I am saddened to pass on this news to you.  Yukiko Sugihara, wife of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, passed away peacefully on October 8, 2008.  She was 94 years old.  See the letter below from her son, Nobuki.  She is survived by her sons Chiaki Sugihara and Nobuki Sugihara.

As many of you may know, it was Yukiko Sugihara who was the inspiration for the creation of the Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project, which began in March 1993.  Many of us went to Japan, including Sugihara visa recipients, in September 1994 to meet the widow of Japanese diplomatic rescuer Chiune Sugihara.  It was Chiune Sugihara who helped save thousands of Polish Jews who were trapped in Lithuania in the summer of 1940.  It was his brave wife, Yukiko, who encouraged her husband to issue the visas. 

When I met Mrs. Sugihara for the first time, she told me how her husband decided to issue the visas.  At that time, she had just given birth to her third son, Haruki Sugihara.  While holding her son in her arms, she witnessed the crowds of refugees surrounding her husband's consulate in Kovno, in hopes of getting visas.  She thought to herself, if those mothers loved their children as much as she loved her new baby, she would have to encourage her husband to help them.  Yukiko encouraged her husband to issue the precious visas even though he was not given permission to do so.  He issued the visas despite the risk to his career and to his family.

Mrs. Sugihara told me that she felt that her son, Haruki, who died shortly after the war, was an angel who had been sent from Heaven to remind the Sugihara family of the importance of life.
When we met Mrs. Sugihara in Japan, we asked her what we could do for her.  She said that she would like the Japanese government to recognize her husband for his actions in Lithuania.  The Japanese government recognized Sugihara several years ago by placing a plaque in his honor at the Japanese foreign ministry in Tokyo.

Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, honored Chiune Sugihara as Righteous Among the Nations in 1985.

Mrs. Sugihara was an inspiration to me and to all those whom she met.  She spent the last 20 years of her life telling the story of the Sugihara life-saving visas.  We had the honor to know her and to have her inspire us, and we will continue her work.

Thank you, Yukiko.  May you rest in peace.

Eric Saul and the Visas for Life family

Eric Saul
Executive Director
Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project
Institute for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in the Holocaust, a nonprofit corporation
810 Windwood Place
Morgantown, WV 26505
(304) 599-0614
VisasForLife@cs.com

Following are quotes by Yukiko Sugihara and excerpts from her book, "Visas for Life."

In discussing her husband's decision to issue the visas, in her book, "Visas for Life," Yukiko describes the crowds of Jews waiting outside the Japanese consulate and residence in Kovno, Lithuania: "[My husband] came up to the second floor with a worried look.  He sat at the table in silence and drank some coffee.  He waited until the outside grew silent.  Then he stood up and went to the window and looked outside; so did I.  We saw a little child standing behind his mother hiding himself in his mother's coat, and a girl with an expression of hunger and terror which made her look like an adult and some others crouching in fatigue My husband likes children very much.  His happiest time waas when he kept our children company at home.  He would often tell some Japanese old fairy tales at the bedside of our children to make them go to sleep That night he didn't talk to the children.  It seemed thaat many cares for the Jewish people occupied his mind.  Then Lamentations, a book of the Old Testament, suddenly came to my mind, which was written by Jeremiah, a prophet and poet, when he witnessed the fall of Jerusalem brought about by the Babylonian Army My husband and I are Christians oof the Greek Church, so we desired earnestly to help the Jews."
- Yukiko Sugihara

"After 28 years, we enjoyed the reunion with each other and talked about what had happened to each other, but my husband didn't tell him [Yehoshua Nishri, Sugihara survivor and Israeli consular official] that he had been fired from the Foreign Ministry.  That day, we enjoyed the meeting with a satisfied feeling that we had never felt before.  We had issued the visas, but we didn't expect that we would meet any of those people again.  It seemed to me that my husband sometimes thought that he had had a hard time because he had issued the visas.  In his hard life after that he had been fired from the Foreign Ministry; therefore, he thought that what he had done was rewarded for the first time when he met one of the Jews, who he had saved at that time, and knew that what he had done was not in vain.
- Yukiko Sugihara

"Human life is very important.  Being virtuous in life is also very important.  My husband and I talked about the visas before he issued them.  We understood that both the Japanese and German governments disagreed with our ideas, but we went ahead anyhow."
- Yukiko Sugihara

"The Jews who passed through Kaunas still treasure the visas which my husband issued.  They didn't forget what they shouted when we were leaving Kaunas station.  'We will never forget you.  We will see you again.'  I've heard that, as a people, the Jews never forget a promise."
- Yukiko Sugihara

Mrs. Yukiko Sugihara joins Chiune, Hiroki and Haruki.
09/10/2008

Dear Friends,

My mother Mrs. Yukiko Sugihara passed away peacefully on the 8th of October 2008.
She was 94 years old.  Family funeral was taken care by my brother Chiaki Sugihara today in Fujisawa Japan.  Yukiko's cremated ashes and bones will be buried in Kamakura where Chiune, Hiroki and Haruki are buried, 30 days from today.  

I would like to thank all of you who gave my mother warm support and love in her dramatic life with Chiune Sugihara.

Yukiko is now joining my father Chiune and my brothers Hiroki and Haruki in the hereafter with happiness. 

I would like to inform you that we scheduled Yukiko Sugihara's farewell meeting at Aoyama Sougisho in Tokyo on the 9th of November at 13:00 o'clock.  Link for address and map:  http://www.aoyamasougisho.jp/map.html

Thank you.
Nobuki Sugihara and Family.

 

Christina E. Chavarria (Vasquez)

Coordinator, Regional Education Corps Program

Division of Education

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW

Washington, DC  20024-2126

202.488.0466