CHIUNE

SUGIHARA
Presented by: Sophia Ravanzo
7-PinPin
CHIUNE SUGIHARA
A man who defied the
Japanese government
and risked his career
to save the lives of
thousands of Jewish
people (mainly from
Poland) who were
living in Lithuania
during WWII.
■ Chihune Sugihara was born on January 1,
1900, in the Kitayama District of the
village of Yaotsu.
■ His father was a middle-class man, named
Yoshimi Sugihara, and an upper-middle
class mother, Yatsu Sugihara.
■ When he was born, his father worked at a
tax office in Kozuchi-town and his family
lived in a borrowed temple, with the
Buddhist temple Kyōsen-ji where he was
born nearby.
■ He was the second son among five boys and
one girl.
■ In 1912, he graduated with top honors from
Furuwatari Elementary School and entered
Aichi prefectural 5th secondary school.
■ His father wanted him to become a
physician, but Chiune deliberately failed
the entrance exam by writing only his name
on the exam papers.
■ From 1920 to 1922 Sugihara served in the
Imperial Army as a second lieutenant,
though he resigned his commission in Nov.
1922
■ BORN : JANUARY 1, 1900, KOZUCHI TOWN
■ DIED: JULY 31, 1986 (AGED 86)
■ NATIONALITY: JAPANESE
■ OTHER NAMES: SEMPO, PAVLO SERGEIVICH SUGIHARA
■ OCCUPATION: VICE COUNCIL FOR THE JAPANESE EMPIRE IN
LITHUANIA
■ KNOWN FOR: RESCUE OF 5,558 JEWS DURING HOLOCAUST
■ SPOUSE(s) : Kaludia Seminoovna Apollonova (m. 1919; div.
1935) Yukiko Kikuchi (m. 1936)
■ CHILDREN: 4
 Kyōsen-ji Temple
This temple was
located at the
address reported as
the birthplace of
Sugihara Chiune,
and there was a
Kōzuchi tax office
that Chiune’s
father served in
the immediate area.
Chiune Bridge
A bridge over
Chiune-cho
which was the
origin of the
name of
Chiune.
• Thousands of people owe their lives
in part to his willingness to buck
authority. For his efforts, he was
imprisoned by the Soviets and fired
from his job by the Japanese Foreign
Ministry.

• That's not the way Japanese children

of his generation were raised.
Sugihara walked to the beat of a
different drummer even before the
events that made him famous, when he
went against his father's wishes and
failed a medical school entrance exam
-on purpose.

• Instead, he enrolled in a Tokyo

university where he was recruited by
the Japanese Foreign Ministry.Â
Sugihara was assigned to Japanese-
occupied Harbin, in Machuria, where
he perfected his English, learned
Russian, and joined the Greek
Orthodox Christian church.
■ As his career was taking off,
Sugihara's sense of justice led him
to protest the way the Japanese
military treated Chinese citizens.
Instead of getting rid of the
talented diplomat, the Foreign
Ministry transferred him several
times. He was eventually reassigned
to Europe.
■ Sugihara was sent to Lithuania
(with his wife and children) to
open a new Japanese consulate in
March of 1939. Only a few months
later, Hitler's forces invaded
Poland and thousands of Jews fled
to Lithuania to escape persecution.
In 1940, the Soviet Union invaded
Lithuania ahead of the Germans, who
were also advancing on the small
nation.
 The Russians ordered all
foreign diplomats out of the
country, but Sugihara and Dutch
consul Jan Zwartendijk stayed
behind. Zwartendijk came up with
a plan to help the Jewish
refugees get out and emigrate to
a couple of Dutch islands in the
Caribbean, but any travel visa
would also have to be approved
by the Soviet consul and by
Sugihara, as the refugees would
have to travel through Russia
and Japan.
• He was a career diplomat, who
suddenly had to make a very
difficult choice. On one had,
he was bound by the
traditional obedience he had
been taught all his life.
• On the other hand, he was a
samurai who had been told to
help those who were in need.
He knew that if he defied the
orders of his superiors, he
might be fired and disgraced,
and would probably never work
for the Japanese government
again.
The Japanese government was
quite unhappy with Sugihara's
disobedience, but they
postponed his punishment
because they needed his
talents during the war.
Sugihara was reassigned to the
consul in Germany and then to
Romania. He was arrested by
the Soviets at the end of the
war and the entire family
spent 18 months in a POW camp
in Romania. On his release,
Sugihara returned to Japan,
where he was fired from the
Foreign Ministry. The family
fell into poverty as Sugihara
worked as a door-to-door
salesman, a translator, and
eventually a manager for a
Japanese trading company
office in Moscow.
Sugihara discussed the plan with
his wife Yukiko and decided to risk
his career and his entire future by
defying his superiors. The couple
then spent 29 days issuing travel
visas, up to 300 a day, as thousands
of refugees stood in line at his
office. Yukiko would prepare and
register the visas while Chiune
Sugihara would sign and stamp them,
hour after hour, without breaking for
meals. They would work late into the
night until Yukiko would massage her
husband's weary hands in preparation
for the next day. Sugihara was under
orders to leave, which he could no
longer delay. The family departed on
September 1st, but he kept signing
visas even as he boarded the train.
Sugihara then tossed his official
stamp out to the crowd, as he hadn't
time to stamp them all.