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Chiune Sugihara (杉原千畝, January 1, 1900 – July 31, 1986) was a Japanese diplomat who saved Jews during the World War II when he was a Japanese consul to Lithuania.
Chiune Sugihara was born January 1, 1900 in Yaotsu, in Gifu Prefecture of the Chubu Region in Japan. His father wanted him to follow his footsteps as a doctor but he failed in the entrance exam. Instead in 1918 he entered Waseda University. The Japanese Foreign Ministry recruited him and assigned him to Harbin, China, where he also studied Russian and later become an expert of Russian affairs.
When Sugihara served in the Manchurian Foreign Office, he took part in the negotiations with the Soviet Union about the Northern Manchurian Railroad. In 1935 he returned to Japan to marry Yukiko Kikuchi. He also served in the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as a translator for Japanese legation in Helsinki, Finland. In 1939 he become a vice-consul of the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania. His other duty was to report on Soviet and German troop movements.
When the Soviet Union took over Lithuania in 1940, many Jewish refugees from Poland tried to acquire exit visas. A number of them came to Japanese consulate, trying to get a visa to Japan. The Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk had provided some of them with an official third destination to Curacao or Dutch Guiana. At the time Japanese government followed officially neutral policy towards the Jews but demanded that only those who had gone through appropriate immigration procedures and had enough funds could get a visa. Most of the refugees did not fulfill this criterion.
Sugihara dutifully contacted the Japanese Foreign Ministry for instructions. The Ministry required that anybody granted a visa should have a visa to a third destination to exit Japan, with no exceptions.
In July 29-31 (sources disagree) Sugihara began to grant visas on his own initiative, aided by his wife. Many times he ignored the requirements and arranged the Jews with a 10-day Visa to transit through Japan. He spoke to Soviet officials who agreed to let the Jews travel through the country via Trans-Siberian railway - with five times the ticket prize.
Sugihara continued to write visas until September 4, when he had to leave his post for Berlin before the consulate was closed. By that time he had granted a visa to more than 2100 Jews, many of them heads of household who could take their families with them.
Many refugees used their visas to travel through Soviet Union to Kobe, Japan, where there was a Russian Jewish community. From there 1000 departed to other destinations like the United States and the British Mandate of Palestine. The remaining had to stay in Japan until they were deported to Japanese-held Shanghai, where there was also a large Jewish refugee community. There they remained until the Japanese surrender in 1945.
Afterwards Sugihara served as a Consulate General in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1941 in Königsberg and in legation in Romania. When Russian troops entered Romania, Soviet troops imprisoned Sugihara and his family. They were released in 1946 and returned to Japan through the Soviet Union. In 1947 the Japanese foreign office asked him to resign, at least nominally due to downsizing but probably also due to his actions in Lithuania.
Sugihara settled in Fujisawa in Kanagawa prefecture. He began to work as a manager for an export company.
In 1968, Jehoshua Nishri, one of the 'Sugihara survivors' contacted Sugihara. The next year Sugihara visited Israel and was greeted by the Israeli government. Sugihara survivors began to lobby for inclusion in the Yad Vashem memorial.
In 1985 the state of Israel honored Sugihara with the Yad Vashem Prize and he was nominated one of the "Righteous Among the Nations". Sugihara was too ill to travel to Israel and his wife and daughter accepted the honor on his behalf.
Chiune Sugihara died July 31, 1986. The asteroid 25893 Sugihara is named after him.
Movies TV station of Japan made documentary film about Chiune Sugihara. This film was shot in Kaunas in the same place of the former embassy of Japan.
Books - Yukiko Sugihara: Visas for Life (1995) (translation of Rokusennin no inochi no biza, 1990) ISBN 0964967405
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