Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius attended an informal discussion of educational projects to familiarize the public and especially the youth with the accomplishments of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara and opportunities for cooperation with the Lithuanian Foreign Minsiter at the Sugihara House museum in Kaunas on September 11.

“The empathy and courage displayed by Chiune Sugihara is more topical than ever in today’s context. It is an invaluable example of humanity connecting the past with the present,” Linkevičius said.Diplomats from the Japanese embassy to Lithuania, board members from the Sugihara Foundation: Diplomats for Life organization, Sugihara House staff, Kaunas mucipality representatives, scholars from the Asian Studies Center of Vytautas Magnus University and members of the Kaunas Jewish Community all took part in the informal discussion.

Foreign minister Linkevičius toured the museum enshrining the historic and heroic acts of Japanese consul in Kaunas Sugihara, who issued transit visas to allow Jews to flee the coming Holocaust in Lithuania. The museum is the actual consulate building where Sugihara worked. From July to September of 1940 he issued transit visas allowing approximately 6,000 Jews to enter the Soviet Union and thus flee the encroaching Nazi terror. After Tokyo issued orders for him to stop and assigned him a post in a different country, witnesses say he was still writing visas on the way from his hotel and even after boarding the train at the Kaunas station, throwing visas out the window into a crowd of desperate Jewish refugees as the train began to leave.