The United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization UNESCO plans to list Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara who saved Jews in Lithuania during World War II on its Memory of the World Registry. The Japanese embassy to Lithuania told Baltic News Service: “Last week the
city of Yaotsu [birthplace of Chiune Sugihara] filed an application to the Japanese National UNESCO Commission for the latter to present a list of people whom Sugihara granted visas in order to rescue refugees on philanthropic and humanitarian grounds, and to include this on the UNESCO Memory of the World Registry.” Japan is expecting a decision from UNESCO in September. Japanese diplomats said if the answer is positive, then Sugihara’s actions should appear on the registry in 2017.

Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, saved around 6,000 Lithuanian Jews during World War II by issuing them Japanese visas, allowing escape through the Soviet Union. In 1985 the Japanese diplomat was recognized as a Righteous Gentile by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Agency in Israel. The UNESCO Memory of the World Registry is a list of documents, manuscripts, audio, video and other material of universal value to humanity.
BNS