Author: Goldpanner

westsemiteblues:

returnofthejudai:

robowolves:

bemusedlybespectacled:

gdfalksen:

Chiune Sugihara. This man saved 6000 Jews. He was a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania. When the Nazis began rounding up Jews, Sugihara risked his life to start issuing unlawful travel visas to Jews. He hand-wrote them 18 hrs a day. The day his consulate closed and he had to evacuate, witnesses claim he was STILL writing visas and throwing from the train as he pulled away. He saved 6000 lives. The world didn’t know what he’d done until Israel honored him in 1985, the year before he died.

Why can’t we have a movie about him?

He was often called “Sempo”, an alternative reading of the characters of his first name, as that was easier for Westerners to pronounce.

His wife, Yukiko, was also a part of this; she is often credited with suggesting the plan. The Sugihara family was held in a Soviet POW camp for 18 months until the end of the war; within a year of returning home, Sugihara was asked to resign – officially due to downsizing, but most likely because the government disagreed with his actions.

He didn’t simply grant visas – he granted visas against direct orders, after attempting three times to receive permission from the Japanese Foreign Ministry and being turned down each time. He did not “misread” orders; he was in direct violation of them, with the encouragement and support of his wife.

He was honoured as Righteous Among the Nations in 1985, a year before he died in Kamakura; he and his descendants have also been granted permanent Israeli citizenship. He was also posthumously awarded the Life Saving Cross of Lithuania (1993); Commander’s Cross Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (1996); and the Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2007). Though not canonized, some Eastern Orthodox Christians recognize him as a saint.

Sugihara was born in Gifu on the first day of 1900, January 1. He achieved top marks in his schooling; his father wanted him to become a physician, but Sugihara wished to pursue learning English. He deliberately failed the exam by writing only his name and then entered Waseda, where he majored in English. He joined the Foreign Ministry after graduation and worked in the Manchurian Foreign Office in Harbin (where he learned Russian and German; he also converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church during this time). He resigned his post in protest over how the Japanese government treated the local Chinese citizens. He eventually married Yukiko Kikuchi, who would suggest and encourage his acts in Lithuania; they had four sons together. Chiune Sugihara passed away July 31, 1986, at the age of 86. Until her own passing in 2008, Yukiko continued as an ambassador of his legacy.

It is estimated that the Sugiharas saved between 6,000-10,000 Lithuanian and Polish Jewish people.

It’s a tragedy that the Sugiharas aren’t household names. They are among the greatest heroes of WWII. Is it because they were from an Axis Power? Is it because they aren’t European? I don’t know. But I’ve decided to always reblog them when they come across my dash. If I had the money, I would finance a movie about them.

He told an interviewer:

You want to know about my motivation, don’t you? Well. It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes, Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes. Also, I felt at that time, that the Japanese government did not have any uniform opinion in Tokyo. Some Japanese military leaders were just scared because of the pressure from the Nazis; while other officials in the Home Ministry were simply ambivalent.

People in Tokyo were not united. I felt it silly to deal with them. So, I made up my mind not to wait for their reply. I knew that somebody would surely complain about me in the future. But, I myself thought this would be the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong in saving many people’s lives….The spirit of humanity, philanthropy…neighborly friendship…with this spirit, I ventured to do what I did, confronting this most difficult situation—and because of this reason, I went ahead with redoubled courage.

He died in nearly complete obscurity in Japan. His neighbors were shocked when people from all over, including Israeli diplomatic personnel, showed up at quiet little Mr. Sugihara’s funeral.

lemnix:

it looks so sad

black-australia:

rorts:

Can I get a signal boost for this please? I have a very important message to share.

Australia is home to the longest continuing culture in the world but also one of the youngest colonized western countries too.

The English settlers gave us the word Aboriginal to describe us in 1788, even though we had hundreds of individual nations/nationalities within the broader Aboriginal race and continent that Australia is.

This story is from my nation, it happened to many nations on Australia’s eastern coast line.

The English came they came wielding guns to our men’s heads, slaying them. They took women and children and put them into reserves.

With the cultural men gone, the women and children were forced to assimilate to British way of life. The British men would use these women to “their benefit” and have children with them. These women would stay on reserves til they died, suppressed from practicing culture or speaking their languages.

The aboriginal children however were segregated in many ways. If they ended up being light enough, they could be adopted out to English families. If they were too dark and considered female, they’d be forced to do the same as their mothers. If they were young men, they’d work for white men without pay (isn’t that what the English call slavery?).

None of these children got strong cultural knowledge passed down from their forefathers and foremothers. The genocide of aboriginal people was happening and it was a long, slow and torturous process.

Some of our people fortunately were able to pass down cultural knowledge, others not so lucky. Other nation’s mothers and children’s weren’t even put onto reserves as the “protection” act insisted. Some mothers and children were SLAYED from the barrel of a gun too.

And today, in remote Australia many aboriginal communities survived, didn’t come into contact with foreigners. By then protection laws were outdated and the land they took, they had and the cultures there were mainly wiped out.

But that being said, it’s 2015 and Australian governments are still doing this. In Western Australia, their premier Colin Barnett is doing to shut down 150 remote communities because they can’t afford to run them. Moving these people to the cities, where they’ll lose the ability to practice sacred ceremonies, teaching their children about the land and eventually assimilation into the high pressure life of the city. The genocide continues.

People are agreeing to this move by saying these places, breed disease, breed violence and breed poverty. It’s an awful shame the hypocrites won’t admit they introduced these things to aboriginal people.

Yesterday, Friday the 13th 5.30pm EST across Australia there were protests in every capital. In Melbourne we managed to shut down the city during peak hour.

People were furious about us shutting down the city’s main intersection, white people looking at us as if we are disgusting for doing it. I would have done it for 227 years, so they could feel a fraction of what we as aboriginal people faced.

Australia is a great place to live, unless you are aboriginal and understand the dangers of assimilation. It’s a great place to live for many non-aboriginal people but it’s been at the cost of many aboriginal cultures, languages and lives.
It is considered to be a “developed” nation, but for these “developed” people they can’t even have the decency to come to us for a treaty like every other commonwealth nation has with their indigenous peoples.

Recognizing us in your constitution won’t change that. It’s your constitution, it recognizes your occupation and dictatorship over aboriginal lives. Reconciliation shouldn’t be about getting us into jobs and university so we can fend for ourselves in your society. Reconciliation is letting us be aboriginal people, with our own law for our people, practicing our culture, languages and paying the rent that is 227 years overdue. A treaty is vital to allow us to co-exist among non-aboriginal the right way. Paternalism isn’t working, your entitlement to our own lives is racist. Just grant us self-determination and you’ll see better health, education and well being.

Aboriginal genocide continues in many explicit and implicit ways. It doesn’t always mean death, it’s assimilation through racism and colonisation.

It’s 2015 and genocide continues:

Death at the hands of police
Forced child removals (aka job creation)
Highest suicide rates in the world
Disease and illness at higher rates
The forced removals of people off their cultural land
Domestic violence against women (introduced)
Ruining the matriarchal cultures because European men introduced the sense of entitlement over women.
And again assimilation.

So when we march the streets, don’t stare, glare or be disgusted. Have empathy and wisdom, understand where we are coming from. Be grateful to be living here, you’re living here because many aboriginal people sacrificed so much for you to be here.

Gumera Wahlu – Yugembeh for my heart loves you/i love you.

black-australia kootah

Powerful words brother.