Speech by Mr Emanuelis Zingeris,
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on the commemoration of the 20th anniversary
of the resumption of diplomatic relations between Lithuania and Japan
12 October 2011
Madam Speaker, Excellencies
Ambassadors, ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to say that on 11 March we with
Madam Speaker had to unexpectedly improvise in the Seimas
Hall on one of our countrys most solemn dates which turned into an awful day
for Japan. We were at the Seimas Hall and Madam
Speaker was presiding over the sitting. Upon receipt of the message that Japan
started suffering the terrible loss of human life, I approached the Speaker and
asked her to announce that to the whole audience all diplomats, parliamentary
members and signatories. Afterwards, all the Seimas
members and leaders as well as diplomats came together to express support and
condolences to the Japanese nation though the Japanese tradition postpones it
to a later time. Nevertheless, our reaction was immediate.
Twenty years ago, on 10 October, we gathered
together at the same Committee on Foreign Affairs and one of the Committee
members, either Mr Vidmantas Žiemelis
or Ms Laima Andrikienė, said the following: if Japan
has already recognised us, then surely nothing will be able to reverse the
process, we are on solid ground now, we will not have to knock on the doors of
the whole world any longer pleading for recognition, and we are definitely back
to the world.
I would like to highlight that we are
celebrating the re-establishment of relations and not the establishment of relations
because of our pre-war era of diplomacy, which is remarkable for the activity
of the greatest Japanese humanist Sugihara.
My mother was also queuing at Mr Sugihara home
but failed to receive a visa in August because the soviet tanks dispersed that
queue of people of Jewish origin trying to get visas, which meant the escape
from the Soviets and Nazis and which took so long to fill in. You see this visa
on the display. Can you imagine how much writing work Mr Sugihara had. His wife told me that each evening his hand was swollen
to double the size. They had a bowl in the embassy building in Kaunas and he
would constantly soak his hand all swollen from filling in the life saving
documents. My mother did not receive a visa because the commissioner came,
mounted a lorry and said the following: the queue is free, the embassy is
closed, visa issuance is cancelled, and from now on this will be the territory
of the Soviet Union. That well-known historic scene was played on 4 August
1940. Consequently, my mother turned into a ghetto prisoner and an inmate of
the Nazi concentration camp.
On behalf of my mother, I would like to thank
for all the saved Lithuanian and Polish citizens.
I would like to say that the Japanese are
coming to Lithuania with two legacies: modern future and technology, as it has
already been mentioned by Madam Speaker, and extraordinary feeling of balance
and moderation as well as humanism. Economy and humanism are the best presents
from Japan. What else could we say on this occasion apart from congratulating
Japan and stating that we welcome it as our biggest and closest partner and, I
dare to say, ally. Thank you for your attention.
