User talk:Abram Schlimper

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[edit] Chiune Sugihara

Looking at the sentences you want to remove, I can understand the first part, since we really do not know Sugihara's motivations (unless somebody can find a reference where he or his wife states them). However, Sugihara did help the Jewish refugees to leave Lithuania via Soviet Union.

I also think that the reference to the fact that the Japanese foreign ministry let Sugihara stay should remain, even if we'd remove the exact reference to their assumed motivations to do so (Japanese did let many Jews live in Japan without persecution which may explain why Sugihara was not punished but I don't think there is any direct reference to their exact reasons. Do you see it as an unfounded speculation?).

However, I don't really understand your dislike of the words "survivors" and "saved" - Skysmith 10:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Let us look at the timeline:

July 21, 1940 - the newly elected Lithuanian Parliament makes a formal request to join the Soviet Union

July 31, 1940 - Sugihara starts issuing transit visas

August 3, 1940 - the Supreme Council of the USSR vote to admit Lithuania, Lithuania becomes a Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic

Jewish refugees had been in Lithuania since September 1939. Some of them had fled there from the Soviets, like students and staff of Mir Yeshiva and many others, who came from the part of Poland, annexed by the USSR. Of those who received visas, only Polish refugees were allowed to use them, but not Lithuanian Jews, since they were considered Soviet citizens.

I've read the Hillel Levine's book on Sugihara, and found no evidence there other than author's conjectures, stemming for the desire to portray his subject as a martyr, to support that Japanese government ever considered reprimanding Sugihara for his actions.

To use 'survivors' in reference to people who were never in any immediate danger, and spent the war living peacefully in Japan and then China, I believe, would be unfair to those who came out of concentration camps alive, or escaped from ghettoes to join guerillas, or were just in hiding. If we extend the interpretation of 'Holocaust survivor' to include all potentially threatened it would render the word meaningless. Then, if my replacement of 'beneficiary' doesn't sit well with you I wouldn't object if you replace with a word of your choice.

Sugihara was helping the Jews to get out of the Soviet Union. He wasn't aware these visas would save them. He had no way to know of German designs to attack the Soviet Union, when Hitler himself only made the decision after the failure of German-Soviet negotiations in November 1940.

--Abram Schlimper 17:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Well, Lithuania joining Soviet Union was hardly a voluntary process, but it has no relevance to Sugihara case as such. Hitler had decided to attack Soviet Union eventually regardless of anything, but Sugihara had no way of knowing about that, either. So in that respect your comments are good.

However, Jews actually were in danger because Stalin had purged Jews out of Soviet Union ever since he had expelled Trotsky (and killed many others) and Sugihara was probably aware of that. Soviet gulags were not death camps as such but only marginally "better" than nazi concentration camps. So Suhigara was not saving them from the Nazis but the NKVD. - Skysmith 11:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• The split between Trotsky and Stalin supporters wasn't along the ethnic line. There were a lot of Jews in Stalin's camp, including one of his closest associates, Lazar Kaganovich, Lev Mekhlis was another high-ranking Soviet official and Stalin's favourite, two members of Stalin's inner circle Molotov and Voroshilov, had Jewish wives, and lastly Stalin's own daughter was married to a Jew. Don't have exact statistics but never before encountered data that Jews were specifically targeted during purges. Perhaps, you were thinking of the Cold War triggered anti-Jewish campaign of the early 50-ies that ended only with Stalin's death. NKVD repressions in Lithuania in the short pre-war period of 1940-41 were mainly directed against the ruling classes: large property owners, high-ranking army officers, anti-Soviet political activists. The net was cast fairly wide so some Jews were caught in it. Ironically, though, an ethnic group affected the most were Russians, for the local Russian community was largely made up of former Whites, who fled to Lithuania after their defeat in the Civil War. Repressions were very mild by Soviet standards, and in overwhelming majority of cases were limited to forcible relocation to Western Siberia and Kazakhstan. The Jews, who were exiled turned out to be the lucky ones.

--Abram Schlimper 23:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)