[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 180 (Tuesday, November 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H12319-H12320]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           TRIBUTE TO THE LATE CONSUL GENERAL CHIUNE SUGIHARA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Hawaii [Mrs. Mink] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the late Chiune 
Sugihara of Japan, credited with saving the lives of thousands of 
Jewish refugees fleeing Poland in 1940. Chiune Sugihara died an unsung 
hero in 1986, but recently his story has been brought to international 
distinction as the ``Japanese Schindler.'' This quiet man of courage is 
now being honored after 55 years in a series of events worldwide, 
including today's gala tribute in New York City by the Holocaust Oral 
History project.
  Chiune Sugihara was assigned to Kaunas, Lithuania in 1939, as the 
Consul General where the Japanese Government assigned him to report on 
Soviet actions and German war intentions. The Nazi World War II 
slaughter of Jews had begun and scores of Jewish families sought to 
escape from Europe--mostly from Germany, Austria, and Poland. In 
September 1939, the German invasion of Poland caused Jews to seek 
refuge in Lithuania, many who desperately wanted to find passage to 
safer lands. First, they needed to find visas.
  Japanese Consul General Sugihara and his Wife Yukiko received 
numerous reports of appealing Nazi crimes against, Jews. Not long 
afterward in July 1940, a line of Jewish families formed on the 
Sugihara doorstep, pleading with the diplomat to issue them transit 
visas for passage through Siberia into Japan via the Tans-Siberian 
Railway. Without the assurance that they would only transit through the 
Soviet Union, it was virtually impossible that Soviets would allow 
Jewish families to enter. He had however persuaded them to allow 
passage through the Soviet Union provided he could gain transit through 
Japan as well.
  Consul General Sugihara cabled Japan three times asking permission to 
issue transit visas. He was denied three times. His desire to help 
seemed doomed.
  But gaining his family support, Consul General Chiune Sugihara then 
made a conscious decision to defy the Japanese Government. From July 9, 
1940 to August 31, 1940, he wrote more than 2,139 transit visas by 
hand, saving nearly 10,000 Jews from the Holocaust. He carefully kept a 
list of all these documents which have been incredibly found in the 
archives of the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
  In the same summer. Nazi Germany and allied Italy occupied most of 
Eastern and Western Europe. Japan had remained aligned, but not yet 
allied, with Germany through the Comintern Pact of 1935. In late summer 
of 1940, USSR annexed Lithuania and the two other Baltic States. 
Diplomats were told to leave immediately. Consul General Chiune 
Sugihara moved his family to a dingy hotel and continued to write 
visas. The Sugiharas were ordered to leave. Even as he was boarding the 
train to leave, Consul General Chiune Sugihara continued to issue visas 
from his train carriage window. In September 1940, Japan signed a 
tripartite pact with Germany and Italy.

  The Sugiharas spent their remaining war years at various diplomatic 
posts in Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. They were eventually 
captured and held in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp until 1947, when the 
Sugiharas were finally allowed to travel back to their home country.
  Upon his return, the Japanese Foreign Ministry dismissed him from 
diplomatic service and struck his name from their records because he 
had disobeyed their instructions. Nonetheless, Japan had honored his 
handwritten visas and allowed these Jewish refugees into the country, 
helping them to find permanent locations.
  Chiume Sugihara lived out the rest of his life without any 
acknowledgement of his heroic deeds. He worked as a door-to-door 
lightbulb salesman, the most menial job any person could take to 
support his family. Later leaving his family in Japan, he went to work 
for a Japan import company in Moscow where he stayed for 16 years. 
Shortly before his death at 86 in 1986, Israel awarded Sugihara the 
Righteous Among Nations Award, its highest honor, in recognition of his 
humanitarian actions, and later named a grove of cedars after him in 
Jerusalem. Yet this man who was second only to Swedish diplomat Raoul 
Wallenberg in the number of Jews saved from the Holocaust did not 
receive an apology from his own Government, allowing him to die in 
disgrace, literally in exile.
  Notable are the 6,000 Jews who sought passage from Consul General 
Chiune Sugihara through the Trans-Siberian Railway from Japan to the 
Dutch Indies, Australia, New Zealand, Palestine, and the Americas. 
Among visa-holders was Zerah Warhaftig who met with Sugihara to arrange 
visas for others as the head of the Committee to Save Jewish Refugees. 
Warhaftig later became a signatory to Israel's declaration of 
independence and the country's foreign affairs minister. Menahem 
Savidor, another saved by Sugihara, later became speaker of the 
Knesset. Sugihara issued visas for Mir Yeshiva, the only yeshiva to 
survive the Holocaust, which settled in Kobe, Japan.
  In recent years, survivor upon survivor of the Holocaust have come 
forth, with the knowledge of whose signature brought them to safety. 
Sarah Gershowitz Levy of Fresno, CA; Jack Friedman of Orlando, FL; and 
Rita Wenig of Pikesville, MD are among those thankful for Sugihara's 
courageous actions.
  In 1991, the Foreign Ministry took its first steps to restore 
Sugihara's honor by meeting with Yukiko Sugihara, his widow. Noticeably 
missing from this meeting was a clear apology from the Government for 
its treatment of Chiune Sugihara.
  Immediately after Lithuania became an independent state in 1991, the 
country named a street in Kaunas after Sugihara. Lithuanian Prime 
Minister Adolfas Slezevicius in 1993 arranged a pilgrimage to 
Sugihara's hometown Yaotsu in Gifu Prefecture, central Japan, to lay a 
wreath on Sugihara's memorial cenotaph.
  In August, 1993, the Education Ministry, one of the most conservative 
branches of the Japanese Government, agreed to have Consul General 
Chiune Sugihara's story published in a textbook for Japanese senior 
high school students.
  Consul General Chiune Sugihara is being recognized for his greatness 
by the Holocaust Oral History project through organized exhibits and 
tributes, and a newsletter helping to link survivors. His noble bearing 
on world history must be validated on a global scale and the Japanese 
Government must find the words to apologize to this humble servant who 
understood his action was necessary in those times of terror, no matter 
what his own personal punishment might be. He and his family have 
endured poverty and ignominy for over 50 years. Sugihara's decision to 
act in defiance of his Government, because he knew to do otherwise 
would mean certain death for these innocent people, is the highest 
calling of our humanity.
  Chiune Sugihara embodied the spirit of love and the conscience of a 
saint. His heroic deed shines forth to enkindle and comfort all in this 
world who still search for hope.
  The following are my personal remarks made in New York City at town 
hall on November 14, 1995, in the tribute for this great man.


