Chiune Sugihara
1900-1986 20th century
Obedience to God set above obedience to orders, paid for with a career.
Who was Chiune Sugihara?
A Japanese diplomat and convert to Orthodoxy, consul in Lithuania in 1940, he defied three refusals from Tokyo and signed thousands of visas for Jewish refugees, writing to the point of exhaustion, even through the window of his departing train. Pushed out of the ministry after the war, he lived in obscurity. Yad Vashem recognized him as Righteous Among the Nations in 1985.
In their own words
I may have disobeyed my government, but if I hadn't, I would have been disobeying God.
They were human beings, and they needed help.