Random Acts of Kindness

Episode 1: Chiune Sugihara (The Conspiracy of Kindness)

I am attracted to stories (true stories), of human kindness. This verifies two of my life's theory (and other people's theory, it's actually basic life's theory). 1. There is kindness in the human heart, but you have to look in very close and deep to find it. God will not have trusted humans if He knows we are not capable of good things. 2. Is that not all men with power are evil, I bet most (if not all) men of power started their journey, with full of good intention in their hearts, but most of them adapt to the situation, or fell from grace in between. Still there is hope in them. For some of them at least.

 In 1919, when Chiune Sugihara passed his 'Foreign Minister Scholarship exam, he was placed in Manchuria as the Deputy Foreign Minister in the Manchurian office (Manchuria is China, when it was occupied by the Empire of Japan). He quits the post because he heard allegation, of the mistreatment of the Chinese people, by Japanese soldiers. A few years after, in 1939 he was appointed as vice-consul (ambassador) of the Empire of Japan, to Lithuania.

1939 was the year that the preliminary of the World War 2 began. and on September the 1st 1939, at 4.45 am, Hitler's Germany began it's attack on Poland. Knowing Hitlers policy to the Jew people, thousands of them had fled to Lithuania. And as they fear, 'The Nazis' are coming their way. This would not bring any problem to Sugihara as the Germans was an ally to the Empire of Japan, but to the thousands of Jewish refugee from Poland, and the thousands more living in Lithuania, their days are numbered.

Their only hope was to flee their homeland, before the Germans arrived. By this point around June 1940, many consulates from other nations has beginning to close down their office in Lithuania and are making their way home to their respected countries. So the Jews they to need to 'pack up and go', but where? Where can't they go to escape these Nazis who are bent in destroying their race? The head of the Jew leaders began looking for help at the remaining consulates. Many of which turned them down, and have no sulution to their problem.

Until they reach, the consulate office of the Dutch. The Dutch consul, Jan Zwartendijk, told them that there is somewhere they can go. The Island of Curacao, a Dutch colony which the entree to that island, requires no visa. How do we get there? now lies in the mind of the Jews. They could not take the western route to Curacao, as it is controlled by the German, their executioner. So the only option is to travel east through the Empire of Japan, who is an ally of Germany.

They went to the Japanese consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania. and met with Chiune Sugihara, to request visa of Japan, so that they could travel through the empire. Now this is a dilemma for Sugihara, for if he do this, he is committing a direct violation of his orders as a consul. After he had consulted with his wife (Yukiko Sugihara), he issued a 10 day visa that will allow them to pass through the Empire of Japan, without being arrested, to the mob of Jews out standing outside his consulate.

"If I do this, I will disobey my emperor, but if I don't do this I will disobey my God." is what Sugihara said to any of his staff who ask, and to his wife. 

More and more Jews came to him for visas, after they heard about it. The word spread, and thousands and thousands of Jews came to get visas to the Empire of Japan. The consulate was closing, as the Emperor has ordered all Japanese consulates in Europe to be closed. Despite that Sugihara still spend his last days in Lithuania writing up visas to the Jews. He and his wife did not sleep the night before they left for Japan, as they were busy writing up visas, he wrote visas in the car, on the way to the train station, and he also wrote visas when he was waiting for the train to leave, and threw them out the window to desperate Jews wanting to get to safety. Even those without the essential document to have a visa was given one despite the fact, given his inferior post and the culture of the Japanese foreign bureaucracy, his actions was an extraordinary act of disobedience.

  

As the train is about to pull out from the station, he stood up from his seat, and said to the many Jews outside of his train, "Please forgive me, I cannot write anymore." then he took a deep bow, to the people outside. He even negotiated with the Soviet army to allow safe passage to the people holding his visa, to Japan.

You do not have to fight monsters, or be a wielding sword knight in armor, or have super powers to be called a HERO. Sugihara was not a typical SAMURAI type of hero that you normally hear about from Japan, but I hold his heroic deeds of signing those visas when deep in his heart, he knows that by the law of his nation, that he is wrong. Heroic is his deeds, and nothing short of a real hero is what Chiune Sugihara was.

Now let me ask you. Will you obey your leaders, your government or king, if their orders go against the teaching of your God? Will you have the courage of Sugihara, when such time is presented to you? Even though the people he saved was in fact the enemy of the nation (the Nazis in German has made it to their allies that all Jews are their enemy), he still saved them, because in his words "those people who needed my help were human beings." 

Now as a Muslim, Jews and the Jewish are the enemy to my religion, but are all Jews is our enemies? I really don't know the answer to that but as a human, I too would have the slightest nudge in my head and my heart to help them even when I know that they are Jew and me a Muslim.

In the end, once he returned to Japan, he was fires from his titled, not only fired, but disgrace fully fired, and was exiled to Russia, where he lived out the remainder of his life, but a thousand miles away in Jerusalem, they honor him and planted a tree in Israel (that is the sign of honor to Jews everywhere, to plant a tree in the person's name) and gave an award to his wife, because by the time they gave out the award, he had passed on. A price for for his kindness.

What is Courage?
Courage is sacrificing yourself and your family.
Courage is saving other's lives.
Courage is not backing down when your government tellls you to stop.
What is Fear?
Fear is facing Nazi soldiers.
Fear is escaping from Poland.
Fear is thinking you’ll be killed for who you are.
What is Freedom?
Freedom is traveling across the world to find safety.
Freedom is starting a new life in another country.
Freedom is life!
Sugihara
Sugihara

I don't know who wrote this poem, but it is to Sugihara. I end my post by saying and declaring, along with the Jews all over the world I honor you Mr. Sugihara, I honor your kindness.