The Schindler of Japan, Chihune Sugihara
tokyoweekender.comI always liked the way he responded when asked (many years later) why he did it. Paraphrased, it was along the lines of "It was so obviously the right thing to do, but it would have been nearly impossible to push through the bureaucracy, so I just went ahead and did it myself." He did something so profoundly good that we are compelled to wish we could live up to such an example, and the reason he did it? He didn't really have one. It just never occurred to him not to do it. Which is as good a definition of "hero" as you're likely to run across. "Righteous among nations" indeed.
Anton Schmid [0] said something similar: ‘We all must die. But if I can choose whether to die as a murderer or a helper, I choose death as a helper.’
And it was as simple as just doing it and not being limited to just what someone would or wouldn't allow.
My grandfather was saved by Sugihara together with the rest of the Mir Yeshiva (Rabbinical College). I am forever grateful to him.
Mine too. It's quite a surprise to see him show up on HN. Such a simple deed with such huge significance. It reminds me to think about what I might be able to do that could end up being life-changing for others someday.
It's a shame that he lost his career over it. I'm glad to see him finally getting the recognition he deserves.
My wife's grandfather and his family as well. Sugihara is an honored name in our home.
What a great man he is, When a niche site like this gets multiple accounts from people whose lives were positively impacted by him especially on a slow day(HN visits are low during weekends).
The Schindler of Germany, John Rabe
> John Rabe was an ordinary German businessman in China when the Japanese invaded Nanking in 1937. Nearly 70 years later, a memorial was dedicated to the "Good German" who saved thousands of Chinese lives.
https://www.dw.com/en/memorial-dedicated-to-the-oskar-schind...
There’s also a ‘Chinese Schindler.’
> Ho Feng Shan: The 'Chinese Schindler' who saved thousands of Jews
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/19/asia/china-jews-schindler...
This is a great and unheard story, and truly inspiring. When I heard a "Japanese Schindler" I was expecting a Japanese person saving Chinese people during the Nanking and other massacres. Are there any examples of Japanese people going against the Japanese govt to save innocent Chinese people?
Absolute badass.
People like him, Raoul Wallenberg and Schindler put everything at risk because they understood their sacrifice had 1000x leverage on others lives.
We should all aspire to be as courageous if the opportunity presents itself.
The opportunity to help others at 1000x leverage is already here for all of us.
The most cost-effective [0] charities are a thousand times more effective at helping people as regular charities. For example, for ~$0.5 you can cure a child of parasitic worms in their stomach. For ~$3 you can protect someone form malaria for ~4 years.
You can join thousands of others who choose to give at least 10% of their income to the mot cost-effective charities they can find [1]
And join the Effective Altruism movement to be involved in helping others effectively [2]
[0] https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
Also importantly, validate annually that the charity you chose is still on the list. Too many charities scale, and frankly become poor at efficiency and distribution. A shocking number of larger charities are effectively marketing, and subcontract to smaller organizations.
There's still an estimated eighty million refugees and displaced persons in the world: https://www.unhcr.org/uk/figures-at-a-glance.html
Every now and again, the opportunity comes by you to tick a box that determines how your country treats them, an act which can make a difference while costing you nothing and incurring no personal risk.
And it seems we didn't learn a thing.
Refugees tend to cost a metric ton of money. If you're a tax payer it will cost you money. Go woke go broke.
do you value money over human life?
> while costing you nothing and incurring no personal risk.
Read: While costing a lot and putting you at high risk.
How can you say otherwise?
Voting in most free countries is cheap and easy. Would you like to spell out what you mean?
There is a lot of free, cheap and easy things... It is not interesting to point them out.
Accomodating and feeding people are among the most expensive things that exist. Refugees are very expensive for societies that take them in!
Unfortunately your wishful thinking does not match reality. I know everything could be so nice, but in reality you will steal, when you have nothing/little putting those around you at risk.
You realize this is basically arguing that Sugihara did the wrong thing?
He/She may
1) Think Sugihara was right 2) Believe that taking refugees into europe is worse on average/bad
All it takes is a different reason for Sugihara to be right
No
I argue that it created costs [for him and/or others] and put him (and others) at increased risk.
