Chiune Sugihara

Chiune Sugihara’s story is a pedestrian one; people from all walks (#sorrynotsorry) of life can relate.

We’ve lost count of the number of German and Russian speaking Japanese dudes who worked in Lithuania and wrote illegal visas to save around 6,000 Jews from the Nazis that we learned about in history class. It’s true. You can’t, technically, count to zero.

Chiune-san’s story involves many moving parts. Well, not really many, just one, him. Check out this timeline to get an idea. We’re just going to cover the aforementioned visa-palooza but urge you to google the dude to learn more.

In The Fall (as in the season) of 1939, after Czechoslovakia fell (as in the end of its independence), Japan sent Chiune-san to Kaunas (which we initially read as Kansas), Lithuania to establish a consulate of one. His mission, should he choose to accept it (or should he choose not to accept it he still had to do it), was to report on the movements of Nazis and Russian troops. If the Russians moved to engage the Nazis, Japan could move into China to extend its own control there. Which they (the Nazis/Russians) did, so they (Japan) did.

Chiune-san’s job was a kind Good Idea/Bad Idea skit in action; it lead to Japanese atrocities in Asa, it also lead to his saving thousands of Jews from The Holocaust. As the Nazis blitzkrieg bopped their way all over Europe, the Russians ere hot on their каблуки and Lithuania, too, became hot. So Chiune-san took his Visas-for-free-because-I’m-a-descent-human show on the road. His tour took him to Prague, Bucharest, and even into the tentacles of the Aryan Kraken, Konigsberg, Germany. He did not get away with these deeds unscathed, though. In 1945, his family was imprisoned by the Soviets. He was, after all, a citizen of an Axis of Power. Fortunately, he and his family were freed and went on to live until the year of “The Error“.

Before we return you to your regularly scheduled day, we just have two more things to say. First, before he started issuing visas, he asked his bosses in the Japanese government for permission. They said no. He said ok. Then did it anyway.

Second, and still on the subject of asking, when asked why he did it, he said:

“It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. … I knew that somebody would surely complain about me in the future. But, I myself thought this would be the right thing to do,”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/27/chiune-sugihara-jews-holocaust-japanese-schindler/

Ok, we lied. One more. In that same Washington Post article, it mentions that because of his actions between 40,000 and 100,000 children were allowed to be born when their parents weren’t killed by the Nazis.

This man is a perfect example of why this blog was started. He did so much good but so few people know his name.