Life-saving visa by Chiune Sugihara
live-saving visa Chiune Sugihara
Life-saving visa by Chiune Sugihara
A passport containing a transit visa issued by Chiune Sugihara (1900-1986), a Japanese diplomat who saved the lives of thousands of Jews persecuted by Nazi Germany by offering visas to them during World War II, may go on display at a museum. Visas from Sugihara are extremely rare! Only about 6000 were issued, but how many survived until today? Surely, only a fraction…
Nathan Bluman
The passport, which originally belonged to Nathan Bluman (1914-1986) of Poland and has been kept by his family after his death, will be entrusted to the Sugihara Chiune Sempo museum in Tokyo’s Yaesu district for a year. Bluman fled to Canada by way of Japan in 1941.lBluman’s sons George, 75, and Bob, 66, brought their passports from Canada to Japan. The passport will be unveiled before guests at the museum’s opening ceremony, becoming the second document of its kind to be publicly released in this country.
To avoid any possible damage to the original copy, a replica of the passport will be displayed at the museum. However, the operators are considering a special showcase of the master copy down the road.
NPO Chiune Sugihara. Visas For Life
The museum will be run by the nonprofit organization “NPO Chiune Sugihara. Visas For Life,” headed by Sugihara’s grandson Chihiro Sugihara, and other entities. Another visa issued by Sugihara has been retained by the Yaotsu Municipal Government in Gifu Prefecture, central Japan, since 1993.
I have/had three documents with visas issued by Sugihara, one was a Czech passport, and two documents were Polish Certificates of Identity (the most common documents with Sugihara visas). Some of them went into a Holocaust foundation. (Japanese original by Hiroyuki Tanaka, Cultural News Department)
live-saving visa by Chiune Sugihara
Tom Topol | Passport Historian & Author
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