Funny thing is that I would have said "Accomodating and feeding people are among the most cheap and reasonable things to do, with great ROI."
I'm surprised to read that despite persecution, Russia allowed them to transit through their country.
Russia did not have a plan to exterminate them, you are thinking from a Nazi POV. They were probably just interested in not having them in Russia because of the religion.
Maybe because it was such a bureaucratic system.
I believe early in WW2, Japan had a treaty with Russia.
So Japan did not torpedo US Liberty ships headed to Russia, and various other surprising things. (Japan obeyed international treaties to the letter, but did not follow any human rights conventions.)
Of course, at the end of WW2, Russia turned their vast army and artillery eastward, and annihiliated the Japanese army.
Source: I study WW2.
> Of course, at the end of WW2, Russia turned their vast army and artillery eastward, and annihiliated the Japanese army.
Of the ~1,092,400 Japanese soldiers facing Russia, only 22,300-23,600 were killed according to Japan (Russia places the figure at 83,737):
Because Japan surrendered almost as soon as Russia declared war. They were more afraid of the red army than 2 nuclear bombings...
I think we will never know what the reasoning behind the two bombs really was. I could imagine that after using large scale carpet and fire bombing against civilian targets, a nuclear bomb with a similar effect doesn't make much of a difference.
> They were more afraid of the red army than 2 nuclear bombings...
Not according to them[1]:
"More than ever before, the historical record confirms what those soldiers knew in their gut: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hideous as they were, shortened the war that Japan had begun and saved an immensity of lives. Far from considering itself essentially defeated, the Japanese military was preparing for an Allied assault with a massive buildup in the south. It was only the shock of the atomic blasts that enabled Japanese leaders who wanted to stop the fighting to successfully press for a surrender.
"'We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war,' Kido Koichi, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest aides, later recalled. Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary, called the bomb 'a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war.'"
[1] http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/...
> but did not follow any human rights conventions
If I'm not mistaken, they hadn't signed any.
The ships headed to Russia were Russian flagged. They were the reason US submarines had to be very careful in their target selection in certain waters. Thunder Below has a lot of commentary on the subject.
> and various other surprising things.
This makes me curious. What other things?
The Soviets would have needed friends if the Allies accepted German's surrender then immediately took control of the German military to destroy the USSR, and Japan was in a natural position to be that friend.
Stalin only agreed to break the non-aggression pact once it became clear that no invasion from the west was coming, which was fairly late in the war (Yalta).
it is interesting to note that at no point during the war both sides fought simultaneously against the other side. E.g., the USSR was on Germany's side during the battle of Britain (supplying fuel for german bombers). The Japan non-aggression pact was kept until after the defeat of Germany. The many European countries that fought on both sides along the course of the war, etc.
Actually the Soviets already defeated the Germans. 80% of German forces were on the Eastern front and Russia was cutting through them like a hot knife through butter before d-day even occurred. They took Berlin despite the German high command basically trying to give it to the Western allies. The turning point of WW2 was Stalingrad, not D-day.
One could also make the case for the Germans failure to take Moscow to be the turning point, followed by the US entry into the war. After that it was just a question of when the Axis would be crushed by the Allies industrial capacity. Not if.
There is a very interesting book about him that I read years ago:
"In Search of Sugihara" by Hillel Levine
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1119369.In_Search_of_Sug...
It seems to be readily available on kindle, but harder to find in print.
Another not so well known hero is Angel Sanz Briz.
https://jewishjournal.com/news/318809/spanish-schindler-who-...
On the same note of WW2 unsong diplomats:
Aristides de Sousa Mendes, was a portuguese diplomat in Bordeux France.
He against explicit orders granted 30k visas of which 10k were jews.
His diplomatic career was terminated. He was shunned back in Portugal, died in debt, feed by a Jewish soup kitchen.
Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer characterized Sousa Mendes' deed as "perhaps the largest rescue action by a single individual during the Holocaust."
In his own words: “From now on I’m giving everyone visas, there will be no more nationalities, races or religion. I cannot allow all you people to die...”
