Port of Humanity Tsuruga Museum

photo by 663highland · CC BY 2.5

photo by 運動会プロテインパワー · CC BY-SA 4.0

Six thousand Jewish refugees landed here in 1940–41 with Sugihara's visas.

Tsuruga is the only port in Japan where both the Polish orphans taken in during the ’20s and the Jewish refugees saved by the visas of consul Sugihara Chiune landed, about six thousand people who arrived here in 1940–41 after crossing the Soviet Union on the Trans-Siberian Railway and continuing to Japan via Vladivostok. A plaque at the port, installed in December 2013, commemorates both landings at the same spot.

A municipal museum on the historic port of Tsuruga, dedicated to the memory of the two groups of refugees taken in during the first half of the twentieth century, with permanent galleries on each of the two episodes.

ℹ️ Check opening hours and tickets on the official site (tsuruga-museum.jp, also in English, Polish and Hebrew) before you set off; temporary exhibitions alternate over the course of the year.

🚉 Tsuruga · 33 min walk

Sources: tsuruga-museum.jp · ja.wikipedia.org

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