Chiune Sugihara

Chiune Sugihara was the Japanese consul in Kaunas, Lithuania. When the Soviet Union annexed Lithuania in July 1940, thousands of Jewish refugees — many carrying Polish passports — lined up outside his consulate desperate for visas to escape the advancing Nazis. Without authorization from Tokyo, Sugihara began writing visas by hand. He produced 300 per day — more than a month's salary in visa fees — for 29 consecutive days, working 18-20 hours.\n\nWhen he was finally ordered to leave, he continued writing from the train window, tossing blank signed visa forms to the crowd as the train pulled away. The refugees fled through the Soviet Union to Japan and eventually to the United States, Canada, and Palestine. The 6,000 people he saved — known as "Sugihara survivors" — now number over 40,000 descendants.\n\nAfter the war, he was quietly dismissed from the Japanese foreign service and lived in obscurity for decades, working as a trade representative. It was not until 1985 that Yad Vashem recognized him as Righteous Among the Nations. He died the following year at age 86. Many of the survivors and their descendants never learned his real name until decades later.