Chiune Sugihara
The cellist and Jewish convert who envisioned the musical work, Kristina Reiko Cooper, came to learn that Chiune Sugihara rescued her father-in-law.
Toshimitsu Motegi toured a photo exhibit, participated in a memorial ceremony at the Hall of Remembrance and saw the tree planted in memory of Chiune Sugihara, who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
Chiune Sugihara defied his own government’s orders by issuing handwritten transit visas in 1940 to more than 6,000 Lithuanian Jews, enabling them to escape Nazi-occupied Europe.
The Jewish National Fund was left scrambling to apologize to the son of a former Japanese diplomat who saved the lives of approximately 6,000 Jews during the Holocaust, after a memorial grove of trees planted in his honor was flattened to make way for apartment buildings.
