Austria. and Poland. In September 1939. the German invasion of Poland caused Jews to seek refuge in Lithuania. many who desperately wanted to find passage to safer lands. First. they needed to find visas. Japanese Consul General Sugihara and his wife Yukiko received numerous reports of appalling Nazi crimes against Jews. Not long afterward in July 1940. a line of Jewish families formed on the Sugihara doorstep. pleading with the diplomat to issue them transit visas for passage through Siberia into Japan via the TransSiberian Railway. Without the assurance that they would only transit through the Soviet Union. it was virtually impossible that Soviets would allow Jewish families to enter. He had however persuaded them to allow passage through the Soviet Union provided he could gain transit through Japan as well. Consul General Sugihara cabled Japan three times asking permission to issue transit visas. He was denied three times. His desire to help seemed doomed. But gaining his familys support. Consul General Chiune Suglhara then made a conscious decision to defy the Japanese Government. From July 9. 1940 to August 31. 1940. he wrote more than 2.139 transit visas by hand. saving nearly 10.000 Jews from the Holocaust. He carefully kept a list of all these documents which have been incredibly found in the archives of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. In the same summer.