During the early days of World War II, Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat stationed at a consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania, issued more than 2,000 visas for as many as 6,000 Jewish people desperately trying to escape Nazi persecution.
An extraordinarily courageous act, Sugihara defied the orders of his superiors in Tokyo, who told Sugihara the Jewish refugees did not meet visa requirements.
Within a brief span of time before the consulate was closed down and Sugihara had to leave Kaunas, Sugihara spent nearly all his waking hours writing visas by hand. Ultimately, around 6,000 Jewish people were saved — and they have grown to more than 40,000 descendants.
Sugihara’s grandson, Chihiro Sugihara, will be a keynote speaker at a special Holocaust remembrance event in Atlanta Sunday called “Conscience and Action.”
(The film, "Persona Non Grata," which was featured at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival in 2016, follows Sugihara from his early days in Manchuria to his posting as Japan's consul in Lithuania during WWII).
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The Sunday event is free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. As of Wednesday evening, the event was sold out and those interested can be put on a waiting list. (See more details below.) The event is organized by Am Yisrael Chai, a local Holocaust and genocide awareness and education organization, which hosts events throughout the year, including building a Holocaust memorial with a goal of planting 1.5 million daffodils around metro Atlanta and the globe in memory of the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust.
Chihiro Sugihara will be joined by Leo Melamed, now 85, and a member of one of the families who narrowly escaped death, and whom Chiune Sugihara saved from the Holocaust.
In September 1939, Melamed, who was 7 years old, and his family managed to flee Poland on the last train out of Bialystok and headed for Vilnius, Lithuania.
As the situation in Lithuania deteriorated rapidly, Melamed and his family received one of Chiune Sugihara’s visas. Melamed and his parents traveled the treacherous Trans-Siberian Railroad to the eastern port of Vladivostok, and then on to Japan. In 1941, Melamed and his family immigrated to the United States, where they settled in Chicago.
Melamed attended law school and became a prominent finance executive. He is chairman emeritus of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group.
Upon Sugihara’s return to Japan, he lost his diplomatic career and remained virtually unknown in his home country until a large international Jewish delegation attended his funeral in 1986. Posthumously, Sugihara has received several awards, and Japan recognized him with the Nagasaki Peace Prize.
In recent years, Sugihara has also come to be known as the “Japanese Schindler,” a reference to German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who is credited with saving 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust.
Melamed will share stories about his experiences during and after the war. He will also share life lessons.
“My first lesson is very important,” Melamed said. “There are billions of people in the world, and only a few recognize the fact their own life is important and it is hard to believe it and feel it, but one person can make a difference. (Chiune Sugihara) is a great example of one person who decided it was the right thing to do to issue transit visas for people who were trapped and had nowhere to go. … Sometimes people mistaken that I am only one person; the truth is we all have, in ourselves the ability to change the world.”
Meanwhile, Chihiro Sugihara said he remembers his grandfather as a quiet, warm person with a “lot of depth.”
As far as what people can learn from his grandfather, he said, “Be ready to help people in trouble.”
EVENT PREVIEW
“Conscience and Action”
7-8:30 p.m. Sunday; doors open at 5:30 p.m. for exhibit. Free but RSVP required: www.2018remember.eventbrite.com. Westin Atlanta Perimeter North Hotel, 7 Concourse Parkway NE, Atlanta. www.amyisraelchaiatlanta.org.