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristides_de_Sousa_Mendes
> Sugihara was then asked to resign by the foreign office. The official line was downsizing, though many, including his wife Yukiko, believe it was because of what happened in Lithuania.
It's important to note that, unlike Germany, Japan has never really admitted or apologized for what they did. See this shocking video by historian Mark Felton about what you can find today in a Japanese museum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngzesh6eN14
The Nazis were on a mission to annihilate the Jews, so in relative term they killed many, but in absolute terms the Japanese probably victimized a lot more people. It's just that there were a lot of Chinese people to victimize, so the magnitude of the crime is less apparent.
Their cruelty was even worse in some ways, as it was officially sanctioned and encouraged by their institutions as such. The Nazis, while they did not hide their hate for the Jews, went to some lengths to hide what they were actually doing to them -- which is probably how the German population could claim to not know what was going on. (To quote Speer: "I didn't know, I could have known, I should have known." He's been vilified but I haven't seen anything to paint him as a liar as far as this is concerned.)
Put simply, the Germans are ashamed of that past, even the Nazis had shown some signs that they knew it was shameful, but the Japanese have never demonstrated any shame.
> To quote Speer: "I didn't know, I could have known, I should have known."
While it's credible that the average German civilian didn't know what was going on (though they would have known _something_ was going on), Speer certainly knew: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/13/secondworldwar...
Maybe he did, but the deniability was indeed plausible. And I'm aware that many doubt his sincerity, and it's perfectly reasonable to do so. That being said, I find his explanation not just plausible as well but more useful as an explanation. People chose not to see or believe what was too inconvenient. See cognitive dissonance. That explains how the Nazis got them to do what they did. Note that I'm not saying that they were ignorant of every crime, just that they were spared the undeniable knowledge of the most offensive ones, making it easier to support or at least fail to oppose the régime. Deporting the Jews was bad enough, and that was done in plain sight, but not quite as unpalatable as their mass murder.
The point here is that Japanese soldiers were massively trained to perform horrible things. They mistreated prisoners of war, civilians, anyone, everywhere, and new recruits were forced to perform horrors as part of their induction. Germans on the other hand respected the rules of war in the West (though certainly not in the East) for instance, except obviously for the SS. They were certainly keen to appear legit in that respect. The Japanese were not, ever.
A more recent Speer quote:
> In the letter to Jeanty, written on December 23 1971, Speer wrote: "There is no doubt - I was present as Himmler announced on October 6 1943 that all Jews would be killed".
Not much plausible deniability there. He lied at the time to avoid being executed.
(To quote Speer: "I didn't know, I could have known, I should have known." He's been vilified but I haven't seen anything to paint him as a liar as far as this is concerned.)
Read Gitta Sereny's "Albert Speer, his battle with the truth". It's a thick book, but fascinating. She casts serious doubt on Speer's assertion that he didn't know about the death camps, or that Jews were systematically being exterminated.
Mark Felton produces fantastic work, anyone interested in WW2 history should take a look at the channel in the parents link.
It is true that said government and institutions has never done so.
However I think you're grossly building up Germans as ignorant goodmen.
While painting the Japanese as complicit evil doers.
The truth is the only reason Germans are ashamed of the past are due to 2 reasons:
1 the allies occupation of Germany spent lots of resources into exposing the crimes of the nazis.
And even then the Germans were proud of the nazis up until the 1980s.
And 2 every institution was torn down more or less after the nazis and rebuild from scratch with some having oversight built into it.
This did not happen in the occupation of japan.
And you can see the same "complicity" with the 3rd holocaust that was done in Croatia/ Bosnia against predominantly Serbs.
Hell even Spain has the issue of the public still being proud of the fascists.
Or lastly UK still has a sizable portion of its citizens that believes the Uk colonialism was ultimately good and righteous.
> However I think you're grossly building up Germans as ignorant goodmen.
That's not at all what I'm saying, if you mean Germans during WW2. However if we're talking about today, it's certainly the case that Germans are unequivocal about their past while Japanese people as a whole are not.
As immortalised in song by David Rovics - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcFAhFWyuP0