Sugihara, Zwartendijk and Wallenberg - civil courage role models relevant for the modern world

On October 23 in Kaunas, and on the 24th in Vilnius, an international seminar organized by the Sugihara "Diplomats for Life" Foundation and the Embassy of Sweden in Lithuania took place, dedicated to discussing the lessons of diplomats, the Righteous Among the Nations, and the lessons of civic courage. It was about the Swedish representative Raul Wallenberg, the Dutch representative - Jan Zwartendijk and the Japanese representative - Chiune Sugihara. The seminar was funded by the Swedish Institute.

The organizers of the seminar chose a unique form - the speeches of the speakers were accompanied by the sounds of traditional Jewish music - klezmer - performed by Semmy Stahlhammer, a violinist from Sweden. Here was already the first surprise of the seminar - in Sweden S. Stahlhammer communicated with his colleague who was saved thanks to the visas of Chiune Sugihara, the latter devoted part of his life to collecting klezmer music, and the first klezmer works made during the seminar reached us, according to S. Stahlhammer, partly and Thanks to Chiune Sugihara.

One of the main goals of the seminar's founders became apparent from the very beginning - to discuss not only the great diplomats and saviours of the Jews, but also to discover new angles of analysis and memory, to find connections that were hitherto unknown, or to offer new perspectives to interpretations.

Swedish Ambassador to Lithuania Lars Wahlund, speaking from his own professional experience, testified that Sugihara, Zwartendijk, Wallenberg needed great courage and moral effort to act in a largely passive or hostile environment, to make many independent decisions that were not approved by the leadership, and that this is already an offence in a hierarchically organised diplomatic service. Wahlund's personal career, he noted, had also included occasions when he himself had not complied with bureaucratic formalities and had responded first to the needs of those who asked him. In addition to his regular diplomatic work, Mr Wahlund also headed a commission in Macedonia dealing with missing and/or abducted people.

The second aspect touched upon by the Swedish Ambassador in Lithuania is the issue of the rescuers' visibility and recognition: when he was still in grammar school, his music teacher was Valdemar Langlet's wife. Valdemar Langlet was one of the first Esperantists in the world to organise Esperanto activities in Sweden, and was later invited to teach Swedish in Budapest, where he also worked for the Swedish Embassy and the Red Cross.

When the Holocaust broke out and he witnessed the persecution of Budapest's Jews, Valdemar Langlet started issuing Swedish Red Cross certificates on his own initiative, declaring that their holders had special protection pending their Swedish citizenship. This model, which he developed, was later widely used by Wallenberg. However, Ambassador Wahlund pointed out that Mr Langlet's activities in Sweden were not and are not known at all, and that, like most Righteous Among the Nations, he did not talk about his rescue activities during the Second World War. It is true that Langlet received the title of Righteous Among the Nations in 1965, five years after his death, but his memory as a rescuer of Jews is, in principle, completely absent from Sweden and the world.

Swedish professor and historian Bengt Jangfeldt presented one of the most famous World Heroes of the United Nations, Swedish diplomat Raul Wallenberg. His name is often mentioned in the context of the contribution of diplomats to the rescue of Jews. In his presentation, the professor revealed the possible reasons why Wallenberg was chosen for the Jewish rescue mission in Budapest. This was also influenced by his personal biography: having lost his father at an early age, he was brought up by his grandfather, a member of one of Sweden's most prominent families, who tended to repeat that Raul would achieve something special in his life. After his grammar school education, his grandfather sent him to study in the USA, where Raul trained as an architect, volunteered in the US army, and, on his return to Europe, started his own business and developed trade with Hungary. These experiences, B. Jangfeld said that these experiences led to Wallenberg being chosen for the rescue mission. The historian pointed out that Wallenberg's rescue of Jews in Budapest was systematically and strongly supported by both the US and Swedish governments, and in this respect he was exceptional.

Wallenberg's diplomatic mission also had an exceptional ending: his unequivocal defence of the Jews enabled him to avoid Nazi reprisals, but he deliberately stayed behind when the Red Army appeared in Budapest to pass on his experience and advice to his new "hosts". However, Wallenberg was soon arrested, taken to Lubyanka Prison and died there under mysterious circumstances. According to a long-hidden but later made public medical report, it was allegedly from a heart attack. Mr Jangfeld pointed out that Mr Wallenberg's biography was exceptional and perhaps the best known, but that this situation was just the kind of thing that made it necessary to look for other examples, compare and analyse them.

The highlight of the seminar was the presentation by Arlette Liwer - Stuip. This was not the result of academic work, as Ms Liwer told her family story - her grandfather Abraham Liwer was saved thanks to Sugihara and Zwartendijk, and when he left the USSR through the port of Vladivostok, he was able to recover his wife and daughter from the Siberian exile, and to go to Japan and finally to settle in the USA. The Blacks were among the first Polish citizens to be released from Siberian exile.

However, in his presentation, Ms Liwer also highlighted a partial imbalance in memory, with Chiune Sugihara being the most frequently mentioned in other stories, while Mr Zwartendijk is barely mentioned or completely forgotten. However, it is clear that without each other these two diplomats could not have saved, as is often said, some 6 000 lives, because the former issued Japanese transit visas, while the latter required a visa for the final destination, and Zwartendijk's Curacao visa, the final destination of the journey, was in a way a 'job' and a justification for the Japanese transit visas.

Hikari Bun, a PhD student from Heidelberg University in Japan, spoke about the evaluations of Japanese tourists who visited the Sugihara House Museum in Kaunas, regarding Chiune Sugihara. The material presented showed that the Japanese diplomat was viewed very positively, as an inspiring role model, an image enhancer for Japan, and in some of the responses he was compared to other famous Japanese people, and to today's Japanese athletes.

The answers presented by Mr Bun did not show a specific reference to Sugihara's activities or assessments, such as the fact that he is still the only Japanese person to hold the title of Righteous Among the Nations, the reasons why he has taken up the issue of visas, etc. However, it was stressed that it is of particular importance to Japanese visitors that Chiune Sugihara was one of the few to set an example of humanism and compassion in a difficult situation.

Ms Bun not only presented her data, but also tried to summarise it theoretically, identifying what qualities are needed in a hero, what makes a hero unique, national, and what gives them a transnational dimension, makes them universal and more widely known.

Dr. Linas Venclauskas, Sugihara Foundation "Diplomats for Life", Vytautas Magnus University