What Would Chiune Sugihara Do?

A plaque commemorating Chiune Sugihara outside a synagogue in Brookline. Photo by Adam Smith.

History is full of haunting examples of man’s capacity for cruelty. We can look as recently as the genocidal assault on Gaza and the terrorizing of the West Bank, or further back at the mass slaughter of native Americans. We can look at slavery in the U.S. and at the Holocaust, or at the U.S.’s atomic bombings of Japan. We can look at the millions who died in Russia under Stalin’s rule or in China under Mao Zedong’s. We can also look at Japan’s atrocities in China in the early half of the 1900s – in Nanjing, at Unit 731 and elsewhere.

The point is that nations can at one point be the hero and at another time be the villain. And when people act as a mob, they can inflict much pain, especially when led by bullies with power they don’t deserve. This is true whether in schoolyards, small towns, or in nations or empires. But don’t forget, throughout history, we can also find the rare, self-sacrificing hero. Today, as we see particular bullies who have police forces and military forces ready to do their dirty work, heroes are more necessary than ever. This is why we want to shine a spotlight on one of modern time’s most important heroes: Chiune Sugihara. Sugihara was born into a nation, Japan, that would by his adult years become one of the world’s most violent aggressors, before becoming one of the world’s most unfortunate victims.

But he did not follow the mob. Fluent in Russian and well educated at an exclusive university, Sugihara probably could have settled into a cushy government job and provided a safe, comfortable living for himself and his then young family. But just years after working out a deal for Japan to buy the North Manchurian railroad from the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, he would be faced with a choice: to throw his arms up at the world's horrors or to use the little power his career gave him to help as many desperate people who were born in the wrong time and place as he possibly could.

As the world was descending into one of its darkest periods, Sugihara would become the first Japanese diplomat in Lithuania. Around that time, in 1940, Stalin’s Soviet forces began occupying that small northeastern European nation. Jewish people from Poland who had been fleeing to Lithuania were now becoming even more trapped between the expanding Soviet and Nazi forces. So were those within that country.

Now, here’s where Sugihara could have faced people coming to his one-man post for help — an escape from Soviet and Nazi aggressions — and said, “Sorry, I can’t help you; I’m just doing my job” or “I’m just following orders.”

Instead, he defied orders from Tokyo and in an elaborate scheme he issued as many visas as his tired hands could stamp to allow refugees a shot at escape. He would issue thousands of these special transit visas, despite warnings from his bosses to cut it out, and despite his eventual arrest — and years-long detention for him and his family — by the Soviet government. Sugihara rejected the mob, and rejected his orders. He did what was right. And in doing so, he set a rare example for the rest of us.