Prime Minister Abe honors 'Japanese Schindler' Lithuania

kaunas - The Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, honored a Japanese diplomat on Sunday, who saved an estimated 6000 Jews in 1940 of almost certain death. Abe did so during a visit to the former Japanese consulate in Lithuania.

Chiune Suhigara served as a Japanese consul in Kaunas, at that time the capital of Lithuania. He ignored his superiors when he issued Japanese visas to Jews who fled Poland by the Nazis, despite the fact that his country was a close ally of Nazi Germany.

Abe's visit to Lithuania, the first by a Japanese prime minister, comes as Japan seeks more cooperation with countries such as China, a former opponent in the Second World War.