[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 13 (Monday, January 23, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E155-E156]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                 IN HONOR OF CHIUNE AND YUKIKO SUGIHARA

                                 ______


                           HON. NANCY PELOSI

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, January 23, 1995
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring to the attention of 
the Congress the work of an extraordinary couple, Chiune and Yukiko 
Sugihara, who against their own government and amid a sea of hostility, 
saved the lives of thousands of Jewish men, women, and children from 
the horrors of the Holocaust. Together, they will be remembered, as 
Raoul Wallenberg and Oskar Schindler are, for their isolated acts of 
defiance and extraordinary courage and resistance against the Nazi 
horrors.
  In the summer of 1940, Chiune Sugihara, a minor official in Japan's 
Foreign Ministry, was stationed in the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, 
Lithuania. After the Nazi blitzkreig of Poland, thousands of Jewish 
refugees fled to that tiny country. In Kaunas, rumors began that the 
Consulate was issuing transit visas, and crowds of hopeful applicants 
gathered outside the consulate gates. At this time, it is unclear what 
the Sugiharas were feeling. According to the Holocaust Oral History 
Project, it is possible that Sugihara was introduced to the brutality 
of the Nazi regime and to the plight of the Jewish refugees in 
Lithuania after befriending a young Jewish boy, named Solly Ganor, who 
had gone to the consulate asking for stamps. Whatever the motivation, 
the need for action, in the Sugiharas' mind, was clear: without action, 
many of the Jewish refugees would die.
  Chiune Sugihara cabled his government three times, asking permission 
to grant visas. Each time, permission was denied. After consulting with 
his wife, Sugihara simply chose to issue the visas on his own 
authority. His wife recollects: ``He told me, `Yukiko', I'm going to 
issue the visas. I'm going to go against the Foreign Ministry. On this, 
my husband and I were one.'' The record of his actions is undeniable: 
the records of the Japanese Foreign Ministry show that Sugihara issued 
2,139 visas in the time between July 9 and August 31, 1940. Each visa 
was for a household, and it is estimated that between 6 to 10 thousand 
people may have received passage out of the path of the darkness 
befalling other Jewish populations throughout Europe. Those who 
received the precious paper left Lithuania by way of the Trans-Siberian 
Railway, then by ship to Japan, where most stayed only briefly before 
leaving, via China, to other destinations.
  When the Soviets invaded Lithuania, all the consulates were ordered 
closed, yet Sugihara obtained an extension to continue his work. He 
issued visas from a nearby hotel. His wife massaged his hands to enable 
him to continue writing each handwritten visa. Even as he and his wife 
were finally forced to leave Kaunas, 
[[Page E156]] he continued writing visas on the train platform. His 
wife remembers: ``Even as the train started going, he continued 
writing, leaning out of the window. Finally, he said `Forgive me. I 
cannot write any more. I pray for your good luck.' People started to 
run alongside the train, and one of them shouted, `Sugihara, we will 
not forget about you. We are going to see you again.'''
  It was not until 1968, however, before this would happen. After the 
war, he was fired from his post with the Foreign Ministry, and worked 
at odd jobs before working in Moscow for a Japanese trading company. 
Finally, he was tracked down by one of the refugees whose life he had 
saved. Finally, nearly 30 years later, he was honored in Israel as a 
righteous gentile, an honor bestowed upon those who had worked to save 
Jews from the Holocaust. Though Sugihara died in 1986, his wife, 
Yukiko, has been honored in Japan by Jewish-Americans who benefitted 
from his visas, as well as by surviving members of the famed Japanese-
American combat battalions who liberated Dachau and, finally, by the 
Japanese Government. On Sunday, January 22, Yukiko Sugihara will be 
honored in San Francisco for the bravery, compassion, and humanity 
exhibited by her and her husband.
  Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to truly express the legacy of the 
Sugiharas. But the best legacy cannot be expressed in words, but seen 
in their good works: the lives of the people they saved. Their 
continued presence, and their families' presence, gives inspiration and 
hope to future generations of humanity.


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