A Japanese mayor called for closer ties between the country and Jewish communities in the United States during a recent friendship event, reflecting on his city's history of helping displaced wartime people who fled the Nazis.
"Tsuruga is the town which warmly greeted displaced Jewish people," said Takanobu Fuchikami, mayor of the central city on the Sea of Japan coast, at the gathering on Wednesday in New York.
Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, was known as the only city in Japan at which many Jewish refugees arrived by boat from Vladivostok after receiving transit visas in Lithuania from storied Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara.
"I hope exchanges with Jewish people will be further enhanced," Fuchikami said at the event organized by the Japanese Consulate General in New York, home to a major Jewish community.
Among the participants in the event was pianist Laura Leon, whose mother Masha was one of the Jews who escaped from Nazi persecution during World War II thanks to a visa issued by Sugihara. She performed in front of some 70 people at the event.
Consul General Mikio Mori encouraged the participants to work together "to enrich and deepen the friendship between the Jewish and the Japanese people."
Sugihara, as acting consul at Kaunas, disregarded Tokyo's authorization process and ramped up the approval of transit visas to Jewish refugees who needed to flee from Europe through Japan.
The number of people saved by Sugihara's decision likely amounts to a few thousand, according to recent research, though previous estimates had long put the figure at around 6,000.
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