Solly Ganor as a child in Kovno
It is now 80 years since that fateful meeting on that cold wintry night of Chanukah in Kovno, Lithuania, between Chiune Sugihara — truly one of the righteous of the Nations of the World and a noble soul who saved thousands of our people — and a young Jewish boy in a candy store. The eyes of Solly Ganor, who was that young boy, tear up as he recalls those innocent but portentous events so long ago.
"That meeting eventually brought Sugihara his first acquaintance with the distress of the Jewish people at this early stage of the Holocaust, and led to the help he gave at great personal cost, to the Jews by way of his diplomatic post," says Ganor.
From his living room in Ramat Hasharon, and his advanced years, Solly Ganor still recalls every detail of his meeting with Consul Sugihara and their subsequent relationship.
In a measured voice, he talks in a special interview about that casual conversation that led to saving thousands of Jews, and of the special relationship that developed between him and the Japanese consul.
"It was 5700 (1939). Just a few months after war broke out. All the fighting was in Poland. I was a boy of 12. We lived in Kovno. We had a lot of Jewish neighbors whom I remember to this day, like the Greenblatt and Rogol families.
"Lithuania was a small country. All the famous yeshivas of Lithuania, including Ponovezh, Telz and Slobodka, were near where we lived. I visited all of them. I saw the yeshivas of those days. Later the Slobodka yeshiva was right next to us when it moved to the ghetto of Kovno — like we did when the Nazis invaded Lithuania. I remember the rov of Kovno HaRav Shapira (HaRav Avrohom Dov Kahana-Shapira zt"l). My father was close to him. In those days everything was still normal. I went to the Yavne school."
The winds of the war in Poland blew also into Lithuania, mainly in the form of the stream of refugees who fled to Lithuania, which was neutral in those days. But life went on in its usual path.
Chiune Sugihara - the right man in the right place for the time
"I remember Chanukah well, 80 years ago. That leil Shabbos, after that meeting and the invitation in the candy store, our distinguished guests arrived: the Consul, his wife and their four year old son. Sugihara was very interested in everything that we did. He enjoyed the Chanukah songs that we sang, and the taste of the authentic Jewish food, including chicken soup, and also the latkes and cakes."
What Solly Ganor did not tell us, apparently out of his characteristic modesty, was the reason he went to his aunt to ask for Chanukah gelt, that led to the momentous meeting in the store. Just a short time earlier, there was a collection, from door to door, for the refugees from Poland. Solly did not hesitate. He gave all the money that he had collected for Chanukah for that tzedokoh. Penniless, he went to his aunt's store to see if he could get something.
In his family's home at the time, lived a Polish refugee named Rosenthal. "He was one of those who fled Poland to Lithuania. We had no family ties to him, but my parents opened their home and hearts to take him in. He slept in my room and I slept in my brother's room.
"Rosenthal approached Consul Sugihara in the middle of the party, and asked him if he could give him a visa for Japan. The Consul was very surprised. He could not understand why a Jew would want a visa to Japan, since Japan was an ally of Germany as one of the Axis powers. He said to Rosenthal, `I am sorry, but I cannot give you a visa.' This was the first time that anyone had spoken to him directly about the distress of the Jews and of the danger to them.
"Rosenthal explained to him that he just wants to run away. He doesn't care where to. But Sugihara just said again that to his regret he cannot give him a visa, because Japan has an alliance with the Nazis. Giving a visa to Jews is a problem, and he would need special authorization from his government to do so."
At that point, the Japanese consul dropped the subject and the party continued. Young Solly told him that he is interested in stamps, and he invited him to come visit him.
"He said to me, `Come to me and I will give you stamps.' After that I visited him several times. I used to play with his son. That Friday night he stayed with us for a long time and it was obvious that he was very interested. The main thing he wanted was information. His clandestine, additional task was to gather information about the activities of the Soviet and German armies in the area, which was very near both to the Soviet Union and to Germany."
The Chanukah party of the Ganor family added to the intelligence information of the Japanese consul — and also began to open his heart to help the Jews.
"Lithuania was a good location to find out what was going on. The meeting in our house also helped him. As I mentioned, it was the first time that he saw up close and in a personal way the persecution of the Jews and the murderous policies of the Nazis."
About half a year later, Ganor recalls, Sugihara began to get more and more requests from Jews for visas.
"Around June 1940 a stream of Jews — Polish refugees but also Lithuanians who wanted to get out of a country whose future was very cloudy. They all had one request: `Please arrange an exit visa for us.' The stream of requests got stronger every day, and then the Vice consul began to understand fully that something awful is going on. He realized what was happening.
