Japan
•
6 views
Chiune Sugihara
Yaotsu, Gifu, Japan
Archival Overview
Japanese vice-consul in Lithuania who defied direct orders from Tokyo to handwrite thousands of transit visas, saving more than 6,000 Polish and Lithuanian Jews from Nazi extermination.
Biographical Record
Chiune Sugihara (1900 – 1986) was a Japanese diplomat whose moral conscience triumphed over bureaucratic obedience. In 1939, Sugihara was appointed vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Following the invasion of Poland and the looming Soviet annexation of Lithuania, thousands of Jewish refugees gathered outside the Japanese consulate seeking transit visas through Japan to reach safe havens in the Americas and Dutch Curaçao. After three successive telegrams to Tokyo requesting authorization were rejected, Sugihara and his wife Yukiko decided to act according to the samurai ethos of human compassion. From July 31 to August 28, 1940, Sugihara spent 18 hours a day hand-writing transit visas, continuing even as his train was departing the station. Over 6,000 Jews escaped on 'Sugihara visas' via the Trans-Siberian railway to Japan.
Key Life Milestones
Defying Tokyo Orders to Issue Visas
Commenced hand-writing thousands of Japanese transit visas for Jewish refugees in open defiance of instructions from the Foreign Ministry.
Righteous Among the Nations Recognition
Officially recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, the only Japanese national so honored.
Memorial Guestbook & Tributes
0 messages recordedLeave a Respectful Tribute
Final Resting Place
Perpetual MemorialKamakura, Kanagawa, Japan