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Overlooked Important WWII Figures from History

Khalid Elhassan October 20, 2019 31 min

20. Chiune Sugihara Saved 6000 Jew From the Holocaust

Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara (1900 – 1986) risked himself and family, and eventually sacrificed his career, to save the lives of thousands of Jews during WWII. He did it from his office in the Japanese consulate in Kovno, Lithuania, where he used his consular authority to issue visas that facilitated the escape of Jewish refugees from war-torn Europe.

Jewish refugees waiting outside Sugihara’s consulate in Kovno. Times of Israel

The Japanese government eventually caught on to what Sugihara was doing, it ordered him to stop. He did not, and continued to issue visas in defiance of his superiors’ directives until his consulate was closed and he was recalled. By the time he was done, Sugihara had saved roughly 6000 Jewish refugees. That was about five times as many Jews as had been saved by the more famous Oskar Schindler, of Schindler’s List.

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.