Lessons in Courage & Compassion - Chiune Sugihara, Japanese Diplomat

I found this story while researching something today and was really inspired by it.

Chiune "Sempo" Sugihara certainly falls into the category of "unsung hero" for most of his life, but what is really inspiring is his courage and compassion.

He acted with honour, dignity, humility and did the right thing with great consequences for himself and ultimately major sacrifice.

An impressive story, it contains several lessons:

1. Don't be a burden to others
2. Take care of others
3. Don't expect rewards for your goodness

And as Chiune Sugihara was quoted as saying:

"Do what is right because it is right, and leave it alone."

Here is the story of Chuine Sugihara:

WHO WAS CHIUNE SUGIHARA?

For the last half century people have asked, 'Who was Chiune Sugihara?" They have also asked, 'Why did he risk his career, his family fortune, and the lives of his family to issue visas to Jewish refugees in Lithuania?" These are not easy questions to answer, and there may be no single set of answers that will satisfy our curiosity or inquiry.

Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara always did things his own way. He was born on January 1, 1900. He graduated from high school with top marks and his father insisted that he become a medical doctor. But Chiune's dream was to study literature and live abroad. Sugihara attended Tokyo's prestigious Waseda University to study English. He paid for his own education with part-time work as a longshoreman and tutor.

One day he saw an item in the classified ads. The Foreign Ministry was seeking people who wished to study abroad and might be interested in a diplomatic career. He passed the difficult entrance exam and was sent to the Japanese language institute in Harbin, China. He studied Russian and graduated with honors. He also converted to Greek Orthodox Christianity. While in Harbin he met and married a Caucasian woman. They were later divorced. The cosmopolitan nature of Harbin, China opened his eyes to how diverse and interesting the world was.

He then served with the Japanese controlled government in Manchuria, in northeastern China. He was later promoted to Vice Minister of the Foreign Affairs Department. He was soon in line to be the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Manchuria.

While in Manchuria he negotiated the purchase of the Russian-owned Manchurian railroad system by the Japanese. This saved the Japanese government millions of dollars, and infuriated the Russians.

Sugihara was disturbed by his government's policy and the cruel treatment of the Chinese by the Japanese government. He resigned his post in
protest in 1934.

In 1938 Sugihara was posted to the Japanese diplomatic office in Helsinki, Finland. With World War II looming on the horizon, the Japanese government sent Sugihara to Lithuania to open a one-man consulate in 1939. There he would report on Soviet and German war plans. Six months later, war broke out and the Soviet Union annexed Lithuania. The Soviets ordered all consulates to be closed. It was in this context that Sugihara was confronted with the requests of thousands of Polish Jews fleeing German-occupied Poland.


SUGIHARA, THE MAN
Sugihara's personal history and temperament may contain the key to why he defied his government's orders and issued the visas. Sugihara favored his mother's personality. He thought of himself as kind and nurturing and artistic. He was interested in foreign ideas, religion, philosophy and language. He wanted to travel the world and see everything there was, and experience the world. He had a strong sense of the value of all human life. His language skills show that he was always interested in learning more about other peoples.

Sugihara was a humble and understated man He was self-sacrificing, self-effacing and had a very good sense of humor. Yukiko, his wife, said he found it very difficult to discipline the children when they misbehaved. He never lost his temper.

Sugihara was also raised in the strict Japanese code of ethics of a turn-of-the century samurai family. The cardinal virtues of this society were oya koko (love of the family), kodomo no tamane (for the sake of the children), having gidi and on (duty and responsibility, or obligation to repay a debt), gaman (withholding of emotions on the surface), gambate (internal strength and resourcefulness), and haji no kakate (don't bring shame on the family). These virtues were strongly inculcated by Chiune's middle-class rural samurai family.

It took enormous courage for Sugihara to defy the order of his father to become a doctor, and instead follow his own academic path. It took courage to leave Japan and study overseas. It took a very modern liberal Japanese man to marry a Caucasian woman and convert to Christianity. It took even more courage to openly oppose the Japanese military policies of expansion in the 1930s.


