Obj. ID: 29234 Chiune Sugihara Monument in Vilnius, Lithuania, 1992
Memorial name
Chiune Sugihara, or Moonshine Monument
Who is Commemorated?
Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese consul, Righteous Among the Nations
Description:
This monument, made of granite, stands in a paved square in front of the Holocaust Division of the State Jewish Museum. It takes the form of an abstract human figure carrying a stone shaped like a crescent moon on its head and upright hands. The monument has a distinct “Japanese character.”
A small plaque near the sculpture bears identical Lithuanian and English inscriptions.
Inscriptions:
In Lithuanian:
Mėnulio šviesa
tespindi
kilnios širdies
Japonijos konsului Lietuvoje
Čijunei Sugiharai,
1940 metais išdavusiam 2139 vizas
žydų pabėgėliams
ir išgelbėjusiam tūkstančius
gyvybių
Autoriai
Goiči Kitogava
ir Vladas Vildžiūnas
1992 m.
In English:
Let the moonlight
glance
to the noble man,
Consul of Japan in Lithuania
Chijune [sic] Sugihara,
who in 1940 issued 2,139 visas
to Jewish war refugees
end [sic] thus saved
thousands of lifes [sic].
Authors:
Goichi Kitogawa
and Vladas Vildžiūnas
1992
Translation: Let the moonlight / glance / to the noble man, / Consul of Japan in Lithuania / Chiune Sugihara, / who in 1940 / issued 2,139 visas / to Jewish war refugees / and thus saved / thousands of lives.
Commissioned by:
Director of the State Jewish Museum, Emanuelis Zingeris (Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė 2014, 277).
Funded by the Vilnius municipality (Guzenberg 2013, 57).
9 image(s)
Height of the "shoulders"- 105 cm
Width of the upper stone - 300 cm
Width of the "hands"- 208 cm
Width of the body - 89 cm
Thickness - 40 cm
Chiune Sugihara (1900-1986) was a vice-consul of Japan in Kaunas, the provisional capital of the Republic of Lithuania. In 1940, he issued about 2,000 Japanese transit visas to Jewish refugees from Poland, who had already received visas for entering The Netherland’s colonies in the Caribbean from the Dutch consul in Kaunas, Jan Zwartendijk. This allowed the refugees to then obtain Soviet visas and to travel, via the Soviet Union, to Japan- thus escaping the Holocaust.
Chiune Sugihara was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 1985.
Goichy Kitagawa and Vladas Vildžiūnas met in 1972 in Hungary. Consequently, Kitagawa visited Lithuania several times. On one of such visits, director of the State Jewish Museum, and a prominent public figure, Emanuelis Zingeris, suggested to Kitagawa to create a monument to his compatriot (Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė 2014, 277).
The monument was erected near the Holocaust Division of the State Jewish Museum in 1992.
Agranovskii, Genrikh and Irina Guzenberg. Vilnius: Po sledam Litovskogo Ierusalima. Pamiatnye mesta ereiskoi istorii i kul’tury, 2nd ed. (Vilnius: The Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, 2016)., 447.
Guzenberg, Irina, Vilnius: Traces of the Jewish Jerusalem of Lithuania. Memorable Sites of Jewish History and Culture. A Guidebook (Vilnius: Pavilniai, 2021)., 459.
Guzenberg, Irina. Vilnius: Pamiatnye mesta evreiskoi istorii i kul'tury (Vilnius: Pavilniai, 2013)., 57.
Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė, Jolanta, Vilniaus skulptūrų kelias (Vilnius: Modernaus meno centras, 2014), 277.