Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness is a documentary film which premiered in the year 2000. In 2005 it was shown on US television (PBS).
The topic is the life and career of the Japanese diplomat Chiune “Sempo” Sugihara who has been described as the Japanese Oskar Schindler.
This biopic covers his life and career from the beginning in 1900 to the end in 1986 with special focus on the time when he was the Japanese Consul in Lithuania (1939-1940).
During this period, he issued more than 2,100 Japanese transit visas to Jewish refugees, primarily from Poland, even though his government had not given him permission to do this. The visas he issued saved the lives of ca. 6,000 Jews.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Writer and director: Robert Kirk
** Producer: Diane Estelle Vicari
** Narrator: Neil Ross
** Available on DVD
** Subtitles: English (turn on – turn off)
** Run time: 86 minutes
Many persons are interviewed in the film. They can be divided into three categories. Here are the names of the participants (listed in alphabetical order):
# 1. SURVIVORS
** Susan Bluman
** Benjamin Fishoff
** Rabbi Samuel Isi Graudenz
** Zalke Genkind (later known as Solly Ganor) – author of Light One Candle: A Survivor’s tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem (1995) (2003)
** Nathan Gutwirth
** Rabbi Moses Zupnik
# 2. MEMBERS OF THE SUGIHARA FAMILY
** Yukiko (1913-2008) – his wife – author of Visas for Life (1993)
** Hiroki (1936-2001) – his son
** Nobuki “Buki” (born 1949) – his son
** Chihiro – his grandson
** Madoka – his granddaughter
# 3. REPORTERS, WRITERS AND OTHER OBSERVERS
** Leo “Arie” Hanin - member of Jew-Com (the Jewish Committee) in Kobe (Japan)
** Pamela Rotner Sakamoto – PhD – author of Japanese Diplomats and Jewish Refugees (1998)
** Eric Saul – historian and former museum director
** Noburu Takeshita (1924-2000) – Prime Minister of Japan 1987-1989
** Rabbi Marvin Tokayer – co-author of The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews During World War II (1979) (1996) (2012)
** Kenichi Toya – journalist – a friend of Sugihara
Archive footage is used between the talking heads. Archive footage is used to support and supplement the statements made by the participants. Archive footage is used when the narrator is talking.
THE PLOT
In September 1939, World War Two begins in Europe. Poland is invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany from the west and (two weeks later) by the Soviet Union from the east. Jews living in Poland, who want to escape the invading armies, have only one direction to go: they can go north to Lithuania.
In June 1940, the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are annexed by the Soviet Union. Now Jewish refugees face a new problem. They do not want to stay in Lithuania. They want to leave. But it is difficult to get out.
In order to leave Lithuania, which is now a part of the USSR, they need a visa to their final destination. Some of them contact a Dutch consul who is prepared to issue visas to Curacao, which is a Dutch island the Caribbean Sea. To get there, they must go east. They must travel through the USSR to Japan and from there continue to Curacao.
To go through Japan, they need a transit visa. They ask the Japanese consul Sugihara to issue transit visas to them, so they can begin their journey from Lithuania and from Europe which is so dangerous for them.
At first, Sugihara refuses. He does not have permission from his government. But later he changes his mind. He becomes convinced that it is the right thing to do, even though the Japanese ministry of foreign affairs has not given him permission to do this.
The Soviet Union is closing all foreign consulates and embassies in the Baltic states, including the Japanese consulate in Lithuania. Before he is forced to leave Kaunas and close the consulate, he manages to issue more than 2,100 transit visas.
In some cases, a visa covers more than one person. In some cases, a visa covers a whole family. This is why 2,100 visas can cover ca. 6,000 persons.
Sugihara and his family remain in Europe during the war. After the end of the war, they return to Japan. When he is back in Japan, the ministry of foreign affairs asks him to resign. They do not want to fire him. They ask him to resign. They say they have to reduce the number of staff.
But Sugihara himself and his family are convinced that he is being punished for granting more than 2,100 visas to Jewish refugees in Lithuania, even though he did not have permission to do this.
REVIEWS AND RATINGS
What do reviewers say about this film? On IMDb it has a rating of 86 percent which corresponds to 4.3 stars on Amazon.
There are seven user reviews of IMDb. Here are the ratings and the headlines:
90 = You gotta see this one
100 = True story
100 = Outstanding dramatic documentary
100 = Like Schindler’s List, sans the Hollywood gloss
100 = The most powerful and inspiring documentary ever
100 = Humanitarian conduct in the face of evil immortalized
100 = a work of greatness
As you can see, the user reviews offer ratings which are higher than the general rating on the website.
On Amazon there are at the moment 47 global ratings and 37 global reviews. The average rating is 4.8 stars which corresponds to a rating 96 percent.
CONCLUSION
The story of Chiune “Sempo” Sugihara is important and deserves to be told. In this film, it is done very well. What is so good about it?
# 1. The film covers Sugihara’s life and career from the beginning in 1900 to the end in 1986.
# 2. We hear about his background and how he ended up in Lithuania in 1939.
# 3. We hear what happened to him after the war. For many years he did not know what happened to the refugees to whom he issued transit visas to Japan.
