The World will always need its Heroes………………………………….

Maybe a year or two ago late one Saturday evening on SBS they showed a very moving documentary about Chiune Sugihara. At the time, I had no idea who he was, and as I sat there half dozing and trying to make my mind up whether I should go to bed or not, a most amazing story began to unfold. Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who had worked in the Vice-Consulte office for the Japanese Empire in Lithuania during World War II. He was a regular kind of guy, not an extraordinary scholar or talented athlete or displaying any superstar qualities. It was Sugihara’s actions, his courage even in the face of real danger and adversity, that shone a light on his inner talents.

Whilst working at his post in Lithuania between 18 July to 28 August 1940, Sugihara came into contact with thousands of Jewish refugees all wanting to find a way out of the country. He realised that these applicants were in real danger if they were unable to leave Lithuania. Sugihara’s orders were to only grant Japanese visa’s to individuals who had gone through the proper immigration channels, had enough funds to pay for the visas and had a visa to another destination following Japan. Criteria which could not be met by many of the Jewish refugees. Sugihara could not deny the suffering being experienced by the Jewish people and even though he was going in direct violation of his orders, started issue Japanese 10 day transit visas to as many Jewish refugees as he could, often spending 18 to 20 hours a day on this task and often issuing up to a month’s worth of visas in a day. On the last night at his post, there are reports that he stayed up all night with his wife writing out visas and that that he kept writing them right up until the time he was put on a train and threw them out the window to the Jewish refugees all the while asking for forgiveness for not being able to do more. It is estimated that through his courageous actions he saved approximately 6,000 lives, more if you then count the future generations that were able to be born from these saved lives.

There were consequences for Sugihara and his family for his actions. Sugihara was asked to resign from his job at the Japanese foreign office in 1947 under the guise of “downsizing” but Sugihara’s wife insists it was really due to the incident in Lithuania. To make ends meet, Sugihara did a series of menial jobs and then a 16 year stint in the Soviet Union away from his family. Sixteen years of not being involved in the day to day life of your family must indeed be a hard thing to do.

In 1968 a Jewish beneficiary of Sugihara working at the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo finally located SuGgihara and he went to Israel and met with the Israeli government. In 1985 he was granted the honour of Righteous among the Nations and he was given, along with all his descendants, perpetual Israeli citizenship. As Sugihara was to ill to travel to Israel at that time, his wife went in his place to accept the honour. As part of the ceremony, the descendants of those that Sugihara had saved were allowed to express their thanks to Mrs Sugihara. There she sat in a chair in a big room as hundreds of Jewish people one by one emotionally thanked her for her husband’s bravery and courage. It was one of the most moving pieces of television I had ever watched and one of the most powerful.

So why did Sugihara do it? What made him risk hardship and persecution not only for him but his family to save others? What made him go against his specific orders? When asked this question Sugihara replied something along the lines of “…because it was the right thing to do…….it is never a bad thing to save people’s lives”. I agree. But the interesting point here is at the time, it was common society practice to ignore the suffering of the Jewish people and not to help them but Sugihara went against this at his own personal risk and to me, this makes him a hero.

If we look around at the people that have become heroes today we do see an over representation of movie stars, singers and sports people being idolised by press and people. These are talented people, no argument there but often they are not the people that one wants to be modelling their moral code on. Imagine asking for guidance on moral courage from Arnold Schwarzenegger or ethical advice from Donald Trump. These people appeal to the aesthetics and this is important. Those people that appeal to our sense of the ethical are also important but those people that are able to go beyond both and take a leap for something that lies outside what the status quo is saying, appeal to something higher and eternal that exists in all of us. These type of rule breakers, in my way of thinking, are the real heroes that show all of us the way.

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