"As a result he asked his government, the Japanese government, to allow him to issue visas to the Jews who were requesting these from him. But the reply of the Japanese government was unequivocal: `Absolutely not.' In the end, when he had already heard and knew what the Nazis were doing, he decided on his own to give visas to the Jews who asked him, and he thereby saved many. When he started to give out visas, the Russians had already invaded Lithuania. (The Soviets invaded Lithuania about a year before the Nazis. RC) Therefore the visa he gave to me and my family was not valid, since our Lithuanian passport was no longer valid under Russian control. Most of those who received visas were Polish citizens."
Three times Sugihara asked his superiors in the Japanese foreign office for permission to issue visas. Three times he was refused. When Sugihara saw that the situation was becoming desperate, he took matters into his own hands. Starting on July 31, 1940 he began to issue as many visas as he could, until the Japanese consulate was closed, under Russian pressure, in September of that year, just over a month later.
On September 4, 1940, Vice consul Sugihara's position in Kovno was terminated, and he and his family left by train to Berlin.
It is estimated that Sugihara issued over 2,000 visas that short time. He used to spend 16-20 hours just writing visas, and would issue in a day the amount that had usually been issued in a month. It is said that even while traveling to the train to leave Kovno and on the train itself before it left, he continued writing visas. At the end he wrote and signed blank sheets and threw them to the crowd at the station. Some say that he threw the seal of the consulate into the crowd as the train pulled out.
The exact number, and even the approximate number of people saved by Sugihara is unknown. Visas issued to a head of family allowed the entire family to leave, and the number of visas issued is not known. Some of those issued visas were not able to leave Lithuania and were caught by the Nazis. Sugihara's widow estimated that 10,000 were saved. Whatever the truth, it is certain that he saved thousands, and including most of the students of Mir Yeshiva.
A detailed account of Sugihara's later career is available on Wikipedia. He and his family were imprisoned after the war by the Soviets for more than a year. After his release he returned to Japan. In 1947 the Japanese foreign ministry asked him to resign. The reason given was cutbacks, but some say it was due to his courageous actions in Kovno.
In 1969 he visited Israel and met with survivors and also with the Minister of Religions Zerach Warhaftig. He was honored by Yad Vashem in 1984. He was also honored by the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He died in 1986.
Solly Ganor standing in front of a painting depicting him in the Kovno ghetto by his daughter-in-law. On the right is Clarence Mattasmura, the Japanese-American soldier who rescued Ganor, next to the jeep he arrived in.
Back to Solly Ganor
"The Nazis invaded Lithuania in the summer of 1941. We were all transferred to the ghetto in Kovno where we lived until the Russians reconquered Lithuania. At that point the Germans transferred us to Germany. My father and I were in Dachau. My mother and sister were in the concentration camp Stuthof, near Danzig.
"Over the years I have talked a lot about my ties with Sugihara. I went to Japan. I lectured. Together with his son I told the story of that fateful meeting. But the truth is that my ties with Japanese are in another way as well. They were good messengers to save my life towards the end of the war.
"In Dachau, in the last days before the German surrender, they took us on a death march. Many, many died on that march. Their strength gave out. On the last day, May 2, 1945, we were in a forest near the small town of Warkirschen, where the Nazis planned to murder all of us.
"However just seconds before they were about to carry out their plan, an American jeep suddenly pulled up with screeching brakes. The Germans immediately ran away. The American soldiers were Japanese, that is Americans of Japanese descent. They save us. I was already lying down in the snow, at the end of my strength. A Japanese-American soldier lifted me up and saved my life.
"After the war I worked for the American army for three years in Germany. I can speak many languages — Russian, Lithuanian, English, German, Hebrew and Yiddish — and this was helpful in finding missing people."
After that Ganor went to Israel.
"During the time in the Kovno ghetto I wrote a diary. I did not want to publish it. Some years later, those Japanese-American soldiers came to Israel. They wanted to see what had become of us. There was a whole group that included Dov Shilansky who was one the Speaker of the Knesset. This was 1992. Shilansky invited us all to the Knesset. At that reception the man who saved my life convinced me to publish my diary.
"It was published in the US four years later. It was translated into German, and the President of Germany at the time adopted my book. 18 German mayors adopted my book and it is studied in schools there even today.
"In 1991 Mrs. Sugihara came to Israel and I heard that she was looking for me. She invited me to Japan where they were dedicating a monument to her husband. There I met the son of Sugihara. We went around to many places giving lectures, including universities all over. We went to Berkeley, California.
"The Japanese government said that they recognized my contribution to bringing the Jewish people and the Japanese people closer."
The Japanese government gave him a special certificate in recognition of this.
As our Chanukah lights chase away the darkness, recalling these events allows us to once again see how the hand of Hashgochoh cares for the fate of the Jewish people.
See the related article discussing the miracles here.