Did they survive the war or not?
Did his visas help them or not?
In 1968, a survivor who had become an Israeli diplomat located Sugihara in Moscow. The survivor met him. The survivor was able to tell Sugihara that his visas had saved thousands of refugees.
This was good news for Sugihara. Now he knew that many people had been saved because of what he did. Now he knew that it had not been in vain.
He had violated official policy and he had been punished for doing this, but now he knew that many people had been saved and he had a clear conscience. As a diplomat, he had violated the rules and regulations. As a human being, he had done the right thing.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
PS # 1. Here is a timeline for the Japanese diplomat and the people around him:
1900 – Sugihara is born in Japan
1918 – he studies English literature at Waseda university
1919 – he begins a training course as a diplomat in Harbin (China)
1924 – he works at the Japanese embassy in Harbin
1932 – he is deputy consul in Manchuria, now renamed Manchukuo
1934 – The USSR wants to sell a Russian-built railway in Manchukuo to the Japanese. When Sugihara investigates, he discovers that the USSR is asking for too much money. The railway is not as good as they say. Consequently, the Japanese lower their bid and the USSR is forced to accept a lower price. Soviet officials are angry with Sugihara. They feel they have lost money because of him. They place him on a black list.
1934 – he resigns his post – In his diary he writes that he cannot accept the way the Japanese army is treating the Chinese in Manchukuo
1935 – he is back in Japan where he meets Yukiko and marries her after a short time
1936 – his first son Hiroki is born
1936 – he is appointed to work at the Japanese embassy
in Moscow, but the Soviet government refuses to accept him, because he had
offended the USSR while working in Manchukuo. He is declared persona non grata. He is not welcome.
1937 – he is appointed to work at the Japanese embassy in Helsinki (Finland)
1938 – his second son Chiaki is born
1939 – he is told to open a Japanese consulate in Kaunas (Lithuania)
1940 – he issues more than 2,100 transit visas to Jewish refugees, primarily from Poland, thus saving the lives of ca. 6,000 Jews
1940 – the Japanese consulate is closed by the USSR
1940 – his third son Haruki is born
1941 – Sugihara and his family are in Nazi-occupied Europe
1945 – Sugihara and his family are interned in Romania
1946 – Sugihara and his family are released. They begin the long journey back to Japan
1947 – Sugihara and his family finally reach Japan
1947 – his son Haruki dies
1947 – he is asked to resign from the ministry of foreign affairs
1949 – his fourth son Nobuki “Buki” is born
1968 – a survivor (Yehoshua Nishri) finds him in Moscow. The survivor tells him that his visas saved many people
1985 – Israel honours Sugihara, but at that time he is too weak to travel to Israel. He cannot attend the ceremony.
1986 – Sugihara dies in Japan
1992 – The Hill of Humanity Park is dedicated in Japan. The purpose of this park is to honour and remember Sugihara
2001 – his son Hiroki dies
2008 – his widow Yukiko dies
PS # 2. Persona Non Grata is a historical drama which premiered in 2015. This drama covers the life and career of Suigihara from the 1930s to the 1960s.
PS # 3. Eric Saul, who appears in this film, has organized several historical exhibits, including an exhibit about Sugihara. For details, visit his website. Here is a link:
Eric Saul – Historian – Museum Director
REFERENCES
# 1. Articles available online
** Eldad Nakar, “Sugihara and the visas to save lives: Assessing the efforts to memorialize a Japanese hero,” The Asia Pacific Journal (vol. 6, no. 1) (2008)
** Mark Schilling, “Persona Non Grata a dramatic nod to Sugihara’s legacy,” The Japan Times, 2 December 2015
** Victoria Namkung, “The Forgotten Story of the Japanese Schindler’s List,” Vice, 30 January 2016
** Masha Leon, “Cellin Gluck, Director of Persona Non Grata, talks about War Hero Sugihara,” Forward, 4 February 2016
** Gillian Brockell, “A Japanese Schindler: The Remarkable Diplomat Who Saved Thousands of Jews During WWII,” Washington Post, 27 January 2021
** David Horovitz, "81 years later, Chiune Sugihara's humanity continues to enable new lives," The Times of Israel, 14 October 2021
# 2. Books
** The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews During World War II by Marvin Tokayer and Mary Swartz (1979) (1996) (2012)
** Visas for Life by Yukiko Sugihara (1993)
** Light One Candle: A Survivor’s Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem by Solly Ganor (1995) (2003)
** In Search of Sugihara: The Elusive Japanese Diplomat by Hillel Levine (1996) (2019)
** Japanese Diplomats and Jewish Refugees by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto (1998)
** Chiune Sugihara and Japan’s Foreign Ministry (Part Two) by Seishiro Sugihara (2001) (the author has the same family name as the Japanese diplomat, but they are not related: Sugihara is a common name in Japan)
** Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust by Mordechai Paldiel (2007)
** Sugihara Chiune: The Duty and Humanity of an Intelligence Officer by Shiraishi Masaaki (translated by Gaynor Sekimori) (2021) (Japanese version published in 2015)
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Chiune "Sempo" Sugihara (1900-1986) and his wife
Yukiko Sugihara (1913-2008)
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