Washington--Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Washington's Holocaust Memorial on Monday to hail a rare hero of Japan's brutal World War II past.
Previously, Abe has faced criticism for his allegedly revisionist views of Japan's own war-time behavior.
But, on the eve of a White House meeting with President Barack Obama, Abe solemnly marked the genocide while hailing Japanese envoy Chiune Sugihara, who helped Jews flee Nazi-occupied Europe.
Sugihara was Japan's Imperial Consul in Lithuania, where he issued at least 2,000 visas allowing Jews to flee Nazi pogroms between 1939 and 1940.
"As a Japanese citizen I feel extremely proud of Mr Sugihara's achievement," Abe said as he toured the memorial.
"The courageous action by this single man saved thousands of lives."
As he visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum 70 years after the end of World War II and the liberation of Auschwitz, Abe said "my heart is filled with a solemn feeling."
"Never again," he added.
Abe has been criticized for appearing to minimize Japan's own atrocities during the war, particularly the forced sexual enslavement of up to 200,000 "comfort women" from Korea and China.
Previous Japanese prime ministers have apologized for the war-time excesses, but Abe has stopped short of that.
His visit to the Holocaust memorial may help quell some of that criticism.
"My heart aches when I think about the people who were victimized by human trafficking and who were subject to immeasurable pain and suffering beyond description," he said in Boston.
"On this score, my feeling is no different from my predecessor prime ministers."
AFP
