In the summer of 1940, as the Soviet Union was absorbing the Baltic states and Nazi Germany was advancing across Europe, Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara in Kaunas, Lithuania faced a decision that would cost him his career. Hundreds of Polish Jewish refugees were lining up outside the consulate, desperate for transit visas. Tokyo had issued clear orders: issue no visas.
Sugihara began writing visas by hand for days, then weeks. His hand cramped, his fingers blistered. He produced as many as 300 visas a day. When his wife Yukiko asked why he risked everything for strangers, Sugihara said: Those people will be saved, and I am not acting against the interests of my country.
Sugihara and his wife fled on the Trans-Siberian Railway in August 1940, and even on the train, he continued to write visas, throwing them out of the window to desperate refugees who followed the train. When Soviet authorities finally ordered him to leave, his final act was to hand his personal seal to a Polish refugee: Please forgive me. I cannot write anymore. I pray for your safety.
In all, Sugihara saved approximately 6,000 Jewish lives. After the war, he was dismissed from the Japanese Foreign Service for his unauthorized actions. He spent the remainder of his career in relative obscurity, working for an export company in Moscow under increasingly difficult conditions.
It was not until 1985, at age 85, that Sugihara was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. He died two months later, on July 31, 1986.