Righteous and Courageous: How a Japanese Diplomat Saved Thousands of Jews in Lithuania from the Holocaust
- Book Review,
by Carl L. Steinhouse
Dr. Michael Berenbaum, noted Holocaust scholar and author and former Director of the United States Holocaust Research Institute at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
"The writing is compelling…a chilling story made all the more real, all the more vivid by Steinhouse's account."
Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, Author of the
"Sugihara's exceptional kindness certainly deserves a wider audience, [blending] scholarship and information [providing] an uplifting and true story of kindness."
Book Description
Those Japanese of Pearl Harbor infamy saved Jews from the clutches of their German ally out of gratitude to one Jew who saved Japan in its war with Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. This is the true story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who risked his life and career to save thousands of Jews from certain death at the hands of the Nazis during the World War II. After the Germans invaded and conquered Poland, tens of thousands of Polish Jews fled to Lithuania to escape the horrors of the Holocaust. Now, the Germans were on the border of Lithuania and Sugihara had no doubt that soon the Germans would attack this small Baltic country. Jews rushed from consulate to consulate-no one, including America, would issue them visas. Working day and night, Sugihara issued, against his government's orders, thousands of visas and convinced the Soviets to permit these Jews to travel across Russia to Japan. A titanic struggle ensued between the pro-American and pro-German factions of the Japanese Foreign Ministry and military. The story examines the conflicted thinking of the Japanese officials, torn between pleasing their German ally by not admitting Jews into Japan and their gratefulness to the Jews for saving Japan in the Russo-Japanese war and their fear of Jews through a startling misperception. The book delves into this little-known but exciting bit of history of a Jewish-American financier who, unbelievably, single handedly gave the Japanese the wherewithal to best the Russian navy in 1905, an act that nearly 40 years later would result in protection of the Jews by these same Japanese against the demands of their German allies to surrender those Jews of extermination.
From the Author
I have done research for many a historical novel, but this one gave me my greatest surprise. Japanese diplomat Sugihara heroically issued visas to Jews against government orders. That story alone is exciting. But why did the Japanese not only honor these unauthorized visas and admit the Jews into its territories, but also protect them against the demands of their German allies to exterminate the Jews? After all, weren’t these the self-same Japanese who, during World War II, committed atrocities against the Chinese, Koreans and others, including American POWs? I discovered little-known but exciting facts that answered those questions. It seems that at the start of the 20th century, a Jewish-American banker single-handedly saved Japan from defeat in its war with Russia. How he did it is detailed in the book. Also, during its war with Russia, the Japanese picked a blood libel publication of the Russians falsely claiming that the Jews were conspiring to take over the world. This publication, rather than offending Japanese sensibilities, caused them to develop a healthy respect for the "power" of the Jews. Thus, out of both gratitude to, and admiration for the Jews, Japan gave safe haven to any Jew fleeing Hitler who showed up at its borders, Jews they steadfastly refused to surrender to the Nazis. It gave Righteous and Courageous an historical dimension I had not anticipated.
About the Author
Carl Steinhouse is a retired lawyer and former federal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice and thereafter in private practice specializing in class actions, white-collar crime, RICO civil and criminal trials, and criminal and civil antitrust investigations and litigation. He served in the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps, with a tour of duty overseas during the Korean War. He had been in the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, making several trips to the Soviet Union and to Jerusalem and Helsinki on fact-finding missions. A board member of the Cleveland Anti-Defamation League until 1999, he remains active in ADL matters, including monitoring activities of hate groups. His first published book, "Wallenberg is Here!", received rave reviews from scholars and authors in the Holocaust field. He is happily married and lives in Naples, Florida, where he does his research and writing.
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