In 1984, Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, named Sugihara one of the Righteous Among the Nations. He was the only Japanese citizen ever given that title.
He was too ill to travel, so his wife and son accepted it for him in Jerusalem.
Asked why he had done it, he said it was the feeling anyone would have, seeing refugees face to face, "begging with tears in their eyes." Then he added: "There is nothing wrong in saving many people's lives."