Who was Chiune Sugihara and why did he risk his and his family's future to issue visas to Jewish refugees in Lithuania?
Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara always did things his own way. He was born on January 1, 1900. He graduated from high school with top marks and his father insisted that he become a doctor. But Chiune's dream was to study literature and live abroad. Sugihara attended Tokyo's prestigious Waseda University to study English. He paid for his own education with part-time work as a longshoreman and tutor.
One day he saw an item in the classified ads. The Foreign Ministry was seeking people who wished to study abroad and might be interested in a diplomatic career. He passed the difficult entrance exam and was sent to the Japanese language institute in Harbin, China. He studied Russian and graduated with honors. He also converted to Greek Orthodox Christianity. While in Harbin he met and married a Caucasian woman. They were later divorced. The cosmopolitan nature of Harbin, China opened his eyes to how diverse and interesting the world was.
He then served with the Japanese controlled government in Manchuria, in North Eastern China. He was later promoted to Vice Minister of the Foreign Affairs Department. He was soon in line to be the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Manchuria.
While in Manchuria he negotiated the purchase of the Russian-owned Manchurian railroad system by the Japanese. This saved the Japanese government millions of dollars, and infuriated the Russians.
Sugihara was disturbed by his government's policy and the cruel treatment of the Chinese by the Japanese government. He resigned his post in protest in 1934.
In 1938 Sugihara was posted to the Japanese diplomatic office in Helsinki, Finland. With World War II looming on the horizon, the Japanese government sent Sugihara to Lithuania to open a one-man consulate in 1939. There he would report on Soviet and German war plans. Six months later, war broke out and the Soviet Union annexed Lithuania. The Soviets ordered all consulates to be closed. It was in this context that Sugihara was confronted with the requests of thousands of Polish Jews fleeing German-occupied Poland.
Sugihara's personal history and temperament may contain the key to why he defied his government's orders and issued the visas. Sugihara favored his mother's personality. He thought of himself as kind and nurturing and artistic. He was interested in foreign ideas, religion, philosophy and language. He wanted to travel the world and see everything there was, and experience the world. He had a strong sense of the value of all human life. His language skills show that he was always interested in learning more about other peoples.
Sugihara was a humble and understated man He was self-sacrificing, self-effacing and had a very good sense of humor. Yukiko, his wife, said he found it very difficult to discipline the children when they misbehaved. He never lost his temper.
Sugihara was also raised in the strict Japanese code of ethics of a turn-of-the century samurai family. The cardinal virtues of this society were oya koko (love of the family), kodomo no tamane (for the sake of the children), having gidi and on (duty and responsibility, or obligation to repay a debt), gaman (withholding of emotions on the surface), gambate (internal strength and resourcefulness), and haji no kakate (don't bring shame on the family). These virtues were strongly inculcated by Chiune's middle-class rural samurai family.
It took enormous courage for Sugihara to defy the order of his father to become a doctor, and instead follow his own academic path. It took courage to leave Japan and study overseas. It took a very modern liberal Japanese man to marry a Caucasian woman and convert to Christianity. It took even more courage to openly oppose the Japanese military policies of expansion in the 1930s.
Thus Sugihara was no ordinary Japanese man and may have been no ordinary man. At the time that he and his wife Yukiko thought of the plight of the Jewish refugees, he was haunted by the words of an old samurai maxim: "Even a hunter cannot kill a bird which flies to him for refuge."
Forty-five years after he signed the visas, Chiune was asked why he did it. He liked to give two reasons: "They were human beings and they needed help," he said. "I'm glad I found the strength to make the decision to give it to them." Sugihara was a religious man and believed in a universal god of all people.
Time was running out as Hitler tightened the net around Eastern Europe. Jewish refugees in Lithuania came upon an idea which they presented to Sugihara. They discovered that the two Dutch colonial islands, Curacao and Surinam, situated in the Caribbean, did not require formal entrance visas, and the Dutch consul informed them that he would be willing to stamp their passports with a Dutch visa to that destination. Furthermore, the Dutch consul had received permission from his superior in Riga to issue such visas and he was willing to issue these visas to anyone who was willing to pay a fee.
To get to these two islands, one needed to pass through the Soviet Union. The Soviet consul, who was sympathetic to the plight of the refugees, agreed to let them pass on one condition: that in addition to the Dutch visa, they would also obtain a transit visa from the Japanese as they would have to pass through Japan on their way to Curacao or Surinam.
