Japanese Emperor Akihito paid homage to Chiune Sugihara, known as “the Japanese Oscar Schindler,” for his role in saving thousands of Jewish refugees from occupied Lithuania by issuing them transit visas just before the implementation of the Nazi “Final Solution” of murdering all the Jews. During the course of the Emperor and Empress’ 10-day tour of Europe, they visited a memorial site set up in Vilna to honor the late diplomat. The visit was covered in detail by the Japanese media, which had to explain who the unfamiliar figure was and what he did.
Sugihara, then vice consul at the Japanese Consulate in Kovno, Lithuania, issued the visas despite the risk to himself and his family for defying orders. Even when he boarded the train to Berlin with his family, he continued filling in the last visa and handed the stamp to one of the refugees, who continued to use it on additional visas. Among the Jews he saved were numerous yeshiva students, including most of Yeshivas Mir.
After the war Sugihara was forced to resign from his post and only after more than half a century had passed did the Japanese Foreign Ministry restore his honor, laying a memorial stone in his name. Sugihara died 10 years ago at the age of 86. In 1985 Yad Vashem recognized him as a Righteous Among the Nations.
The former Japanese Consulate building in Kovna stands to this day as a memorial site to Sugihara, and the Lithuanian President was on hand at the inauguration ceremony for the site.
(Written By Israeli Yated Staff – Dei’ah veDibur)
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3 Responses
It’s always remarkable to see the yad HaShem in history. In this case the great Yeshivas Mir was able to survive the Holocaust because of the chesed of a righteous Gentile. I hope there’s some schar for him in the Olam HaEmes.
Mi nitleh bimi havei omer katan nitleh bigadol. Schindler should be called the European Sugihara. Both likely have plenty of schar coming to them.
Of course, Sugihara did the first part of the work, and we musn’t forget Kotsuji, who did a later part of the work in saving the Mirrer Yeshivah, and who later became a Ger Tzeddek. (Though I don’t know how kusher is girus was, since as far as I understand his wife didn’t go through the girus procedure, they just said that in Japan a wife follows the husband in all things. And she certainly WANTED to be just as Jewish.)
But the point is that he is in any case due a lot of schar for what he did. And he should not be forgotten.
He was the author of the Book “From Tokyo To Jerusalem,” in which he discusses his life and how he wound up converting. He spends less than a chapter, I think, on the Mirrer Yeshivah, and he also mentions Sugihara in that discussion.