Chiune Sugihara Memorial Hall

In July 1940, Jewish refugees fleeing Poland crowded the gate of the Japanese consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania. The acting consul, Chiune Sugihara, decided on July 18 to issue them transit visas against his ministry's instructions, and over about a month he wrote 2,139, carrying on at his hotel and, the museum notes, through the train window as he left. How many lives the visas saved is still debated. Yaotsu, the town that counts him as a native, opened this hall in 2000 on a hill above the town, inside the Hill of Humanity park. It is modest in size: a timber-framed exhibition room, a reconstruction of his office, a lookout over the town, and a film of about 17 minutes in Japanese, English or Hebrew. The exhibits stay close to documents and photographs rather than drama, which suits the subject. Photography is not allowed inside, and the upstairs exhibition room has no wheelchair access. Sugihara left the Foreign Ministry in 1947. Yad Vashem later named him Righteous Among the Nations, and the ministry formally honoured him in 2000. Give it an hour.