Memorial plaque to Sugihara to go up at Foreign Ministry

Japan Policy & Politics, August 7, 2000

TOKYO, Aug. 4 Kyodo

A plaque commemorating Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who saved about 6,000 Jews from Nazi Germany during World War II, will go up at the Foreign Ministry, Foreign Minister Yohei Kono said Friday.

At a meeting of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kono said, ''I would like to tell all Japanese diplomats around the world about Sugihara, who at his great personal risk saved the lives of Jews.''

While working as vice consul at the Japanese mission in Kovno, Lithuania, Sugihara ignored orders from Tokyo and issued thousands of Japanese transit visas in 1940 to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.

In 1947, he retired and returned to the country, but reportedly faced punitive action for disobeying orders. He died in 1986.

He regained his honor when the Foreign Ministry, in October 1991, said that his retirement was part of the ministry's personnel retrenchment following the end of World War II.

Sugihara is widely recognized and honored by many Jews in countries such as Israel, Lithuania and the United States. This year has seen, among others, the unveiling of a monument to Sugihara in Boston, the holding of a special exhibition by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and a memorial hall in his hometown in Gifu Prefecture.