Photo/Illutration People attend a naming ceremony for the Chiune Sugihara Square in Jerusalem on Oct. 11, including Sugihara’s son, Nobuki, center. (Ryo Kiyomiya)

JERUSALEM--A square honoring a Japanese diplomat who is credited with saving the lives of thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution by issuing what are known today as “Visas for Life” has been dedicated here. 

The naming ceremony for Chiune Sugihara Square was held on Oct. 11 in Jerusalem, where survivors and their family members attended to commemorate the wartime deeds of Sugihara, who died in 1986.

Sugihara’s fourth son, Nobuki, 72, who lives in Belgium, also attended the ceremony.

“I feel incredibly happy that a square bearing the name of Chiune Sugihara has opened in Jerusalem where Japanese tourists visit,” the proud son told reporters that day. 

Sugihara served as a proxy Japanese consul in Kaunas in Lithuania during World War II.

Defying instructions from Japan’s Foreign Ministry, Sugihara issued transit visas on his own authority to Jews so that they could pass through Japan on their way to safe havens. 

Nobuki said he once asked Sugihara why he issued visas to so many people. To that question, Nobuki recalled his father replying, “Because I felt pity.”

“He didn’t think to save lives. He felt just pity. Didn’t matter if it was Jewish, Muslim, Christian or Buddhist. (My father) would just issue a visa if they could move out of a place they had nowhere to escape from,” Nobuki said in his speech at the ceremony.

The square is located at a roundabout. A new sign with the new name has been installed.

Avram Cimerring, 65, whose father was saved by a visa issued by Sugihara, proposed that Jerusalem name the square in honor of the “Japan Schindler.” Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist, is credited with saving 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them.

Cimerring said Jerusalem, which many people consider to be a holy city, would be a fitting place to have a Sugihara memorial.

Berl Schor, 94, who received a visa from Sugihara and escaped to a seaport in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, and to Kobe, via the Soviet Union, also attended the ceremony.

“(Sugihara) was a really good man,” Schor recalled. “He saw people’s difficulties and realized that we were in trouble.

“Not only (was Sugihara) a good man but also (he) acted as a good man,” he said.

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