Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko visited on Saturday a monument in Lithuania to pay homage to the late Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who helped save about 6,000 Jews from the Nazi Holocaust by issuing them transit visas.
But their visit was brief, taking up only about five minutes out of their 24-hour stay in the Baltic state on the fourth leg of their 10-day European tour.
It is not clear why the visit to a monument honoring so widely respected a man as Sugihara was kept so short, but observers say it probably reflects the Foreign Ministry's complex attitude toward Sugihara's actions.