[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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