Surprisingly he was largely unknown until his death as he considered helping other people as his moral right. From his Wikipedia page -
Sugihara settled in Fujisawa in Kanagawa prefecture with his wife and 3 sons. To support his family he took a series of menial jobs, at one point selling light bulbs door to door. He suffered a personal tragedy in 1947 when his youngest son, Haruki, died at the age of seven, shortly after their return to Japan.In 1949 they had one more son, Nobuki, who is the last son alive representing the Chiune Sugihara Family, residing in Belgium. He later began to work for an export company as general manager of U.S. Military Post Exchange. Utilizing his command of the Russian language, Sugihara went on to work and live a low-key existence in the Soviet Union for sixteen years, while his family stayed in Japan.
In 1968, Yehoshua Nishri, an economic attaché to the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo and one of the Sugihara beneficiaries, finally located and contacted him. Nishri had been a Polish teen in the 1940s. The next year Sugihara visited Israel and was greeted by the Israeli government. Sugihara beneficiaries began to lobby for his recognition by Yad Vashem. In 1984, Yad Vashem recognised him as Righteous Among the Nations. Only when a large Jewish delegation from around the world, including the Israeli ambassador to Japan, showed up at his funeral, did his neighbors find out what he had done. Edit - spelling
Did some research on him for projects about the holocaust. One thing I’ll never forget is his wife’s account of massaging his swollen hands every night, because the nonstop writing was literally hurting him. He wouldn’t even stop writing to eat.
Before this he was actually the Deputy Foreign Minister in Manchuria, but he resigned in protest against the mistreatment being done to Chinese citizens. Considering how extremist Japanese politics were at the time, it was an incredibly gutsy thing to do to say the least. I’m amazed he managed to keep a government post (let alone was spared prison) with how many times he openly defied orders. A truly fearless man.
I'm from Lithuania, so I can share a bit more about this man from our perspective. Pretty much every person here knows who he was and what he did - it's in our history books, highschoolers learn about all of this. The consulate where Sugihara worked has been turned into a museum, and part of it hosts Japanese language classes for one of the universities in Kaunas. Another cool thing was that around 200 cherry trees were planted in the capital, near the river and the White Bridge back in 2001 to commemorate what would have been Sugihara's 100th birthday, I think they were a gift from Japan. It's since turned into a sort of tradition that half the city goes to see the cherries blossom every spring.
pp0787 on September 26th, 2018 at 05:21 UTC »
Surprisingly he was largely unknown until his death as he considered helping other people as his moral right. From his Wikipedia page -
Sugihara settled in Fujisawa in Kanagawa prefecture with his wife and 3 sons. To support his family he took a series of menial jobs, at one point selling light bulbs door to door. He suffered a personal tragedy in 1947 when his youngest son, Haruki, died at the age of seven, shortly after their return to Japan.In 1949 they had one more son, Nobuki, who is the last son alive representing the Chiune Sugihara Family, residing in Belgium. He later began to work for an export company as general manager of U.S. Military Post Exchange. Utilizing his command of the Russian language, Sugihara went on to work and live a low-key existence in the Soviet Union for sixteen years, while his family stayed in Japan.
In 1968, Yehoshua Nishri, an economic attaché to the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo and one of the Sugihara beneficiaries, finally located and contacted him. Nishri had been a Polish teen in the 1940s. The next year Sugihara visited Israel and was greeted by the Israeli government. Sugihara beneficiaries began to lobby for his recognition by Yad Vashem. In 1984, Yad Vashem recognised him as Righteous Among the Nations. Only when a large Jewish delegation from around the world, including the Israeli ambassador to Japan, showed up at his funeral, did his neighbors find out what he had done. Edit - spelling
t0p_s3cret on September 26th, 2018 at 07:44 UTC »
Did some research on him for projects about the holocaust. One thing I’ll never forget is his wife’s account of massaging his swollen hands every night, because the nonstop writing was literally hurting him. He wouldn’t even stop writing to eat.
Before this he was actually the Deputy Foreign Minister in Manchuria, but he resigned in protest against the mistreatment being done to Chinese citizens. Considering how extremist Japanese politics were at the time, it was an incredibly gutsy thing to do to say the least. I’m amazed he managed to keep a government post (let alone was spared prison) with how many times he openly defied orders. A truly fearless man.
7inful on September 26th, 2018 at 08:20 UTC »
I'm from Lithuania, so I can share a bit more about this man from our perspective. Pretty much every person here knows who he was and what he did - it's in our history books, highschoolers learn about all of this. The consulate where Sugihara worked has been turned into a museum, and part of it hosts Japanese language classes for one of the universities in Kaunas. Another cool thing was that around 200 cherry trees were planted in the capital, near the river and the White Bridge back in 2001 to commemorate what would have been Sugihara's 100th birthday, I think they were a gift from Japan. It's since turned into a sort of tradition that half the city goes to see the cherries blossom every spring.