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 hand, 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 would be fired and disgraced, and would probably never work for the Japanese government again. This would result in financial hardship for his family in the future.
Chiune and his wife Yukiko Sugihara even feared for their lives in making this decision. They agreed that they had no choice in the matter. Sugihara said, "I may have to disobey my government, but if I don't, I would be disobeying God." Sugihara was a humble man and, when asked why he did it, he often replied: "I saw people in distress, and I was able to help them, so why shouldn't I?" His wife remembered that "the refugee's eyes were so intense and desperate- especially the women and children. There were hundreds of people standing outside." Fifty-four years after their decision, his wife Yukiko said: "human life is very important, and being virtuous in life is important as well." This was a decision that would ultimately save the second largest number of Jews in World War II. They chose to help the thousands who thronged the gates of his consulate in Kaunas.
The choice faced by the Sugihara’s was a moral dilemma that consuls all over the world faced at that time. Few lost sleep in shutting the doors in Jewish faces. Many went strictly by the book, and in some cases, were even stricter in issuing visas than their governments required. Countless thousands could have been saved if other consuls had acted more like Sugihara.
For 29 days, from July 31 to August 28, 1940, Sugihara and his wife Yukiko unflinchingly sat for endless hours entering in the visa documents and sealing them. Hour after hour, day after day, during these weeks, all they did was write visas. They managed to issue over 100 visas a day, which would normally take more than one months work for the consul. Yukiko also helped him register these visas. At the end of the day, she would massage his fatigued hands. He did not even stop to eat. His wife supplied him with sandwiches. Sugihara chose not to lose a minute because people were standing in line in front of his consulate day and night for these visas. When some began climbing the fence to get in on the compound, he came out and calmed them down. He promised them that as long as there was a single person left, he would not abandon them.
After receiving their visas, the refugees lost no time in getting on the train that took them to Moscow, and by the trans-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok. From there, most of them continued to Kobe, Japan. They were allowed to stay in Kobe for several months. They were then sent to Shanghai, China. many survived, thanks alone to the humanity and courage of Chiune and Yukiko Sugihara.
In 1945, when everything finally came out in the open, the Japanese government unceremoniously dismissed Chiune Sugihara from the diplomatic service. His career as a diplomat ended and he had to start his life over. Sugihara, once a rising star in the Japanese foreign service, was forced to work as a part time translator and interpreter. For the last two decades of his life, he was a clerk for a company with business in Moscow. It was his fate because he dared to save thousands of human beings from certain death.
Today, almost 70 years after the event, there may be 100,000 or more people who owe their lives to Chiune and Yukiko Sugihara. Three generations have come after the Sugihara survivors, and they owe their lives to the Sugihara’s. Yukiko Sugihara recalled that every time she and her husband had met or heard of people they had saved, they felt great satisfaction and happiness. They had no regrets.
Aftert e war Sugihara never spoke about his extraordinary deeds and it was not until 1969 that he was found by a man whom he had helped save. Soon, many others whom he had helped came forward to testify to the Yad Vashem (Holocaust Memorial) in Israel about his life-saving deeds. Eventually Sugihara survivors from all over the world sent in testimonies and the committee at Yad Vashem realized the enormity of his actions. Only in 1985 shortly before his death was he recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" by the Yad Vashem Martyrs Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem. He was too ill to travel; his wife and son received the honour on his behalf. Further, a tree was planted in his name, and a park in Jerusalem was named in his honour.
He said that he was very happy with the honours. "I think that my decision was humanely correct."
By courtesy of Eric Saul.
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I am connected with this man because my father and other family members were among those who received his visas, and as such I not only honour him as a man of integrity, but I owe my very life to him.
However in spite of my own personal debt to Sugihara, I find the above eulogy too strong, too emotional, and somewhat confusing. It tries to turn him into something larger than life, which in my humble opinion is doing him an injustice. He was not a super-hero, with incredible powers, he did not vanquish an enemy brigade single-handed. He merely did his job, filling out visas, albeit against instructions from his superiors, 1000’s of miles away. His greatness is the greatness that exists within us all, with recourse only to a fundamental sense of integrity, and the courage to follow his convictions.
In effect Sugihara was great because he was as ordinary as all of us.
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