page_title: Chiune Sugihara
section_title: Numbers saved
hierarchical_section_title: Chiune Sugihara / Lithuania / Jewish refugees / Numbers saved
caption_attribution_description: English: Recreation of Sugihara's Consular Desk of the Chiune Sugihara House in Kaunas, Lithuania.
context_page_description: Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who served as vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania. During the Second World War, Sugihara helped about 6,000 Jews flee Europe by issuing transit visas to them so that they could travel through Japanese territory, risking his job and the lives of his family. The fleeing Jews were refugees from German-occupied Western Poland and Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland, as well as residents of Lithuania. In 1985, the State of Israel honored Sugihara as one of the Righteous Among the Nations for his actions. He is the only Japanese national to have been so honored. The year 2020 is "The Year of Chiune Sugihara" in Lithuania. It has been estimated as many as 100,000 people alive today are the descendants of the recipients of Sugihara visas.
context_section_description: Concerning the number of refugees passing through Japan who held Japanese transit visas for Curacao issued by Sugihara (so-called “Sugihara visa”), there are two documents saying 2,200 and 6,000. 6,000 persons written in "Visas for Life" was hearsay. K. Watanabe argued that there could be 6,000 for the reason that use by three family members per visa is reasonable, that there were newspaper articles with 6,000, and that most of the refugees landing on Tsuruga were now admitted to have a Sugihara visa. On September 29, 1983, Fuji Television aired "One visa that divided the fate - the Japanese who saved 4,500 Jews". In 1985, when Chiune Sugihara received "Righteous among the Nations", some Japanese newspapers reported that he saved 6,000 persons and others 4,500. The Japan Times, dated January 19, 1985, headlined "Japanese Man honored for saving 6,000 Jews", and reported "Sugihara defied orders from Tokyo and issued transit visas to nearly 6,000 Jews". Chiune Sugihara died in July 1986. US newspapers referred to Sugihara as "a diplomat who defied his government's orders and issued a transit visas for 6,000 Jews".
  Table 2 shows the number of refugees who had stayed at Kobe in 1941 based on Archives of MOFA. Refugees classified as "No visa" in table are presumed to have held fakes of Japanese transit visas issued by Sugihara. The Soviets wanted to purge Polish refugees who had been stranded in Soviet territory with Japanese transit visas as soon as possible, and so permitted them to get on the train to Vladivostok with or without a destination visa. The Japanese government was forced to admit the entry of them. On April 8, 1941, of the 1,400 Polish Jews staying at Kobe, "for Curaçao" and "No visa" were about 1,300.
  The Polish ambassador in Tokyo, Tadeusz Romer, remembered, "They (Polish refugees) only had fictitious Dutch visas for the island of Curaçao and Japanese transit visas". According to the refugee name list surveyed by Fukui Prefecture, of the 306 persons who landed at Tsuruga Port on October 1940, there were 203 Poles. Their destinations were US 89, Palestine 46, Curaçao 24, and others. It is estimated that about 80% of them were on the Sugihara visa list. The documents of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and "Refugee and Survivor" do not mention the number of people saved by "Sugihara visa".
  More than half of the refugees who entered with invalid visas including "Sugihara visa" obtained valid visas with the help of JDC, HIAS, the Embassy of Poland and Japanese government, and embarked host countries. In August–September 1941, Japanese authorities transferred about 850 refugees stranded in Japan to Shanghai before Japan and the United States began war. According to Emigration Table by Jewcom, the number of Polish refugees leaving Japan was Shanghai 860, US 532, Canada 186, Palestine 186, Australia 81, South Africa 59, and others 207 in total 2,111.
  The total number of Jews saved by Sugihara is in dispute, estimating about 6,000; family visas—which allowed several people to travel on one visa—were also issued, which would account for the much higher figure. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has estimated that Chiune Sugihara issued transit visas for about 6,000 Jews and that around 40,000 descendants of the Jewish refugees are alive today because of his actions. Polish intelligence produced some false visas. Sugihara's widow and eldest son estimate that he saved 10,000 Jews from certain death, whereas Boston University professor and author, Hillel Levine, also estimates that he helped "as many as 10,000 people", but that far fewer people ultimately survived. Indeed, some Jews who received Sugihara's visas failed to leave Lithuania in time, were later captured by the Germans who invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, and perished in the Holocaust.
  The Diplomatic Record Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has opened to the public two documents concerning Sugihara's file: the first aforementioned document is a 5 February 1941 diplomatic note from Chiune Sugihara to Japan's then Foreign Minister Yōsuke Mat
caption: Recreation of Sugihara's Consular Desk in Kaunas
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-HX400V", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "350", "Image YResolution": "350", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "DSC-HX400V v2.00", "Image DateTime": "2016:06:25 05:33:28", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "290", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail ImageDescription": "", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-HX400V", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail Software": "DSC-HX400V v2.00", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2016:06:25 05:33:28", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "31928", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10797", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "250", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "250", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:06:25 05:33:28", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:06:25 05:33:28", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "2547/1280", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "43/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3648", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2736", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "31632", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[43/10, 215, 14/5, 63/10]"}