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Historic Figures Who Set Out to Save Jews From the Holocaust

Khalid Elhassan December 15, 2020 32 min

Hanns Albin Rauter - World War II — A Dutch Resistance cell during WWII. For God and Country

16. This Diplomat Defied His Government In Order to Continue His Efforts to Save Jewish Refugees

Recreation of Chiune Sugihara’s consular office, with the original consular flag. Wikimedia

Responding to Tokyo’s cable directing that he stick to the rules when issuing visas, Sugihara acknowledged that had issued visas to people who had not satisfied all the requirements. However, he explained the extenuating circumstances: Japan was the only practical destination country for those headed towards the Americas, and visas from his consulate were needed for departure from the Soviet Union. Then, ignoring the Foreign Ministry’s demands that he stop cutting corners and stick to the rules, Sugihara continued issuing visas to and through Japan on his own.

By the norms of Japanese bureaucracy, and especially those of the Foreign Ministry, Sugihara’s disobedience and outright defiance of his superiors’ instructions were shocking. He was willing to break such taboos in order to save others. As desperate refugees crowded outside his consulate, Sugihara kept on issuing hand written-visas, spending up to 20 hours a day on the task, producing a month’s worth of visas every single day.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.