Thus Sempo Sugihara was no ordinary Japanese man and may have been no ordinary man. At the time that he and his wife Yukiko thought of the plight of the Jewish refugees, he was haunted by the words of an old samurai maxim: "Even a hunter cannot kill a bird which flies to him for refuge."


Forty-five years after he signed the visas, Chiune was asked why he did it. He liked to give two reasons: "They were human beings and they needed help," he said. "I'm glad I found the strength to make the decision to give it to them." Sugihara was a religious man and believed in a universal god of all people. He was fond of saying, "I may have to disobey my government, but if I don't I would be disobeying God."


SUGIHARA'S CHOICE

Time began to run out for the refugees as Hitler tightened the net around Eastern Europe. The refugees came upon an idea which they presented to Sugihara. They discovered that the two Dutch colonial islands, Curacao and Surinam, situated in the Caribbean, did not require formal entrance visas, and the Dutch consul informed them that he would be willing to stamp their passports with a Dutch visa to that destination. Furthermore, the Dutch consul had received permission from his superior in Riga to issue such visas and he was willing to issue these visas to anyone who was willing to pay a fee.

To get to these two islands, one needed to pass through the Soviet Union. The Soviet consul, who was sympathetic to the plight of the refugees, agreed to let them pass on one condition: that in addition to the Dutch visa, they would also obtain a transit visa from the Japanese as they would have to pass through Japan on their way to Curacao or Surinam.

Sugihara had a difficult decision to make. He was a man who was brought up in the strict and traditional discipline of the Japanese. He was a career diplomat, who suddenly had to make a very difficult choice. On one hand, he was bound by the traditional obedience he had been taught all his life. On the other hand, he was a samurai who had been told to help those who were in need. He knew that if he defied the orders of his superiors, he would be fired and disgraced, and would probably never work for the Japanese government again. This would result in extreme financial hardship for his family in the future.

Chiune and his wife Yukiko Sugihara even feared for their lives in making this decision. They agreed that they had no choice in the matter. Mr. Sugihara said, "I may have to disobey my government, but if I don't, I would be disobeying God." Mr. Sugihara was a humble man and, when asked why he did it, he often replied: "I saw people in distress, and I was able to help them, so why shouldn't I?" Mrs. Sugihara remembered that "the refugee's eyes were so intense and desperate- especially the women and children. There were hundreds of people standing outside." Fifty-four years after their decision, Mrs. Sugihara said: "human life is very important, and being virtuous in life is important as well." This was a decision that would ultimately save the second largest number of Jews in World War II. They chose to help the thousands who thronged the gates of his consulate in Kaunas.

The choice faced by the Sugiharas was a moral dilemma that thousands of consuls all over the world faced every day. Few lost sleep in shutting the doors in Jewish faces. These consuls went strictly by the book, and in many cases, were even stricter in issuing visas than their governments required. Countless thousands could have been saved if other consuls had acted more like Sugihara. If there had been 2,000 consuls like Chiune Sugihara, a million Jewish children could have been saved from the ovens of Auschwitz.


VISAS FOR LIFE

For 29 days, from July 31 to August 28, 1940, Mr. and Mrs. Sugihara unflinchingly sat for endless hours signing visas with their own hands. Hour after hour, day after day, during three weeks, they wrote visas. They wrote over 300 visas a day, which would normally be more than one months work for the consul. Yukiko also helped him register these visas. At the end of the day, she would massage his fatigued hands. He did not even stop to eat. His wife supplied him with sandwiches. Sugihara chose not to lose a minute because people were standing in line in front of his consulate day and night for these visas. When some began climbing the fence to get in on the compound, he came out and calmed them down. He promised them that as long as there was a single person left, he would not abandon them.

After receiving their visas, the refugees lost no time in getting on the train that took them to Moscow, and by the trans-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok. From there, most of them continued to Kobe, Japan. They were allowed to stay in Kobe for several months. They were then sent to Shanghai, China. All of the Polish Jews who were issued visas survived in safety, under the protection of the Japanese government in Shanghai. They survived, thanks to the humanity and courage of Chiune and Yukiko Sugihara. The visas they issued turned out to be passes to the world of the living. When Sugihara had to leave Kaunas for his next post in Berlin, he handed over the visa stamp to a refugee, and many more Jews were granted life.

