A Holocaust Paragon of Virtue’s Rise to Fame The Transnational Commemoration of the Japanese Diplomat Sugihara Chiune and Its Divergent National Motives

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

During the summer of 1940, Sugihara Chiune (1900–1986), the Japanese consul in Lithuania, issued transit visas to several thousand Polish-citizen refugees, mostly Jews. His willingness to do so was instrumental in their departure overseas shortly after the country was taken over by Soviet forces. Almost a year later, as Operation Barbarossa unfolded, the Jewish community in Lithuania, along with the remaining refugees, was brutally annihilated. Decades later, the Israeli state memorial Yad Vashem conferred the title of Righteous Among the Nations on Sugihara, thereby initiating his commemoration as a Holocaust rescuer. Today, Sugihara has become a national hero in Japan and is considered a paragon of virtue in a number of other countries too. This article examines the way Sugihara was transformed from a completely unknown figure into a world-famous symbol of Holocaust-era heroism. It focuses on the transnational mechanisms that facilitated this transformation as well as on the divergent but often also complementary motives in three of the countries most involved in the commemoration: Japan, Israel, and Lithuania. By so doing, this article seeks to uncover the theoretical underpinning of heroism and its memory and the way they are manipulated across cultures.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)31-63
Number of pages33
JournalAmerican Historical Review
Volume128
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Mar 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© FBK Press 2022.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • History
  • Archaeology
  • Museology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A Holocaust Paragon of Virtue’s Rise to Fame The Transnational Commemoration of the Japanese Diplomat Sugihara Chiune and Its Divergent National Motives'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this