num_pages: 32
description: In 1940, five-year-old Hiroki Sugihara, the eldest son of the Japanese consul to Lithuania, saw from the consulate window hundreds of Jewish refugees from Poland. They had come to Hiroki's father with a desperate request: Could consul Sugihara write visas for them to escape the Nazi threat?The Japanese government denied Sugihara's repeated requests to issue the visas. Unable to ignore the plight of the refugees, he turned to his family. Together they made the crucial decision that saved thousands of lives.Passage to Freedom, based on Hiroki Sugihara's own words, is one of the most important stories to emerge from the ruins of the Holocaust. It is the story of one man's remarkable courage, and the respect between a father and a son who shared the weight of witness and an amazing act of humanity.
language: English
title: Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story
titlecomplete: Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story
characters: Chiune Sugihara
genres: Cultural, Biography, War, Picture Books, Japan, Nonfiction, Holocaust, Childrens, History, World War II
ratings_count: 774
places: Japan, Lithuania
awards: awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Jane Addams Children's Book Award
category: Picture Book