Widow of 'Japan's Schindler' Sugihara remembered

Relatives, friends and diplomats attended a memorial service Sunday in Tokyo for Yukiko Sugihara, the widow of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, who helped save thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution.

Friend and film director Steven Spielberg sent a letter of condolence, while representatives from the Israeli and Lithuanian governments were among the mourners who expressed sorrow at the loss of a "brave woman."

Sugihara died on Oct. 8 at age 94.

"Yukiko has continued to stand as a heroic, brave woman, a true humanitarian, and a righteous person, whom the world should never forget," Spielberg said in the letter.

He has praised her husband as "Japan's Schindler," comparing his deeds with those of Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist in Poland who provided Jews with a safe haven during World War II. He was depicted in Spielberg's film "Schindler's List."

Chiune Sugihara, consul general from 1938 to 1940 in the then Lithuanian capital of Kaunas, is known for rescuing 6,000 Jews from the Holocaust.

Kaunas was sandwiched between Germany and the Soviet Union. After Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The Nazis invaded Poland and Jewish refugees streamed into Lithuania.

Chiune Sugihara repeatedly sought permission from the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo to issue visas for the fleeing Jews, but his request was turned down.

He responded by issuing them with transit visas on his own initiative.