picture by Alma Pater is in Vilnius, Lithuania. In the 21st century, some estimate that the original visa holders have 80,000 descendants. That is the greatest memorial of all.
See also: The Legacy of Sadako
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Comments (30)
Comment
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Thank you so much for the article – I’d never heard of Sugihara – this was a great way to start my day!
posted by swss on 11-5-2009 at 8:50 am
What a great story. Thanks for writing about it.
posted by thepears on 11-5-2009 at 9:01 am
Great story.
posted by Darth Lawyer on 11-5-2009 at 9:09 am
Great story!
posted by Meri on 11-5-2009 at 9:10 am
I have inadvertently spent this year studying the Holocaust. Several books have fell into my hands and my daughter visited Auschwitz this summer. Thank you for adding more fuel to this fire.
posted by KJ on 11-5-2009 at 9:10 am
I just recently read about Chiune Sugihara on Listverse
http://listverse.com/2009/11/04/top-10-people-robbed-of-the-nobel-prize/
It’s a very interesting list which included a couple of others who through personal risks, saved thousands during the Holocaust.
posted by Annie on 11-5-2009 at 10:54 am
Interesting list, Annie, but I didn’t find Sugihara on it.
posted by Miss Cellania on 11-5-2009 at 11:37 am
This is an amazing story. I took an entire class on Genocide in college and it would have been nice not to hear about so much death for bit and to read the story of a hero.
posted by Amber on 11-5-2009 at 11:41 am
They say you learn something everyday…
Thanks for the brain food.
I’ve never heard of Japanese citizens helping Jews during the war.
I love little nuggets of information like this.
posted by Chrystani on 11-5-2009 at 12:00 pm
Amazing, just amazing. I smile to think there were ever and still are people like that. Amazing.
posted by michele on 11-5-2009 at 12:07 pm
Great story!!!
please post more like this.
posted by CH on 11-5-2009 at 12:14 pm
It is good to see a story like this!
It is a shame that he lost his career after the war. I bet he felt a bit abandoned but it is good to see that in the end his contribution was honored :-)
posted by Nayeli on 11-5-2009 at 12:19 pm
I vaguely recall reading about this story way back when Schindler’s List was on the movie screen. I found it rather odd that folks were (at the time) publicly hailing Schindler as a hero (and he was), yet ignoring this ambassador’s efforts. I hadn’t heard that Sugihara was finally recognized for his effect on the Holocaust survivors though–nice to see someone remembers.
posted by That Jeff on 11-5-2009 at 12:21 pm
Wow Miss Cellania, I must’ve read something about him recently. This is what I get for staying awake half the night watching the Yankees celebrate :).
Thank you for the correction.
posted by Annie on 11-5-2009 at 12:22 pm
Very good story! I found it both interesting and touching!
posted by Katea on 11-5-2009 at 2:27 pm
Please explain why you said he was a samurai.
posted by Michael on 11-5-2009 at 2:38 pm
Domo Arigato Gozimasu
This is a beautiful story! I like many others have never heard of this individual. But indeed, he like Oskar Schindler, are righteous for their deeds in helping his fellow man.
posted by withheld on 11-5-2009 at 3:14 pm
I have heard about him. Quite a story. I wish we had more people like him these days. He was someone who ‘did the right thing’ despite the consequences.
I recently saw a documentary about another under appreciated holocaust hero (disputed by many who call him a collaborator). The documentary was called ‘Killing Kasztner’ the website is linked from my name above. It is quite a complicated story of a DIRE consequences of doing the right thing.
posted by Stew on 11-5-2009 at 3:29 pm
I had never heard of Chiune Sugihara until a couple of months ago. Mr. Sugihara’s story was a story that was printed in my son’s elementary school reading book. He enjoyed the story and so did I!
posted by Lis on 11-5-2009 at 3:45 pm
I thought I’d be original and come tell you what a fantastic story this is… and I get here and find a lot of people had the same feeling! Well it was a great story- thanks for this post!
posted by ann on 11-5-2009 at 4:11 pm
There is a documentary about him “Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness.” I saw this a couple of months ago. Thank you for bringing his story to the attention of others.
posted by Barbara on 11-5-2009 at 4:46 pm
It is most gratifying to hear stories like this one. It sends a little message of hope that there are many souls out there that know that they must do the right thing. Thank you for this story.
posted by Ann on 11-5-2009 at 4:54 pm
A great story about a brave man. This really made my day :)
posted by heather on 11-5-2009 at 6:20 pm
Fabulous article. Thank you for publishing it. I’d love to see other articles like this– they they are so poignantly different from daily news-fare.
posted by Estee on 11-6-2009 at 8:01 am
Absolutely incredible. He and his wife were true heroes. People like this should continue to be recognized for their commitment to saving lives, and for sacrificing their lives and their careers for the welfare of others. Please continue to post articles about people like this.
posted by Joey on 11-6-2009 at 8:24 am
A couple more thoughts:
I read that the Sugihara’s third and youngest son, who was born in Lithuania, died shortly after they were released from the prison camp. I was going to include that, but I needed more details and LOST the source link!
They were not imprisoned for his visa scheme; in fact the Soviets granted visas to refugees as well. He just happened to be a government official from the losing side caught in Europe at the war’s end.
Thanks for all the kind comments!
posted by Miss Cellania on 11-6-2009 at 9:16 am
This made me tear up at my desk. I was a history major during college and my sole focus was WWII, and never heard about this story. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
posted by Elissa on 11-6-2009 at 11:00 am
The last two lines of the story made a lump form in my throat.
posted by NYCGirl on 11-7-2009 at 8:57 pm
this was wonderful. thank you!
posted by kelky on 11-12-2009 at 4:00 pm
It amazes me the bravery of some people in the face of extreme danger and possible death. Saving people during the war were such acts. I wonder if I could have had such courage. Thank you for the article!
posted by Christa on 11-17-2009 at 9:35 pm