Chiune Sugihara began working as vice-consul in the then capital of Lithuania, Kaunas, around the fall of 1939. In June 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania. Many Jews had fled there when Germany invaded Poland the previous year. Fearing repression by the Soviet regime, many of these new arrivals applied for transit visas for Japan, so as to travel from there to safe countries.
Sugihara was only permitted to grant transit visas to people with sufficient financial means and entry visas for their destination countries. However, he also issued transit visas for other Jews. Sugihara worked uninterrupted to grant as many visas as possible. Thanks to Sugihara, an estimated 6,000 Jews were able to leave the country. When German troops invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, they murdered most of the Jews remaining in Lithuania.
After the end of the war, Sugihara was interned by the Soviet authorities as a diplomat of the war opponent Japan, along with his family. When he returned to Japan in 1947 he was dismissed from the diplomatic service, presumably due to his actions in Kaunas. Chiune Sugihara was honored as Righteous Among the Nations in 1984.