Scholarly Commons

Oskar Schindler, John Rabe, and Chiune Sugihara And Their Memory Reflected in Memoirs, Films and Education

This poster is a visual representation of my research that shows the significance of public memory of a person through memoirs, films, and education. I examined the similarities and differences between the memorialization of three people in their own countries. Oskar Schindler, John Rabe, and Chiune Sugihara, in Germany, China, and Japan. I chose them because of their unique circumstances during World War II, in which their names became synonymous with an unlikely hero. Individually, their stories share many similarities; they were all allies of the Axis Party and in positions of power. Schindler saved the lives of Jews in Poland, Rabe helped organize and lead safety zones during the Nanjing Massacre, and Sugihara wrote numerous visas for Jews in Lithuania. However, Germany, China, and Japan remembers them and World War II very differently, even ithough their actions were similar. The memory of each person remains unequal.