Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara (January 1, 1900-1986) was the first Japanese diplomat posted to Lithuania. In the summer of 1940, Jewish refugees from occupied Poland came to him with bogus visas for Curacao and other Dutch possessions in America. Sugihara decided to facilitate their escape from war-torn Europe. He granted 10-day visas for transit through Japan to hundreds of refugees who held these Curacao destination visas. Before his consulate closed in the fall of 1940, Sugihara even gave visas to refugees who lacked all travel papers.
Chiune Sugihara, Japanese consul general in Kovno, Lithuania, who in July-August 1940 issued more than 2,000 transit visas for Jewish refugees. Helsinki, Finland, 1937–38.
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A Lithuanian safe conduct pass bearing a stamp for transit through Japan (from Chiune Sugihara), two Soviet transit visas, a Lithuanian stamp, a U.S. non-immigrant visa, and a U.S. entry stamp from Seattle, Washington. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
Item ViewLucille's father died three months before she was born. Lucille's mother decided to immigrate to the United States with Lucille and her sister, Fejga. They completed all the paperwork, but were unable to get their final papers because of the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Volozhin was in the Soviet-occupied zone of Poland. Lucille and her sister feared arrest by the Soviets because they were members of a Jewish Zionist youth group. The girls fled to Vilna, where their mother later joined them. Their American immigration papers were forwarded to the consulate in Kovno. Lucille and her sister traveled to Kovno for those papers and also succeeded in obtaining Japanese transit visas. They left Vilna, traveling by the Trans-Siberian Express, and arrived in Japan in September 1940. In November 1940, they arrived in the United States. Their mother joined them a year later.
Item ViewSusan was 19 years old when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Her boyfriend, Nathan, was in Lvov when the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland. Nathan sent a guide to Warsaw to bring Susan to the Soviet zone of occupied Poland. Her parents reluctantly agreed after Susan promised to return to Warsaw within two weeks. Upon her arrival in Lvov, Susan married Nathan. The couple then fled across the Lithuanian border to Vilna, where they stayed for a year. They received a visa for transit through Japan and left Lithuania in January 1941, traveling across the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Japan. Nathan, an engineer, applied for entrance to Canada, which permitted the immigration of persons with important professional skills. Susan and her husband left Japan for Vancouver, Canada, in June 1941.
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Diagram showing "the web of communications" between Japanese diplomats and members of the Polish resistance in the Baltic states and Scandinavia. The "Konsulat japonski Kowno" refers to Sugihara. Despite its ties with Nazi Germany, Japan pursued its own course in foreign policy. After the Germans occupied Poland and the Netherlands, Japan continued relations with both the Polish and Dutch governments-in-exile in London. July 1940.
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