Community Magazine April 2012

Chiune Sugihara Although working on behalf of a country that was allied with Germany, Chiune Sugihara contravened his superiors to save thousands of Jews. Born on January 1, 1900 in Yaotsu, Japan to a middle class family, Sugihara majored in English language at Waseda University and became a member of the Yuai Gakusha Christian Fraternity. After he passed the Foreign Ministry exam in 1919, the Japanese Foreign Ministry assigned him to Harbin, China, where he studied Russian and German and became an expert on Russian affairs. In 1939, he was posted in Kaunas, Lithuania as a vice-consul, and also reported on Soviet and German troop movements. When the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1940, many Jews tried to obtain exit visas, but no countries were issuing them. Hundreds came to the Japanese consulate in Kaunas to try and get visas to Japan. In July and August 1940, courageously disobeying strict regulations, Sugihara began to issue visas to Jewish refugees, enabling them to transit through Japan. Spending as much as 20 hours a day handwriting documents and producing a month’s supply in a single day, he issued visas to thousands of Jews, including heads of households who could take their families with them. Unfortunately, his life-saving work was brought to a halt on September 4, 1940, when the consulate was closed and he had to leave. Sugihara and his wife spent the night before his departure writing out visas, and as his train pulled out of Kaunas Railway Station he threw visas to the crowd of desperate refugees through the train window, and then threw blank sheets with the consulate signature which could be made into visas. As he left, he bowed to the people and said, “Forgive me, I cannot write anymore.” One man then shouted, “Sugihara, we’ll never forget you.” It is estimated that Sugihara saved about 6,000 Jews, but the actual figure might be closer to 10,000, due to the family visas that allowed several people to travel on a single visa. Among those saved were all 300 students and faculty members of the Mir Yeshiva. Some 40,000 descendants of Jewish refugees are alive today thanks to Chiune Sugihara. Armed with Japanese visas, many refugees reached Kobe, Japan, which already had a Russian-Jewish community. From there, with the help of the Polish ambassador in Tokyo, they were able to travel to Canada,Australia, the Land of Israel and the United States. Others remained in Japan and were then deported to Shanghai. Altogether, more than 20,000 Jews survived the Holocaust in Shanghai until the Japanese surrender in 1945. Between 1941 and 1944, Sugihara served as Consul-General in Prague, in Konigsberg, East Prussia, and in Bucharest, Romania. The Russians imprisoned him and his family in a POW camp for 18 months. They were released in 1946 and returned to Japan. In 1947, the Japanese foreign office asked him to resign, supposedly due to downsizing, but some sources say it was because of “that incident” in Lithuania. However, in a 2006 report, the ministry praised Sugihara’s conduct as a “courageous and humanitarian decision.” After the war, Sugihara settled in Fujisawa and took menial jobs to support his family, including selling light bulbs door to door. Later, he went to work in the Soviet Union for 16 years. In 1968, he was contacted by Yehoshua Nishry, an economic attaché in the Israeli embassy, and in 1985 he was honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Chiune was too ill to travel, so his wife and son accepted the honor on his behalf. He and his descendants were granted perpetual Israeli citizenship. When asked why he issued visas to Jews, he answered, “It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he sees refugees face- to-face, begging with tears in their eyes. I knew that someone would surely complain about me in the future, but I thought that this would be the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong with saving many people’s lives. The spirit of humanity, philanthropy, neighborly friendship... with this spirit I ventured to do what I did and because of this I went ahead with redoubled courage.” Sugihara died in a hospital in Kamakura on July 31, 1986. Only when a large Jewish delegation, including the Israeli ambassador, attended his funeral did his neighbors learn of his heroic work during World War II. Streets in Kaunas and Vilnius are named after him, and his legacy is honored through the Chiune Sugihara Memorial in his birthplace, Yaotsu, and the Sugihara Museum in Kaunas. Additionally, a park in Jerusalem is named after him, and in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo there is a life-size memorial called the “Chiune Sugihara Memorial, Hero of the Holocaust.” Paul Grueninger Following the German annexation of Austria in 1938, Switzerland closed its border to Jews arriving without proper entry permits and Paul Grueninger, the Swiss border police commander in the St. Gallen region bordering with Austria, was faced with a great moral dilemma. As the Jews’ situation in Austria worsened, the number of Jews attempting to enter Switzerland increased. But in an incredible act of heroism, the 47-year-old Grueninger decided not to turn the refugees back to virulently anti-Semitic Austria, fully aware that he would likely face the consequences of disregarding the explicit instructions of the Swiss government. Grueninger falsified refugees’ registrations to make it appear that they had arrived in Switzerland before the March 1938 entry restrictions. They were thus treated as full-fledged legal arrivals, and taken to the Diepoldsau camp to wait for temporary permits to stay in Switzerland or to depart to final destinations. Grueninger also gave false reports about the number of arrivals, impeded efforts to trace refuges entering illegally, and even paid to buy winter clothing for needy refugees. The Swiss authorities were informed by the Germans about Grueninger’s actions, and he was dismissed from the police force in March 1939. He was put on trial for illegally allowing 3,600 Jews into Switzerland, falsifying their papers, and aiding individual Jews to escape detection. After a two-year trial, Grueninger was found guilty of breach of duty. He was sentenced both to a prison term and fined the trial cost and his benefits were forfeited. 30 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE