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Japan funds save Lithuania museum on diplomat who saved Jews

23 Comments
By LIUDAS DAPKUS

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A noble effort on the part of the residents of Gifu Prefecture to preserve the memory of one of its noblest sons. Good job, Gifu!

11 ( +14 / -3 )

Good for Japan for doing this.

5 ( +10 / -5 )

Not our tax money so good job people!

6 ( +8 / -2 )

However Lithuania, a country with a toxic anti-Semitic history,

Oh God. Why single out Lithuania? All of Europe has a toxic anti-Semitic history and so does North America.

I salute people like Chiune Sugihara and Oskar Schindler for doing the right thing despite what their so-called "friends" demanded and despite the objections and apathy of the people around them and even the risk of being ratted out by them. Mostly history is filled with worthless, horrible people and only a few diamonds like these.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Sugihara was a man of principle.

He was also a spy, collecting information on Russian activity in Lithuania. His first wife was Russian. After he was fired by the Foreign Ministry in 1947, he ended up back in Moscow, where his multi-lingual talents earned him a job with a trading company. His family stayed in Japan. He wasn't alone in issuing visas to Jewish residents of Kaunas, the Dutch vice-consul also handed them out.

Fighto!Today 07:33 am JST

Good for Japan for doing this.

It's the people of Gifu. Sugihara was sacked by the Foreign Ministry for what he did. He got off lightly. Under the State Secrecy Law enacted by the Abe government in 2013 he would have been liable for up to 10 years in jail.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

Lithuanians still need to live down their legacy of fascism and antisemitism and fess up to their dark past. In mitigation it would be dishonest to deny that that this small land of peasants was caught between rocks and hard places (Russia and Poland, Hitler and Stalin) and the fact that the languages spoken by its significant Jewish population (Yiddish, Polish, Russian, but not the difficult Lithuanian) only emphasized the Jewish minority's foreign presence and sense of separation from the Christian majority and, tragically, played no small role in the inability and unwillingness of most Lithuanians powerless to prevent the horrific massacres of Jews perpetrated on Lithuanian soil.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

And as far as I'm aware no government in North America has ever instituted pogroms or programs of mass extermination against its Jewish residents.

Well yeah. No need to focus on the Jews as they had the native population to do that to!

One must remember two very important things. One is that Lithuania was occupied first by the Soviets. Then the Germans invaded and the Lithuanians thought them to be liberators. The second thing is that Lithuania had a pretty large Jewish population and it was known the Nazis were targeting them. Some people were definitely out to appease the Nazis by handing over or directly murdering the Jews in Lithuania.

But you began with the word "toxic" which is odd. Its a somewhat weak word that applies to so many. The Lithuanians were not toxic in the sense that others were. Lithuanians were downright "murderous". While the Nazis were at first interested in slave labor and then moved on to mass murder, the Lithuanians just began with mass murder with far more speed and efficiency than even the Nazis of that particular point in time. They have a bad history but it must be put in the context of the Soviet invasion followed by the Nazi invasion as well as the fact humans are very prone to scapegoating others to save themselves. Lithuanians were in a very peculiar situation and I believe most people in the same situation would do the same.

And that is why the example of Chiune Sugihara needs drummed into people's heads. They need examples of courage and righteousness and bravery or else they will succumb to scapegoating, collaboration and murder.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Denmark is a good example of the opposite side of the story. 90% of their Jews survived the War, because the Danes refused to accept Nazi demands to hand them over and made sure they escaped.

But only because the Jewish population was well-integrated (unlike in Lithuania) and small enough for 90% to escape with the help of Danes to nearby neutral Sweden. The Nazis had to tread carefully and negotiate gingerly with their Western Germanic neighbors in stark contrast to their ruthless actions and murderous treatment of Slavs and their helpless, large Jewish populations in the murky hinterlands of Eastern Europe far from the scrutiny of the eyes of the world.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

There is no need to thank Japan for this because it was the people of Gifu that collected the money:

However, people from Gifu Prefecture on the Japanese island of Honshu, where Sugihara was born, raised some 30,000 euros (about $35,600) to help the museum survive the pandemic.

And on top of that, Japan was not very humanitarian in 1947 either, as they have fired him for what he has done, therefore Japanese government at the time did not care what was happening to the Jews!

Sugihara was reassigned elsewhere in Europe, and when he returned to Japan in 1947, he was fired.

And that goes in line with the axes of evil that Japan, Germany and Italy vere part of.... And we can all be very grateful that the German sub which was carrying uranium oxide from Germany to Japan was sunk before it could make it's delivery...

1 ( +6 / -5 )

Fascist Italy under Mussolini also largely avoided persecuting or targeting their jewish population - and they were Hitler’s main ally. The Lithuanians have a lot to answer for.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Well done Mister sugihara. You saved future of Japan.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

What a treasure of little known history. And what a noble gift.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

The righteous Sugihara displayed exemplary nobility with his selfless duty to humanity and by acting to save the lives of many Jews, yet the risk he ran to his life and liberty cannot be compared to that of those few Lithuanians who, refusing to be cowed like the majority of their countrymen by the Gestapo and their henchmen, put their lives on the line by sheltering and rescuing Jews from fascist persecution. Not all Lithuanians had Jewish blood on their hands.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Lithuania was one of the countries in the so called " The Pale of settlement " where Jews were allowed settle permanently or temporarily. I'm grateful for Chiune's act of facilitation a passage to freedom for a people in need. Badly treated at home and died a lonely man. At least he stands out to me because NOT one Japanese stood up for me recently when I needed help from themselves.

@Alfie

He was also a spy, collecting information on Russian activity in Lithuania. His first wife was Russian. After he was fired by the Foreign Ministry in 1947, he ended up back in Moscow, where his multi-lingual talents earned him a job with a trading company. His family stayed in Japan. He wasn't alone in issuing visas to Jewish residents of Kaunas, the Dutch vice-consul also handed them out.

Thanks ! I Didn't know that.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Kiichiro Higuchi

As a major general and the commander of the Japanese-occupied Chinese Harbin Special Branch in 1937-1938, he, with the help of Yosuke Matsuoka, allowed many Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi Germany to cross the border from Otpor, USSR to Manchouli (a city in the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo), in an event which later became known as the Otpor Incident. Higuchi's subordinates were responsible for feeding the refugees, settling them in Harbin or Shanghai, and arranging for exit visas. General Hideki Tojo, then Chief of staff of the Kwantung Army, assented to Higuchi's view that the German policy against the Jews was a serious humanitarian concern. Higuchi's lieutenant Norihiro Yasue advocated for the protection of Jewish refugees to General Seishiro Itagaki, which led to the establishment of the Japanese Jewish Policy Program in 1938.

People who want to undermine Japan and the Japanese military don't talk about him.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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