Letter to the Editor: Chiune Sugihara Deserves Precise Praise

From Arlette Liwer:

Your recent editorial titled, “What Would Chiune Sugihara Do?” invokes the story of the Japanese diplomat who issued transit visas to Jewish refugees in Kaunas in 1940, a history that directly affected my own family. Sugihara’s actions remain an extraordinary example of moral courage during one of history’s darkest moments. For that reason, his story deserves to be presented with care and historical accuracy.

The editorial states that Sugihara issued visas “despite his eventual arrest—and years-long detention—for him and his family by the Soviet government,” implying that Soviet authorities punished him for helping Jewish refugees. That is not correct. (Editor’s note: The online version of this story has been corrected to avoid implying this connection as this letter writer has pointed out.) Sugihara and his family were detained by Soviet authorities only after the end of the Second World War, when the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan in August 1945 and arrested Japanese diplomats in territories captured by the Red Army. At the time Sugihara was serving as a Japanese diplomat in Romania. Like many other Japanese diplomats caught in territories taken by the Red Army, he and his family were interned as enemy nationals and held for approximately eighteen months before being repatriated to Japan in November 1946. His detention was not connected to the visas he issued in Lithuania in 1940.

The editorial also invokes Sugihara’s legacy while making contemporary political claims about Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, drawing modern political conclusions from events that unfolded in a very different historical context. Historical figures who acted during the Holocaust deserve to be understood within their own historical context. Using their stories in this way risks distorting both the historical record and the individuals themselves.

Sugihara’s visas functioned in tandem with the Curaçao destination visas issued in Kaunas by Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk, without which most refugees would not have received transit visas. I write as a descendant of refugees who survived because of both men.

Arlette Liwer

The Netherlands