Chiune Sugihara helped save the lives of many more Jews than Oskar Schindler, whose work was immortalised in a Hollywood film, but his story has remained relatively unknown in comparison.
Now, it’s been turned into a play, The Warrior and the Princess, by a Perth-based theatre troupe, who recently performed it at the New York Fringe Festival.
“The story of the Warrior and the Princess is kind of like a universal tale. What would you do if you were in that situation? How do you feel about refugees?” director Monica Main told SBS Dateline reporter Aaron Thomas.
“They’ve lost everything. They’ve lost their homes, their livelihoods, half their family, they can’t speak the language, they’re fleeing to another country… it’s so part of the zeitgeist.”
Mr Sugihara was posted to a consulate in Lithuania during the Second World War, where many Jewish refugees had become stranded after fleeing Poland.
He disobeyed his government’s orders to issue more than the permitted number of transit visas to allow them entry to Russia, where they could then potentially travel onto Japan and freedom.
“He got to the point where he was working day and night and I believe what he actually churned out in a day was the equivalent of what people would have churned out in a month,” said Brian Liau, who played the role of Sugihara.
He ultimately issued visas for 6,000 people.
“He had nothing personally to gain from it except that he could sleep straight in bed at night,” Ms Main told Dateline.
“I guess he was really connected to his own moral compass… and he just felt overwhelmingly that he had to do what was right.”
One of their performances was particularly poignant, in the audience was one of the people he saved, 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Lilly Singer.
“Sugihara was an incredible person,” she said. “He probably never saw a Jew before in his life and he saved so many families.”
“You don’t know where you’re going and you’re leaving your home and you have a feeling it will be forever, and it was.”
She ultimately settled near New York City, but feels she never properly thanked Sugihara for the sacrifices he made.
After being dismissed by the Japanese Foreign Ministry, he spent the rest of his life doing menial jobs in relative obscurity, but he was honoured by Israel in 1985, just a year before he died.
“It was very special for me to see it and to remember,” Lilly told the Australian performers after the play. “It’s amazing that I’m here.”
It's estimated there are now more than 40,000 descendants alive today because of Sugihara’s bravery.
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