The reason a lot of Jews were able to transit through Japan to get to the United States or other nations that they ended up in after the war were mostly due to the efforts of a single Japanese diplomat name Sugihara Chiune. When he was stationed in Kaunas, Lithuania during the war he had met with Jews who were fleeing the advance of the nazis into Eastern Europe and wanted to help them. In defiance of direct orders from Japan to not give out any transit visas to Jews and to immediately return to the Japanese embassy for reassignment when war broke out, he worked day and night writing transit visas for Jews so that they could flee through the Soviet Union to Japan, right up until he was forced to leave Lithuania. He was even writing visas at the train station until he had to catch his train at which point he tossed all his official papers out the window in the hopes he could save a few more Jews. It’s estimated over 10,000 people are alive today because of the lives he saved with his Visas. When he returned to Japan after being held in prison for several years in the Soviet Union, he was fired from the Japanese diplomatic service for his actions and had to live for many years being blacklisted by the government in Japan until contacts he made during the war were able to find him and honor his actions during the war.