introductory remarks by congresswoman patsy t. mink, at town hall, new 
                      york city, november 14, 1995

       Distinguished guests, Mrs. Yukiko Sugihara, Hiroki 
     Sugihara:
       I have the deep honor and privilege to introduce Mrs. 
     Yukiko Sugihara, the widow of the late Chiune Sugihara, whom 
     we have come to honor tonight.
       It was Mrs. Sugihara and her family who paid the heavy 
     price of banishment for their ultimate exercise of moral 
     responsibility and for the love and compassion they felt for 
     the Jewish refugees who flocked to them for help in those 
     dark hours of death and despair.
       Consul General Chiune Sugihara was born on January 1, 1900 
     of samurai class. He was well educated, schooled in the art 
     and discipline of diplomacy, learned in the language of his 
     assignments, fluent in the Russian language, destined for 
     high posts, he was highly regarded by his associates. He 
     adapted easily to his assignments. His nature is revealed by 
     reports that he even joined the Russian Orthodox church. He 
     was a rising star in his ministry. He knew that it was his 
     job to carry out the wishes of his government.
       From his desk in Lithuania in 1940 he became keenly aware 
     of the violent scourge of hate that condemned the Jewish 
     people to isolation and death.
       In that fateful summer of 1940 shortly after he was 
     assigned to Lithuania as Consul General, thousands of Jewish 
     refugees were fleeing Poland and other places. His consulate 

[[Page H 12320]]
     being the only one open, besides the Dutch, they climbed the fence in 
     desperate search for a way out. Their cries for help burned 
     his soul. He frantically sought permission three times from 
     his ministry in Japan. Each time he was refused. Finally the 
     fourth time he was ordered to close the consulate. Time had 
     run out.
       How could he turn his back on these people and their agony? 
     If he did not help, we knew they would die. Talking to his 
     wife and to his five year old son, together they decided they 
     had but one course to take. They had to help. They knew the 
     risks and personal dangers. But not to help was to condemn 
     these families to certain death in the dreaded ovens of hate. 
     For the next 29 days until the consulate was ordered closed 
     this time by the Russians, he wrote out by hand 2138 visas at 
     the rate of 300 a day, issuing them in the last day from his 
     hotel room and at the train station as he was departing from 
     Lithuania.
       History tells us that his act of honor and personal 
     sacrifice saved the lives of upwards of 10,000 Jews.
       Acting against the explicit orders of his government, he 
     did what his conscience cried out to do. Chiune Sugihara knew 
     he had the paper, the pen and a noble purpose. Each parchment 
     upon which he placed his seal was a license to live.
       His disobedience is immortalized by the thousands of lives 
     he saved. He took the rare and unexpected route of 
     personalizing the curse of war and hatred and choosing to 
     save lives. His story is a remarkable drama of courage.
  We understand that a diplomat is required to follow unquestioningly 
all orders of his government. We understand there can be no exceptions 
or substitutions of personal judgment.
       Consul General Sugihara acted with extraordinary clarity of 
     personal responsibility. He served his government with great 
     honor and tragically he was not accorded that recognition by 
     his government during his lifetime. Stripped of his 
     diplomatic badge, he struggled to provide for his family 
     after the war ended. He sold light bulbs on the streets, 
     worked in a US PX, and finally was hired to work in Moscow 
     far away from his family. His village erected a statue for 
     him, a garden of cedars bears his name in Jerusalem, and a 
     street reads his name in Lithuania. But in the official 
     records of his government there is yet to be placed that 
     wreath of honor and tribute for Chiune Sugihara.
       I turn my thoughts to Mrs. Yukiko Sugihara. And ask her to 
     come to the podium to present her remarks. With my warmest 
     personal Aloha and affection, may I present Mrs. Yukiko 
     Sugihara.

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