Portrait of Chiune Sugihara. Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat stationed in the Lithuanian prewar capital of Kaunas (Kovno) in the summer of 1940. In defiance of his superiors, Sugihara decided to provide transit visas to thousands of Jews who had escaped German persecution in Poland. Many of them used this opportunity to flee Europe into safety. When his defiance was discovered, Sugihara was lost his position and was stripped of his pension.