Chiune Sugihara's Visa Stamp

Origin
Chiune Sugihara (1900-1986) was a Japanese diplomat who served in Manchuria, Finland, and, from 1939 to 1940, in Lithuania as vice-consul to the brand new Japanese Consulate in Kaunas.

When the German Army invaded Poland in 1939 and forced thousands of Jews to flee into Lithuania, Sugihara was approached by thousands of Polish and Lithuanian Jews who needed visas through the Soviet Union. Despite receiving orders from his superiors three times not to issue transit visas to those without the proper paperwork, Sugihara defied them. Between July 18 and August 28 of 1940, Sugihara reportedly spent 18 to 20 hours a day hand writing visas, producing a months worth per day.

When the consulate was closed shortly after and Sugihara and his family were forced to return to leave Lithuania by the Soviets, he continued to issue visas even while boarding the train, throwing them out to people below, as well as his official visa stamp.

After being imprisoned by the Soviets in an internment camp, Sugihara and his family returned to Japan in 1947, where he was dismissed as diplomat by the Japanese government for defying orders. He lived in poverty and anonymity until he was discovered in 1968 by the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo, and in 1985 was conferred the title of Righteous Among the Nations by Israel`s Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem, after testimonials of his actions began to pour in worldwide.

Effects
His visa stamp, which was thought to have been lost to history, was imbued with Sugihara's tireless desire to provide safety to people in need of it. Stamping it down on any object will allow anyone who touches the mark to be transported to another object that has been stamped. Only the two most recent stamps will ever connect to each other. Furthermore, it takes a full ten days for anything sent through to arrive from one end to another.