From July to August 1940, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, stationed in Kaunas, Lithuania, issued thousands of handwritten transit visas to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. This extraordinary act, performed against explicit directives from Tokyo, allowed over 6,000 individuals to escape the Holocaust via Japan.
The New Samurai documents SØHØ's representing the Tokugawa Clan and Samurai culture of Sugihara at the Righteous Among the Nations event - the highest occasion for the Government of Israel. SØHØ is wearing an Aoi Mon empowered to him by the Matsudaira family which is Japan's most important lineage of the Shogun Tokugawa.
Battling antisemitism like Sugihara with Simon Wisenthal Center
The documentary elucidates SØHØ's ground-breaking work doing more to combat antisemitism than any other non-Jewish person including with Simon Wiesenthal Center including supporting youth events, co-chairing a National Conclave against antisemitism and then organizing and leading the first ever Multifaith Commemoration of the Shoah as well as speaking to Emmy-winning Holocaust survivor Charles Adler on Yom HaShoah as the Westerner with Samurai lineage.
