Chiune Sugihara and his family pose with two German soldiers on the steps of <i>Japanisches Generalkonsulat</i>, the Japanese consulate in Königsberg (Kaliningrad), Germany, 1941 Originally black and white photograph colorized <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Colorized_by_Julius_J%C3%A4%C3%A4skel%C3%A4inen" title="Category:Colorized by Julius Jääskeläinen">Julius Jääskeläinen</a>.
<p>Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who served as vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania. During the Second World War, Sugihara helped thousands of Jews flee Europe by issuing transit visas to them so that they could travel through Japanese territory. Sugihara issued over 2,000 visas, which led at least twice as many people to safety. As many as 100,000 people today are the descendants of the recipients of Sugihara visas.
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Sugihara became a vice-consul of the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas in 1939, he was later reassigned to Königsberg before serving as a Consul General in Prague, Czechoslovakia, from March 1941 to late 1942 and in the legation in Bucharest, Romania from 1942 to 1944. When Soviet troops entered Romania, they imprisoned Sugihara and his family in a POW camp for eighteen months. They were released and returned to Japan in 1946.
Julius.jaa
CC BY 2.0
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