Indeed, the bravery of Sugihara Chiune during the Second World War helped secure the future of whole generations.

In 1940, as the Nazis spread across Europe, displaced Jewish refugees sought sanctuary. In Kaunas, Lithuania, desperate families, many from occupied Poland, gathered at the Japanese Consulate hoping to escape the war-torn continent with transit visas allowing them to gain safe passage through Japan and on to safety in the New World.

Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs instructed Sugihara, the vice-consul in the city, to issue transit visas to applicants who had completed proper immigration procedures and had sufficient funds. But seeing the plight of those clamouring for help, Sugihara took the initiative and provided travel documents to thousands of families who could not meet the requirements.

These vital “visas for life” would allow refugees to depart Europe. Sugihara arranged for them to travel overland across the Soviet Union via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. They could then cross the sea to Tsuruga in Japan before setting off across the Pacific Ocean for a new life.

With the Japanese Consulate in Lithuania due to close, Sugihara, who was a modest, hardworking man, was determined to act. He is believed to have said: “I may have to disobey the government, but if I don’t, I would be disobeying God.”

During the summer of 1940 he worked tirelessly to issue more than 2,100 transit visas. One visa could cover a whole family, and it’s believed that Sugihara helped thousands of people to safety.

Along with Sugihara, many others contributed to their journeys to freedom, including Nei Saburo, the acting Japanese consul-general in Vladivostok, as well as the people of the port city of Tsuruga who looked after the refugees when they arrived, supplying food.

In Kobe, members of the local Jewish community acted as guarantors for the refugees and negotiated with the Japanese authorities to allow them to extend their ten-day visas giving the escapees necessary time to find passage to third countries.

In 1985, a year before his death aged 86, the Israeli Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem, honoured Sugihara Chiune with the title of “Righteous Among the Nations”, bestowed upon non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust.

The remarkable humanitarian efforts by Sugihara and others would save many lives and bring hope for the future. His contribution has similarities with that of Oskar Schindler, immortalised in the film Schindler’s List. One such person who is alive today thanks to Sugihara’s endeavours is Dr Anna Kadish, a professor of pathology credited with helping to develop cutting-edge cancer vaccines. Her parents escaped to the US thanks to the “visas for life”. She says: “I grew up being very grateful to Sugihara” – and she has never forgotten the risks he took to keep her family safe.