A statue was unveiled Saturday to World War II-era Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara. He issued so-called visas for life, saving thousands of Jews from Lithuania and Poland as Nazi Germany advanced on the small Baltic country of Lithuania.
The bronze statue is almost 12 feet high and is located on Kaunas’s famous promenade, Laisvės aleja or Freedom Alley, next to the Metropol hotel where Sugihara continued to issue visas even after being ordered to stop, close down the Japanese consulate and to travel to a new assignment in Berlin. There are numerous stories Sugihara even issued visas from the train as it was pulling away from the station, and that he left blank visas and stamps with Jews in the city so they could make their own visas for life.
The sculpture designed by Martynas Gaubas depicts origami cranes which he says symbolize freedom. An inscription in Lithuanian, Japanese, English and Yiddish, reads: “Whoever saves a life, saves the world.”