Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who was stationed by the Imperial Japanese government in Kovno, Lithuania as the Vice-Consul between October 1939 and September 1940. He is regarded as one of the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ by Yad Vashem and also credited with ‘saving’ 6,000 to 10,000 jews from the ‘Holocaust’. (1)
He did this – with the connivance of Polish intelligence and the remains of its Foreign Service in the Far East – by issuing thousands of 10-day transit visas to Japan to jews and Poles. This combined with an agreement with the Soviet Union to provide transport to the same refugees to Vladivostok over the Trans-Siberian Railway – at five times the normal ticket cost per refugee – facilitated the removal of these jews and Poles from Europe to Japan and then eventually to the Shanghai ghetto.
Sugihara’s reasons for doing so he later claimed was as follows:
‘You want to know about my motivation, don't you? Well. It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes, Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes.’ (2)
So, in essence Sugihara ‘took pity’ on the jews – although personally I also think his conversion to Russian Orthodox Christianity in the 1920s in Harbin, China also played a significant role in his conduct – and while he certainly organised the visas. The perception of him as a ‘Holocaust rescuer’ is not only far-fetched. It is patently ludicrous.
Other than the fact that Sugihara was an espionage agent working at the behest and with the connivance of the Japanese government of the day rather than some charitable individual working alone. (3) The problem in large part is the sheer public illiteracy about the details of the ‘Holocaust’ narrative.
To quote a writer named Stephen Matsumoto:
‘Sugihara was stationed in Kaunus, Lithuania almost at the exact same time as the Nazi invasion of Poland that resulted in the exodus of tens of thousands of Polish Jews fleeing the Holocaust. Over the course of the next 30-40 days, he worked around the clock to issue approximately 3,000 visas. This was no small feat when considering each visa was hand written in Japanese characters.’ (4)
The issue here is that Matsumoto assumes that the ‘Holocaust’ was ‘occurring’ between October 1939 and September 1940, which is nonsense. Since the beginning of the ‘Holocaust’ is normally dated to around the Wannsee Conference that occurred on 20th January 1942 in Berlin.
So, the jews weren’t ‘fleeing from the Holocaust’. They weren’t even fleeing for their lives, but rather they were trying to get out because they were rich jews – remember the Soviet Union charged them five times the standard train fare (i.e. they knew they could afford it) – trying to protect their ill-gotten gains from the German authorities and wanted to move to a location – such as the Far East - where they would be able to enjoy their ill-gotten gains in peace and quiet.
In summary then contrary to received wisdom; Sugihara was an espionage agent working for Japan’s Foreign Service who produced thousands of visas to rich jews so that they could escape the consequences of their actions in Europe.
He is certainly no hero. That is for sure.
References
(1) Cf. Hillel Levine, 1996, ‘In Search of Sugihara’, 1st Edition, Free Press: New York; http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/saviors/others/sempo-quot-chiune-quot-914/
(2) Levine, Op. Cit.
(3) https://www.timesofisrael.com/japans-schindler-a-genuine-hero-tangled-in-a-web-of-myth/
(4) http://www.sun-sentinel.com/florida-jewish-journal/opinion/fl-jjps-matsumoto-0607-20170605-story.html