In 1945, the Japanese government unceremoniously dismissed Chiune Sugihara from the diplomatic service. His career as a diplomat was shattered. He had to start his life over. Sugihara was without a steady job for over a year. Once a rising star in the Japanese foreign service, Chiune Sugihara worked as a part time translator and interpreter. For the last two decades of his life, he worked as a manager for an export company with business in Moscow. This was his fate because he dared to save thousands of human beings from certain death.

Today, 50 years after the event, there may be 40,000 or more people who owe their lives to Chiune and Yukiko Sugihara. Two generations have come after the Sugihara survivors, and they owe their lives to the Sugiharas. All the survivors call him their savior, some consider him a holy man, and some think he was a saint. Yukiko Sugihara recalled that every time she and her husband had met or heard of people they had saved, they felt great satisfaction and happiness. They had no regrets.

After the war, Mr. Sugihara never mentioned or spoke to anyone about his extraordinary deeds. It was not until 1969 that Sugihara was found by a man whom he had helped to save. Soon, many others whom he had saved came forward and testified to the Yad Vashem (Holocaust Memorial) in Israel about his life-saving deeds. The Sugihara survivors sent in hundreds of testimonies on behalf of their savior. After gathering the testimonies from all over the world, the committee at the Yad Vashem realized the enormity of this man's self-sacrifice in saving Jews. Before his death, he received Israel's highest honor. In 1985, he was recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" by the Yad Vashem Martyrs Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem. He was too ill to travel; his wife and son received the honor on his behalf. Further, a tree was planted in his name, and a park in Jerusalem was named in his honor.

He said that he was very happy with the honors. "I think that my decision was humanely correct."

The above text was written by Eric Saul and can be found at this site: http://www.eagleman.com/sugihara/

More on Sugihara at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara 

Αναθεώρηση Part 2: Places . . .

Picking out some of my favourite places of 2011 has been hard too - not least because I travel a great deal for both work and pleasure.

With the exception of #11 - all the other places are places I have been to before, and in most cases many times. I suppose they make this list because these places were either significant this year in a particular way (although that is more covered in a later part of this review when I look at "moments" which by definition have both a place as well as a time) or because my great love or affection for these places is what took me back this year to revisit them...

If anyone reading this was in any of these places with me this year - thank you. For it is certain I enjoyed them even more because you were there...

Let the journey begin:

1. Cape Town

I began 2011 in Cape Town, South Africa. The weather was beautiful, I was with a nice bunch of people who I didn’t know well and started the year on a positive note.

I have been to Cape Town several times before and indeed went back again for business later in the year, but on Jan 1st 2011 it was really a lovely place to start the year and also some great friendships.

2. Egypt / Cairo & Alexandria

Early in the year I travelled to Cairo - a city I know reasonably well having been there many times in the last 7 or 8 years - shortly after the first phase of the revolution.

The feeling of change was palpable. Hope. Belief in a better future. Faith in human values. The value of the individual. All this against a backdrop of burned out buildings, damaged property, violence, chaos and pain.

Alexandria in the early summer was similar. A different scene by the coast with the Mediterranean as a backdrop. I spent a weekend with a group of what are best described as Egypt’s elite in terms of businessmen, intellectuals, commentators, artists and young up-and-coming leaders. Excitement, opportunity, nervosity, anxiety provided a heady cocktail for discussion on the beach and at the parties in the evenings.

Egypt is one of the oldest civilizations in the world and home to around 80 million people. The change there, while catalyzed by the earlier regime change in Tunisia, really marked Arab Spring as the defining political and social event of the decade and of the millennium so far in the Middle East. And it is still unfolding. . .

3. Aristi

I spent my birthday with a small group of friends in the mountain village of Aristi in the Zagarochoria area of Northern Greece – a little further north from the lake town of Ioannina.

