CHIUNE SUGIHARA , SAVED JEWS MAXIMUM OF 40,000

CHIUNE SUGIHARA , SAVED JEWS MAXIMUM OF 40,000


நாஜிக்களிடம் இருந்து 40 ,௦௦௦ யூதர்களை கைப்பற்றிய மனிதர் ! யூதர்களுக்கு ஜப்பான் விசா கொடுத்து யூதர்களை ஜப்பானுக்கு கடத்தியவர்
Chiune "Sempo" Sugihara (杉原 千畝 Sugihara Chiune, 1 January 1900 – 31 July 1986) was a Japanese diplomat who served as Vice-Consul for the Empire of Japan in Lithuania. During World War II, he helped between 10,000 and 40,000 Jews leave the country by issuing transit visas so that they could travel to Japanese territory, risking his career and his family's lives. The Jews who escaped were refugees from German-occupied Western Poland or Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland, as well as residents of Lithuania. In 1985, Israel named him to the Righteous Among the Nations for his actions, the only Japanese national to be so honored.

Resignation[edit]

Sugihara was reassigned to Königsberg, East Prussia[10] before serving as a Consul General in Prague, Czechoslovakia, from March 1941 to late 1942 and in the legation in Bucharest, Romania from 1942 to 1944. When Soviet troops entered Romania, they imprisoned Sugihara and his family in a POW camp for eighteen months. They were released in 1946 and returned to Japan through the Soviet Union via the Trans-Siberian railroad and Nakhodka port. In 1947, the Japanese foreign office asked him to resign, nominally due to downsizing. Some sources, including his wife Yukiko Sugihara, have said that the Foreign Ministry told Sugihara he was dismissed because of "that incident" in Lithuania.[10][12]

Later life[edit]

Sugihara settled in Fujisawa in Kanagawa prefecture with his wife and 3 sons. To support his family he took a series of menial jobs, at one point selling light bulbs door to door. He suffered a personal tragedy in 1947 when his youngest son, Haruki, died at the age of seven, shortly after their return to Japan.[6] In 1949 they had one more son, Nobuki, who is the last son alive representing the Chiune Sugihara Family, residing in Belgium. He later began to work for an export company as General Manager of U.S. Military Post Exchange. Utilizing his command of the Russian language, Sugihara went on to work and live a low-key existence in the Soviet Union for sixteen years, while his family stayed in Japan.

Chiune and his son Nobuki in Israel, December, 1969

In 1968, Jehoshua Nishri, an economic attaché to the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo and one of the Sugihara beneficiaries, finally located and contacted him. Nishri had been a Polish teen in the 1940s. The next year Sugihara visited Israel and was greeted by the Israeli government. Sugihara beneficiaries began to lobby for his inclusion in the Yad Vashem memorial.

In 1985, Chiune Sugihara was granted the honor of the Righteous Among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם ‎‎, translit. Khasidei Umot ha-Olam) by the government of Israel. Sugihara was too ill to travel to Israel, so his wife and youngest son Nobuki accepted the honor on his behalf. That same year, 45 years after the Soviet invasion of Lithuania, he was asked his reasons for issuing visas to the Jews. Sugihara explained that the refugees were human beings, and that they simply needed help.