S. Sugihara; Japanese Envoy Assisted Jews

TOKYO — Sempo Sugihara, a former Japanese diplomat given one of Israel’s highest honors for helping thousands of Jews escape Lithuania during World War II, has died of heart failure, his family said Friday.

Sugihara, 86, died on Thursday at a hospital in Kamakura, southwest of Tokyo.

In 1940, he was Japanese consul in the Lithuanian city of Kovno, now the Soviet city of Kaunas.

With a Nazi invasion near, Sugihara--against his own government’s orders--issued transit visas for nearly 6,000 Jews who sought to leave the country. A year later, Nazi troops entered Lithuania and stayed for four years.

Lost His Post

Japan with Italy and Germany formed the Axis powers during World War II and Sugihara was dismissed from the foreign service.

In a ceremony held last year, Sugihara became the first Japanese to receive Israel’s Yad Vashem Medal. Yad Vashem is an institute established to commemorate the Jews who died during World War II.

“Even on Sept. 1, 1940, when Mr. Sugihara was ordered by the Russians to leave Kovno and when he was on his way to the railway station with his family, he continued to stamp the precious transit visas--on the street and at the station, even through the window of the train car--until the train actually began to pull away from the platform,” Israeli Embassy spokesman Eitan Margalit said at the ceremony.