“For him, just to save one life is equal to 1,000 lives. So he never imagined that he was doing any heroic action.” —Nobuki Sugihara speaking about his father, Chiune Sugihara. After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, many Jews and other Polish citizens fled across the border to neutral Lithuania. However, not many of these refugees found diplomats stationed there who were willing to give them the visas needed to continue their flight to countries abroad. Then in 1940 the Soviets occupied Lithuania and ordered all consulates closed. The window for flight to safe havens—from war, and both Nazi and Soviet persecution—was disappearing. Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat posted to Lithuania who recognized the urgency of the refugees’ situation. Unlike many diplomats of this era, he was willing to bend the rules as he worked feverishly over a short period in tandem with the acting Dutch consul, Jan Zwartendijk, to provide an escape route. After Zwartendijk provided dubio...