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Memorial plaque to Sugihara to go up at Foreign Ministry

TOKYO, Japan - A plaque commemorating Chiune Sugihara (shown in this file photo), a Japanese diplomat who saved about 6,000 Jews from Nazi Germany during World War II, will go up at the Foreign Ministry. While working as vice consul at the Japanese mission in Kovno, Lithuania, Sugihara ignored orders from Tokyo and issued thousands of Japanese transit visas in 1940 to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. In 1947, he retired and returned to the country, but reportedly faced punitive action for disobeying orders. He died in 1986.