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A bronze sculpture almost four meters high will be erected in Laisvės Alley, next to the Metropolis Hotel, where before leaving for Berlin Ch. Sugihara signed visas.
President Gitanas Nausėda will attend his opening ceremony on Saturday.
Sculptor Martynas Gaubas’s work “In Memory of Čiunei Sugihara” depicts origami-shaped lathes made of platinum bronze spinning skyward. The base of the sculpture will remain forever Č. Sugihara’s seal and the words “Save a life, save the whole world”, referring to the activities of the Japanese consul, engraved in Lithuanian, Japanese, English and Yiddish.
“It is very symbolic that on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the consular activity in Kaunas, the monument will be erected right next to Laisvės Alley. After all, Sugihara has set thousands of people free. I believe this will further strengthen the history that unites the Lithuanian, Japanese and Jewish nations, ”said the mayor of Kaunas, Visvaldas Matijošaitis, in the press release.
In 1940, the then Vice Consul of Japan in Kaunas issued numerous transit visas to Japan, allowing Jews to escape the threat of fascism. Even after the consulate closed, Ch.Sugihara signed the so-called life visas at the Metropolis Hotel and continued working until the last moment until his train left Kaunas station. The last visas he signed were said to have been delivered through the train window.
Laisvės Alley already has a light installation in memory of the Dutch diplomat Jan Zvartendijk. In 1940, J. Zwartendijk, who worked in Kaunas as Honorary Consul of the Netherlands and representative of the Philips company, issued 2,400 visas for the islands of Curaçao to Lithuanian and Polish Jews. These visas made it possible in Kaunas Č. Sugihara to issue transit visas to Japan.
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