An audio recording of an interview given by Chiune Sugihara, who as a wartime diplomat saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust by issuing them transit visas, has recently been donated to his hometown in Gifu Prefecture, local officials said.
The tape, about 30 minutes long, was donated by Michinosuke Kayaba, 67, a resident of Kodaira, Tokyo, and a former chief of the Moscow bureau of Fuji Television Network Inc.
In the interview, conducted in Moscow in August 1977, Sugihara, who issued visas to Jews in defiance of instructions from the Japanese government, said: "It was a humanitarian issue. I did not care then if I would be fired.
"If someone else were in that position, I believe he would definitely have done the same," he said.