He has been dubbed "Japan's Schindler" but the sobriquet hardly does justice to Chiune Sugihara. While Oscar Schindler was a complex individual who performed a magnificent human act in saving Jews from certain death in Nazi Germany, Sugihara operated on simpler lines to do the same thing in Lithuania, writes Frank Shouldice
Auspiciously born in Yaotsu on the first day of the 20th century, Sugihara proved headstrong from an early age, confounding his father by deliberately flunking exams to avoid medical school. Instead he went to Waseda University in Tokyo where he was recruited by Japan's foreign ministry and assigned to the international port of Harbin in Manchuria. He spoke Russian fluently, converted to Greek Orthodox Christianity and married a European woman.
He rose steadily through the ranks of the Japanese diplomatic corps. He negotiated Japan's purchase of the Manchurian railway for a bargain that left the Russians kicking themselves. However, Sugihara was increasingly appalled by Japan's cruel treatment of Chinese workers in the region. Feeling his protests went ignored by the ministry, he went a stage further by resigning in 1935.
Although this might have signalled an end to his diplomatic career he was reassigned to Helsinki. He married again - his second wife Yukiko was Japanese - and transferred to Lithuania to open a Japanese consulate in Kaunas (then known as Kovno).
Within six months war broke out, with Germany invading Poland and Baltic Lithuania effectively annexed to the Soviet Union by the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact.
The Soviets ordered all consulates in the city to close. Watching war unfold in Europe - Kaunas became a Jewish ghetto two years later - Sugihara and his wife observed the plight of the local Jewish community. The Japanese couple set about stalling the closure of their consulate, seeking a way to gain safe passage for the Jews of Kaunas.
"We feared for ourselves," recalled Yukiko Sugihara, a kindred spirit in a time of such upheaval. "Jewish people were getting caught and killed by the Communists every day. We got involved with them. It was frightening, but as human beings we could not pass the opportunity available through my husband's position. We had but two lives, our own, to sacrifice. It was our duty and we could not turn away from it."
Sugihara's superiors summoned him home but he again defied Tokyo, insisting he had work to do. Reports of his readiness to help swept the city and despite obvious dangers, queues began forming at the consulate on Vaizganto Street.
Courageously assisted by his wife, the Japanese diplomat began processing transit visas east to Vladisvostok on the trans-Siberian railway. Jan Zwartendijk, a colleague in the Dutch consulate, then exploited a legal loophole by issuing visas for Surinam, a Dutch colony at that time. Between them Lithuanian Jews were offered an unlikely but safe haven.
With fear growing that the Soviets would start rounding up Jews for the Nazis, locals seeking escape soon overwhelmed the consulate, prompting Sugihara to come outside and reassure the crowd he would take care of every last one of them. Working closely with Zorach Warhaftig, a Jewish leader in Lithuania, he was processing some 300 visas a day, refusing to stop for food or rest. In the evening day Yukiko would balm her husband's crippled hands. This continued for almost four weeks until the Soviets lost patience and expelled them.
By then Sugihara had personally issued 2,000 visas, saving over 6,000 lives. Today, the descendants of these survivors number over 40,000.
Japan's Foreign Ministry postponed disciplinary action and dispatched Sugihara to short stints in Berlin, Prague, Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad) and Bucharest. He was captured by Russian soldiers in Romania in 1945 and held in a prisoner-of-war camp for 18 months with his wife and two children.
When they finally returned to Japan after the war Chiune Sugihara was formally punished for his humanitarian activities by summary dismissal from the Foreign Ministry. He and Yukiko scraped by on odd jobs for two years. "I may have disobeyed my country but if I didn't I would have been disobeying God," he said.
He never sought recognition for his wartime deeds. Nor did he know for certain the fate of those he assisted until a survivor finally tracked him down in 1968 to express his gratitude, 28 years after receiving a life-saving visa.
Since then Sughiara has been revered and commemorated by humanitarian organisations and by displaced Jews everywhere. He died in Tokyo in 1986. The former Japanese consulate at Vaizganto Street, Kaunas is a fitting memorial. Now called Sugihara House it is an evocative place once occupied by a remarkable couple. In what served as the consular office visitors will notice a manual Urania ribbon typewriter resting on the humble diplomat's desk. It hasn't been used for years but its presence in this very room recalls how one man's compassion turned it into an instrument of reprieve.
"He was an emissary of God," said Warhaftig. Many survivors describe him as "an angel". Sugihara's own assessment of his achievement was typically modest. "I thought that they were in need of help and I'm glad I found the strength to help them," he remarked in his twilight years.