I have been to Aristi several times and always stayed in the wonderful Aristi Mountain Resort (http://www.aristi.eu/en/&gclid=CMv9u6XFrq0CFUoa6wodWxU0mg )

The hotel is absolutely lovely and the staff very friendly and helpful. The food is a nice combination of local traditional dishes with a twist of modern flair and there is a fine selection of great earthy red wines to settle into sitting by a wood fire.

We had a pretty lazy time while there and a lot of great laughs and food. Good company around a dining table can never be bettered in my opinion and our discussions ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous over the nights we were there.

Spring time was in the air and the first mountain flowers were spreading across the landscape like a multi-coloured quilt while the fresh bracing air the accompanies such altitude made the idea of a cup of mountain tea - or perhaps something quite considerably stronger - a popular option during the mornings and afternoons.

And we roasted a goat for my birthday celebrations as I stepped into my 40^th year. (More on that in another part of my review of 2011)

Aristi - One of my favourite places in Greece and a refuge from the world. Bliss.

4. Stresa

During my Odyssey to Greece from the UK on my motorcycle – which is well documented elsewhere in this collection of postcards – I stayed at Stresa on the shores of Lake Maggiore. While the hotel disappointed and the food I ate wasn’t the very best, the lake was beautiful. In particular the morning of my departure as I drove along the shoreline.

What was memorable about this in particular was my recollection of my father John.

We had spent a summer holiday in Stresa when I was a child. My father never had time to spend with us kids when we were growing up as he was always busy at work. He never saw me play sports or compete in athletics – those attendances were always carried out by my mother who was the token dad on the touchline. 

But on holidays my father would have more time and I remember in Stresa we got a small rubber inflatable boat and rowed out to the lake (it must have been incredibly dangerous if my memory serves as the rubber boat was flimsy and tiny – but hey, we survived). 

My dad taught me and my brother to row, and also how to fish with a spinner (not that we caught anything mind you!). I remember it fondly as one of the few moments of “father & son” time in my childhood – or at least at an age when I was still receptive to my father and his instruction / guidance.

Stresa brought back those memories and other memories of my father. It never ceases to frustrate the hell out of my that he didn’t live long enough to see anything of the things I have done in my life that would have made him proud. A curse indeed.

5. Urbino

Urbino – city of the Dukes – was also a place I visited on my odyssey to Greece this last summer.

Another place I have been to many times and which I have written about elsewhere in this blog.

I remember clearly this summer – as at all the other times I have been – the delight of turning a corner on the windy hilltop road and seeing the resplendent red brick of Urbino's renaissance buildings perched on the top of the hill. The steady rewinding of time as one climbs up and wanders through the cobbled streets. The peace and quiet of a place with very few - if any - motorized vehicles. The history oozing out of every corner, the sense of learning perpetuated today by the university, building on the humanist principles of the Dukes and their courtiers from centuries gone by.

And of course wonderful strolls or "passeggiate" round the town and the delicious food . . . Urbino is a divine experience and was a high note in a journey of high notes.

6. Parathalasso

The Parathalasso at Monastiraki Nafpaktou – outside of Nafpaktos – was where I settled down to spend my time during the summer in Greece.

It was my paradise for a week or more where I spent my days writing, reading, cooking, drinking, discussing, playing guitar and sleeping. I was alone for most of the time, but had visits from my lovely friend Iris with her husband Giannis (a fellow biker!) and someone else who came right at the end of my stay.

Some wonderful conversations with myself as well as with others, in the heat of the Greek summer sun and washed down with gallons of rough wine.

It combined pretty much the entire essence of Greece for me this year and I was truly happy there.

7. Istanbul

Istanbul is one of my favourite cities in the world – and I have written about her many times, and photographed her also.

I didn’t visit as frequently this year as in previous years, but some of my most powerful moments played out there in 2011.

It always symbolizes to me a meeting place. A meeting of east & west, of ancient and modern, of people, of cultures, of ideas, of cuisines.  It is a crossroads and a stopping off point. An arrival and a departure in one.

8. London

I have started to rekindle my relationship with several cities this year – stimulated by a number of things, both circumstantial and existential.

