The song is a story about two individuals and the humanity and compassion that one showed to the other.
It begins by introducing Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara, a member of the Japanese diplomatic corps in Lithuania during World War II. (The Japanese government sent Sugihara to work in Lithuania, hoping that he would be able to send back information on German and Soviet military movements in the Baltic region.) Stamps of Lithuania, 2004
Then we hear about the main character’s ancestors, his grandfather, in particular. During the Nazi occupation, his grandfather fled with his family to Lithuania. Later, as the Nazi (Panzer) tanks were approaching, they had to leave Lithuania, but all the embassies said, “No”, and they had nowhere to go.
Their last chance for escape was to try the Japanese consulate. There, with thousand of other Polish Jews, his grandfather asked for visas so they could leave Lithuania and escape the Nazis.
Sugihara asked the Tokyo authorities if they could issues the visas, “Can I grant them this reprieve?*”, but the Tokyo officials refused. Sugihara and his wife, Yukiko, chose to ignore these orders and began writing out the visas that would allow the refugees transit through the Soviet Union.
To read the rest of this article, listen to the song and access a list of vocabulary, see my Substack at https://louisehaynes.substack.com/p/sugihara
