lspencer534
12-10-2014, 9:58am
Most Americans know of Oskar Schindler, the German businessman who saved more than 1,200 lives during the Holocaust by hiring Jews to work in his factories and fought Nazi efforts to remove them.
But fewer know about Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who disobeyed his government's orders and issued visas that allowed 6,000 Jews to escape from Nazi-occupied territories via Japan.
As Nazis threatened to invade Lithuania, thousands of Jews surrounded the Japanese consulate and asked for visas to escape. Disobeying his bosses in Japan, Sugihara issued thousands. From July 31 to Aug. 28, 1940, Sugihara and his wife stayed up all night, writing visas.
The Japanese government closed the consulate, located in Kovno. But even as Sugihara's train was about to leave the city, he kept writing visas from his open window. When the train began moving, he gave the visa stamp to a refugee to continue the job.
Meanwhile, Sugihara was transferred to Prague, where he worked in 1941 and 1942, and then to Bucharest, where he worked from 1942 to 1944. When the Soviets invaded Romania, he and his family were taken to a prison camp for 18 months. They returned to Japan in 1946, and a year later, the foreign office told him to resign. Years later, his wife, Yukiko Sugihara, who died in 2008, speculated the forced resignation was because of the unauthorized visas.
Sugihara, who worked odd jobs after returning to Japan and later was employed by a trading company in Russia, worked in obscurity and never spoke of the visas. He never knew if anything came of them and survivors had no luck finding him. But in 1968, a survivor who had become an Israeli diplomat, Joshua Nishri, finally made contact. In 1985, a year before his death in Tokyo, Israel named Sugihara "Righteous Among the Nations," a title given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
The Sugiharas' son, Hiroki Sugihara, chairs the Visas for Life Foundation. The organization's mission is to "perpetuate the legacy" of Chiune Sugihara and connect "Sugihara survivors" and their descendents.
The group has documented 2,139 Sugihara visas (many were for entire families). It's unknown exactly how many people can trace their ancestry to a Sugihara survivor, though the organization estimated it to be more than 100,000.
For more of his story and pictures go to:
Chiune Sugihara, Japan Diplomat Who Saved 6,000 Jews During Holocaust, Remembered (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/chiune-sugihara-japanese--jews-holocaust_n_2528666.html)
But fewer know about Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who disobeyed his government's orders and issued visas that allowed 6,000 Jews to escape from Nazi-occupied territories via Japan.
As Nazis threatened to invade Lithuania, thousands of Jews surrounded the Japanese consulate and asked for visas to escape. Disobeying his bosses in Japan, Sugihara issued thousands. From July 31 to Aug. 28, 1940, Sugihara and his wife stayed up all night, writing visas.
The Japanese government closed the consulate, located in Kovno. But even as Sugihara's train was about to leave the city, he kept writing visas from his open window. When the train began moving, he gave the visa stamp to a refugee to continue the job.
Meanwhile, Sugihara was transferred to Prague, where he worked in 1941 and 1942, and then to Bucharest, where he worked from 1942 to 1944. When the Soviets invaded Romania, he and his family were taken to a prison camp for 18 months. They returned to Japan in 1946, and a year later, the foreign office told him to resign. Years later, his wife, Yukiko Sugihara, who died in 2008, speculated the forced resignation was because of the unauthorized visas.
Sugihara, who worked odd jobs after returning to Japan and later was employed by a trading company in Russia, worked in obscurity and never spoke of the visas. He never knew if anything came of them and survivors had no luck finding him. But in 1968, a survivor who had become an Israeli diplomat, Joshua Nishri, finally made contact. In 1985, a year before his death in Tokyo, Israel named Sugihara "Righteous Among the Nations," a title given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
The Sugiharas' son, Hiroki Sugihara, chairs the Visas for Life Foundation. The organization's mission is to "perpetuate the legacy" of Chiune Sugihara and connect "Sugihara survivors" and their descendents.
The group has documented 2,139 Sugihara visas (many were for entire families). It's unknown exactly how many people can trace their ancestry to a Sugihara survivor, though the organization estimated it to be more than 100,000.
For more of his story and pictures go to:
Chiune Sugihara, Japan Diplomat Who Saved 6,000 Jews During Holocaust, Remembered (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/chiune-sugihara-japanese--jews-holocaust_n_2528666.html)