Stairs are a place to climb. Yet the staircase inside the Sugihara House forces you down, and
around, before reaching its point.
Initially, the structure feels similar to many residential stairwells. Plastered spaces are painted
white. Photos adorn the walls. Neatly placed beside the other, muted pictures of varying sizes
are housed in identical dark frames.
In someone’s home, a visitor could assume the images are old family photos. In some sense,
they are too here.
Decades before the Sugihara House Museum was erected and the installation was created,
Chiune Sugihara lived in the Kaunas-based residence. The diplomat arrived in 1939 as vice-
consul of the Japanese Consulate. He was tasked with reporting on German and Soviet troops’
activities.
Kaunus served as Lithuania’s capital during the interwar period. Its nearly 40,000 Jews
represented almost 25% of the city’s population. Home to the famed Slobodka Yeshiva and
scores of Jewish institutions, Kaunus was a haven for Litvak life.
By 1940, following Soviet occupation, many Polish and Lithuanian Jews grew fearful for the
future. Sugihara recognized the situation and contacted superiors, inquiring what to do.
Regardless of instruction, the Japanese diplomat spent July and August issuing more than
2,000 transit visas to Jews.
The act, which represented procedural disregard and is suggested as the cause for his post-war
demotion, saved Jewish lives. Their descendants now total as many as 100,000 people,
according to some estimates.
Inside the house where Sugihara feverishly wrote the passages to life is a stairwell. The walls
are painted white. Old photos hang on each side. An antiquated looking radio rests on a nearby
window. From the wooden box two voices are heard — each speaker recites the names of
Jewish individuals — the recording is audible from every stair. Prominently displayed on all
sides are photos retrieved from the visa transits. One can’t escape the sights and sounds. Only
after reaching the ground floor does the aesthetic change. Painted on the wall in English,
Lithuanian and Japanese is a Talmudic passage: Whoever saves one life, saves the entire
world.
Stairs inside the home depict photos of individuals saved by Chiune Sugihara. Photo by Adam Reinherz