As a non-resident former resident, I return to London with a mix of emotions, but usually with the intent of taking the best out of the city which is easy to do when you don’t live there full time and have a little money…

Of course I have friends in London also so I can combine visiting people with visiting favourite places – from pubs to clubs, restaurants to cafes, galleries, bookshops, favourite streets, exhibitions, shops and live music . . .

London has a lot and is a place that is also partly home partly not home. One day I suspect I will live there again and I will be proud again to be a Londoner.

9. Paris

I hadn’t been to Paris for many years before my visit late in 2011.

I confess I went on a whim and to escape from myself for a couple of days. To reflect and connect, to be in a place full of culture and romance and to immerse myself fully into a place of dreams to avoid my nightmares – and Paris did exactly what I needed.

Of all the things I wrote this year, one of my favourites was the “Carte Postale” from Paris (http://osapp.blogspot.com/2011/11/paris-3-carte-postale.html).

I thoroughly enjoyed Paris again and decided that I must return again soon and not leave it another 20 plus years. But next time I go with a woman I’m crazy about, a fellow gourmet or an artist – not on my own.

10. Athens

Another city I fell back in love with this last year is Athens.

I used to live and work in Athens for around 6 years and knew the city pretty well – although as a resident does, and not as the visitor. Just as I used to know London before I became a visitor (i.e. hardly ever going to museums, galleries, shows, exhibitions etc and just flitting from one bar to another and restaurant grazing in the main – not that this is bad, but the visitor makes more effort in a city.)

I have missed Athens terribly I realize – and with it Athenians and the Athenian way of life.

Of course things are tough in Greece right now and people are hurting – including and maybe especially Athenians – but life goes on and people still eat, drink, discuss, argue, consider and debate when not at work. And Athenians do it in an environment ideally adapted to these things. Their city.

I have been several times this year to Athens and each time have the combination of warm memories from the past and a thirst and hunger to live experiences there now.

I missed the long lunches that turn into drinks and then into dinner. I missed the grazing around the cafes and restaurants of Kolonaki, or the mezopoleia in Gazi or Kerameiko. I missed strolling around the Acropolis, stopping to drink a coffee and read the paper in Thiseio. I missed sitting down for fish and ouzo in Nea Filadelphia or down in Pireaus.

Most of all I miss my friends from Athens with whom I did a big portion of my growing up and whose company and conversation sustained me.

So I’ve been going back, and hanging out. Seeing people and the city.

My last trip was just before Xmas and while I went primarily for one meeting, I met up with a lot of friends and had a great time. And when I went to leave for Dubai, I didn’t want to go…

So Athens will feature more frequently in my 2012 agenda, and I cannot wait to organize a trip there with my Dubai based friends and show off my “second home”.

11. The Places I Haven’t Been Yet

Another favourite place is the place I haven’t been yet, but dream about constantly as I try endlessly to reshuffle the deck of priorities in my future travel plans . . .

There are many places I want to go next year and beyond – including some of the places mentioned above, but four specific places that I am curious to visit are New Zealand, Argentina, Japan, Vietnam.

New Zealand sounds like a natural paradise with a reputation for unspoiled nature, peace and quiet, wonderful gastronomy and of course great wines. Friends of mine have done motorcycle tours there and that sounds like a great way to see the place.

Argentina has been calling me for a long time – Buenos Aires and its grandeur, the countryside with Gauchos and the wonderful meats and the drama of Patagonia. I’ve never been to Latin America and Argentina is where I want to start.

Slowly, slowly I have been visiting Asia more and two countries I am dying to visit are Japan and Vietnam. Both for their cuisine, but also their history and in the case of Japan, its very different culture / way of life which fascinates me.

Finally, there is one journey I want to make next year – the Camino De Santiago. The 800km pilgrimage by foot from the south of France to Compostela in North West Spain. It is one of the oldest pilgrimage routes in the world and while I am not planning on doing it for religious reasons, I do believe that it will be spiritually rewarding as all road trips are. Just this one will be on foot and not in a Mustang or on top of a motorcycle!