NO OF PAGES: 176 SUB CAT I: Holocaust SUB CAT II: Righteous Gentiles SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: Grade 5-10-A moving account of an unlikely hero. Sugihara single-handedly saved thousands of Jewish lives during the Holocaust. With the support of his wife, he issued exit visas while stationed as a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania. Risking his own life and those of his family members, he responded to the call to help fellow human beings. Ignoring the orders of the Japanese foreign ministry, he handwrote thousands of documents so that Jews could flee Lithuania to travel through Russia to get to Japan and freedom. Sugihara was eventually transferred out of Eastern Europe but not before he and his own family experienced the internment camps of Russia. Eventually, he was fired from the foreign service for his bravery and had to find work elsewhere. At the end of his life, he wondered if his act of compassion had any impact. He was rewarded by learning that many of the survivors had been searching for him to thank him for his gift of freedom. Although Sugihara passed away in 1986, Gold was able to interview his widow as well as two people who were saved by his act. Thus, the many details of the book are authentic. The narrative alternates between Sugihara's story and those of the two survivors, rendering the sacrifices and suffering of each person all the more poignant. This thought-provoking title joins the growing number of fine Holocaust titles for young people.NOTES: Donated by Larry and Lisa Landry. SUBTITLE: Chiune Sugihara: Hero of the Holocaust

Chiune Sugihara is little known ,but to Jewish people he's known as Japanese Schindler (as in "Schindler's List").
"In the fall of 1939 Hitler's murderous wave was sweeping through Eastern Europe. In the face of the Nazi onslaught, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara made a decision that would change his life and thousands of others. With no possible hope for reward and at great risk to his family and career, Sugihara acted on his innermost beliefs and used his diplomatic power to rescue desperate Jewish refugees. As Japanese Consul to Lithuania, Sugihara defied Tokyo authorities by writing transit visas that were the sole remaining hope of Jews facing extermination. More than 2,000 Sugihara-stamped passports allowed hundreds of families to flee Europe through Russia to Japan and safe havens abroad. Today it is estimated that at least 40,000 people owe their existence to Sugihara’s heroism."-from Amazon

You can also watch this same story on DVD Sugihara - Conspiracy of Kindness (2000)

Chiune Sugihara was a very interesting man. I learned about him, and this book, from Fogelmann's book on Conscience and Courage. The book itself is not as well written, nor as full a treatment of Sugihara's life, as it could have been. The author also intersperses the experiences of two Jewish families through the Holocaust, which could be seen as context to what Sugihara did in rescuing so many thousands of Jews, or it could be padding for the rather thin treatment of Sugihara himself. Maybe there is not a lot more to say about Sugihara, though I think there is and his post-war life also deserved fuller treatment. He is apparently, well-known in Japan and there have been a number of articles about him in the Japanese press.

Sugihara was the Japanese consul in Lithuania when thousands of Jews were fleeing from the German onslaught in Poland. He had some Jewish acquaintances, and saw first-hand the terror and helplessness of the Jewish refugees pouring into the country. He asked permission from Tokyo to issue transit visas so that Jews could travel across Russia, through Japan and then onward. He was specifically refused this permission three times, but he decided, with the support of his wife, to do it anyway. This, in itself, was remarkable given the pressures in Japanese society, and certainly within the bureaucracy, to conform, to follow directions, to not be the one who stood out. But Sugihara felt, "as a human being" that he could not abandon these people when he had it in his power to offer them a hope of safety. For days he wrote out, by hand, thousands of transit visas that, for Jewish refugees, would have been like deliverance from heaven. The crush of people became so great, and the pressures on him from his own government and from the Russians to close the consulate (though the Russians did help with an extension), that he even abandoned any pretext of examining supporting documents to validate identities, and simply filled-in the visas as quickly as he could. When he and his family finally had to leave the city for his assignment in Berlin, he was still writing visas in the hotel lobby and in the car to the train station.

Sugihara was predisposed to openness, even to foreigners, again, not a usual trait in the Japanese in the 1940s. He lived and studied in Harbin where he became very fluent in Russian and also studied English, Chinese, French and German. He was so enamoured with Russian culture that he converted to the Russian Orthodox Church. He resisted pressure from his father to become a doctor and returned to Japan where he went to university and then joined the foreign service. He also seems to have treated his wife as a true partner in his decisions and his life. Sugihara certainly did not face immediate death like those who assisted or hid Jews in areas under German control, but he knew that he was putting his career on the line and casting himself well outside of accepted Japanese behaviour in ignoring his instructions. But he was one of those who simply could not accept to do nothing in the face of human suffering and distress.

When he finally returned to Japan in 1947 (he and his family had been interned by the Russians when the Red Army captured Bucharest where Sugihara was posted), he was dismissed from the foreign service because he had acted contrary to instructions. He worked at odd jobs and finally ended up in Moscow, in 1960, representing a Japanese company until his retirement in 1976, a period in which he was separated from his wife and family except for biannual visits. But, the author says that he never regretted what he did in issuing the 6,000 transit visas, and today there are 40,000 descendants of those saved by Sugihara. He died in 1986 but his memory is alive at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial and Museum, as one of the righteous who assisted Jews during the Holocaust.

As I said, an interesting, and honourable man, and one deserving of a fuller biography than this one.

(Feb/06)