In the spring of 1994 my colleagues Eric Saul, Noby Yoshimura, Harry Fukahara and I discovered the story of Chiune & Yukiko Sugihara. Chiune Sugihara is known as the “Japanese Schindler” because of his rescue of thousands of Polish Jews who fled Nazi occupied Europe. Sugihara issued visas for the refugee’s, when they were in Kaunas Lithuania against the orders of the Japanese government. Jan Zwartendijk, the Honorary Consul of the Netherlands, issued ‘entry’ visas to Curacao. Sugihara issued ‘transit’ visa’s, which allowed the Jews to cross Russia to safety in Japan.

I first met military historian Eric Saul when he volunteered with the Holocaust Oral History Project, the project I directed. The project conducted l700 interviews with l400 Holocaust survivors. Eric and I had spent l992 and l993 researching and promoting the story of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion (FAB). The 522nd FAB was a unit of Japanese Americans who took part in the liberation of the Dachau Complex, in particular a few of Dachau’s subcamps and the Landsberg-Kaufering Death March.

Eric and I produced several events honoring the 522nd FAB veterans. At our largest program at Temple Emanu-el in San Francisco, two businessmen and Military Intelligence veterans Noby Yoshimura and Harry Fukahara, loved our photo exhibition in the 522nd FAB so much that they decided to bring the exhibition in Japan. Noby and Harry went on a planning trip to Japan and came home and told us about Chiune Sugihara and the thousands he saved. We arranged for Chiune’s widow, Mrs. Yukiko Sugihara, to meet us at a tribute we planned for her husband at the Sugihara Memorial Park in Yaotsu, Japan.

When we deplaned at the Narita airport, in September of 1994 we were greeted by close to a hundred reporters. We drove two hours to our hotel in Tokyo where we were ushered into a huge ballroom where the press corps doubled. That week CBS Evening News, Time Magazine, CNN, National Public Radio, and others aired the first stories in the West about Sugihara.

In 1939, Chiune Sugihara was a rising star in the Japanese Foreign Ministry. He was sent to Kaunas, Lithuania as Japan's Consul General at the end of the year. On July 25, l940, the Sugihara’s woke up to the sounds of two hundred Polish Jews who had assembled in front of the Japanese Consulate. They asked Consul Sugihara for visas so they could escape Nazi-occupied Europe. Sugihara proceeded to meet with a committee of five refugee representatives and ultimately decided to issue the visas to the Jews against his government’s orders. By issuing visas, Sugihara secured passage for the Jews across Russia to Japan.

In August of l939, Russian forces overtook Lithuania and subsequently closed down all the consulates in Kaunas except for the Japanese Consulate. Sugihara bargained to stay open longer in order to assist more people.  By the end of August, the extension was over and the Russians proceeded to close down the Japanese consulate as well. Even as the Sugihara family boarded the train to Germany, Chiune Sugihara was still issuing visas and throwing them out of the train’s window. In all, Chiune Sugihara handwrote 2,193 transit visas for Jewish families. The crowd at the train station shouted: “Sempo Sugihara, we will never forget you.”

The Sugihara’s spend several months in Berlin and then moved to their new post in Koeningsberg, Germany. The Sugihara’s went on to have uneventful stays in their various posts of Koeningsberg, Prague and Romania. After the war, the Sugihara family spent l8 months in a Russian Prison Camp in Romania. Finally, the family traveled across Russia to Japan.  The Sugihara’s finally returned home to Japan in 1946 and experienced great tragedy in their personal lives with the death of their youngest son, Haruki and Yukiko's sister, Setsku. Soon thereafter, Chiune was dismissed from the Foreign Ministry because of that ‘incident in Lithuania’. Sugihara was shattered and his family’s livelihood was immediately jeopardized. He struggled to make a living and lived unrecognized in Japan for his achievements. Sugihara lived in Japan and Russia until his death in 1985. Israel recognized Sugihara in l985.