Japanese Righteous

Maria Zawadzka, 16 November 2016
The „Japanese Schindler” Chiune Sugihara, consul in Kowno, Lithuania was the only Japanese who was honored with the “Righteous Among the Nations” title in 1985. It is estimated that between 1940 and 1941 he could have issued visas for about 10 thousand Jews, mainly Polish citizens who managed to escape to Lithuania.

It is possible that a second Japanese could be honored with the Righteous title: Tatsuo Osako, who was an official of the Tourist Office of the Japanese Empire. During the Second World War he helped Jews escape from Europe. Thanks to him 2 thousand Jews were evacuated. According to all gathered information, Tatsuo Osako supported Sugihara’s activity.

If Osaka is to be the second Japanese in history to be honored with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations, appropriate evidence needs to be collected. The members of Yad Vashem hope that witnesses of these events will be found. According to the procedure adopted by Yad Vashem, it is the rescued who need to ask for the distinction of the rescuers. For the moment, the documents of Osako, deceased in 2003, were transferred to the Ambassador of Israel to Japan, Nissim Ben Szitrit.

The question of disinterestedness of the Japanese has recently become the subject of disputes of historians. Some of the academics claim that Japan needed European experts who were supposed to support the country of Manchukuo, founded in the Far East.

It is precisely to Manchukuo that the rescued Jews were transported. However, Prof. Andrzej Żbikowski from the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw believes that it is certain that Chiune Sugihara saved Jews for humanitarian reasons and that he provided help for them selflessly. Prof. Żbikowski also claims that in this period Jews escaped from Lithuania because of the NKVD, not of the Gestapo.

Mirian Akawia from Yad Vashem also emphasizes the fact that Osaka and Sugihara deserve particular admiration – they both represented a government allied with the Third Reich.