Title:
Author:
Characters: Japan, Lithuania, Poland.
Rating: G
Warnings: Real Person inserting. May not be historically accurate.
Summary: It's 1940 and a strange decision has just been made.
Kaunas
July 31, 1940
The house should be silent that late at night. The children were upstairs, fast asleep, a single lamp lit in the corridor because complete darkness would scare them. Dinner was long gone, so was the traditional night cap, a habit he had gotten from the constant contact with Westerners. He should be going to bed, he had to work tomorrow. But before that…
There was a pile of passports on his table. He picked up the stamp.
"You are going against orders," Kiku Honda frowned, more at the discomfort of a nagging headache than at the man who was signing and stamping in front of him, "Germany-san is our ally and he wants..."
"You saw them," the man replied softly, "how can I refuse to help? How can I say no to a mother who begs me to save her children?"
"Please, Honda…," on the other side of the living room Lithuania pleaded. Next to the window, Poland pulled the curtains a little, showing the crowd outside, right in front of the house. Feliks' eyes were guarded, his voice low and strangely subdued.
"My Jews. My people. And Liet's too. If they don't have your visas they'll have no way to escape, and you know what will happen if the Nazis put their hands on them."
The vice-consul turned to his nation with a placid smile.
"I don't remember any official document or speech stating that the Jews are our enemies, Kiku-san."
Japan sighed. He'd been feeling slightly sick and confused lately, and even his iron determination didn't seem to be enough to keep his mind set on some issues.
"Very well," he nodded, "we are helping those people, then."
Lithuania and Poland's faces lit up. Poland immediately wrapped an arm around Kiku's shoulder, suddenly back to his usual self, giving a conspiratorial wink and chattering about how they would screw the fuckin' Nazi's plans right under their noses. Much to his own surprise, Japan didn't feel any discomfort or irritation at the other nation's actions. And, although he was pretty sure that whatever great plan Feliks had, it would most probably fail and get all of them into trouble, Kiku felt a comforting warmth welling in his chest when he saw Toris bright-eyed, silently mouthing "thank you".
The vice-consul of Japan chuckled and returned to signing and stamping passports.
From July to September, 1940, the vice-consul of Japan in Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, granted thousand of visas to Jewish refugees from Poland as well as Lithuanian Jews, disobeying orders from his superiors. Those visas allowed them to leave the country and gave them a chance to escape the Nazi persecution.
More about Sugihara here: .org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara#Lithuania