Agoura Hills

The legacy of Chiune Sugihara, Japan’s consul general to Lithuania in 1940, who issued transit visas to more than 6,000 Jews during the Holocaust, will be recounted by his son Hiroki Sugihara at a community lecture Wednesday evening.

Not wanting to jeopardize its alliance with the Germans, the Japanese government twice denied Sugihara’s requests to grant visas for Jews to travel to Japan via Russia.

But Sugihara persevered and persuaded Soviet consular officials to let Jews pass through the Russian border via Siberia. From July 1940 until he received a telegram on Aug. 28, 1940, ordering his immediate evacuation, Sugihara did nothing but write visas by hand--totaling more than 6,000.

Following the war, he returned to Japan, where he was forced to resign. According to his family, Sugihara lived a life in shame and poverty after negative rumors about him spread throughout the country. He later received the Righteous Among Nations Award from Israel for his actions. He died in 1986.

The lecture, sponsored by Chabad of the Conejo and the Jewish Community Center for Early Children and Family Education, will begin at 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Radisson Hotel, 30100 Agoura Road, Agoura Hills.

Admission is $7 general and $6 for seniors and students. Reservations may be made by calling (818) 991-0991.