This was originally posted at Into the Wardrobe on May 7, 2009. In 1985, Chiune Sugihara received the "Righteous Among Nations" Award from Yad Vashem, the famous Holocaust memorial in Israel. Chiune Sugihara was the first and only Asian to be given this award. In 1940, Sugihara was representing Japan as a diplomat in Lithuania. Polish Jews sought visas from Sugihara. They wanted to travel through the Soviet Union to Japan in order to escape the Nazis. The Japanese government did not allow Sugihara to issue the visas, but he gave them anyway, because he knew that if he didn't many people would die. In this way, Sugihara saved the lives of thousands of Jews. This amazing story is told through the eyes of Sugihara's then five-year-old son, Hiroki, in Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story written by Ken Mochizuki and illustrated by Dom Lee ( Lee & Low Books , 1997). This picture book for ages six and up is a different, interesting, engrossing, and powerful way...