Chiune-Sempo Sugihara

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Chiune-Sempo Sugihara, the Japanese Consul in Kovno, Lithuania, actively assisted Jewish refugees in 1940.

Transit visas were a crucial link in a bold plan to rescue thousands of Polish refugees in Lithuania. Tokyo refused Sugihara's repeated requests to allow the visas to be issued. Sensing that if he waited any longer it would be too late, Sugihara disobeyed instructions and began issuing the visas. The last foreign diplomat to leave Kovno, Sugihara continued stamping visas from the open window of his departing train.

Upon serving as part of the Japanese Foreign Service all over Europe, Sugihara returned to Tokyo in 1947. He was fired from the Foreign Service for his insubordination seven years earlier.

Sugihara was awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1984.

1. Visitors’ Center
2. Book and Resource Center
3. Cafeteria
4. Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations
5. Holocaust History Museum
6. Hall of Names
7. Square of Hope
8. Holocaust Art Museum
9. Synagogue
10. Exhibitions Pavilion 
11. Visual Center
12. Learning Center
13. Hall of Remembrance 
14. Pillar of Heroism
15. Children’s Memorial
16. Janusz Korczak Square
17. Archives and Library Building
18. Family Plaza
19. International School for Holocaust Studies
20. Administration and Research Building 
21. Monument to the Jewish Soldiers and Partisans
22. Partisans’ Panorama
23. Valley of the Communities  
24. Cattle Car - Memorial to the Deportees
25. Warsaw Ghetto Square
26. Swedish Ambulance
27. Monument to Le Chambon-sur-Lignon
28. Nieuwlande Monument
29. Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations