>> in time everyone recognizes heroism of chiune sugihara. i took it upon myself whatever i could so did many other survivors i was not alone and that this is a picture of the prime minister of japan i'm standing next to her is marsha bernstein who also survived with the transit visa the prime minister came to pay respect at the holocaust museum and light a candle in memory of chiune sugihara. the name of chiune sugihara eventually in japan was understood by everybody to be extraordinary hero who defied government orders her view of humanity was what was happening the danger that we all had was wrong wrong is to mild he took it upon himself to do it he thought was right these 2000 or so people once the not these captured the jews there were annihilated almost in its entirety. >> of course we can never know with any precision exactly how many lives have made possible because of the bravery because of the actions of chiune sugihara is not with the people who were the direct beneficiary but all of their descendents, leo, you your self have been

published a book of memoirs and has several chapters devoted to the heroism and gratitude he feels to chiune sugiharagood morning, leo. leo: i am delighted to participate. edna: in developing today's show, we were fortunate to meet sugihara's youngest son and we look forward to sharing with you some of his reflections about his father's motivations, and the impact of his actions during the war. during today show, please send your questions by posting them in the comments section and we will get to as many of them live as we are able. leo, let's begin at the beginning. when you were a young boy living in poland under the 1930's. adorable picture. where were you born? what was like life? >> i was born in bialystok, the second largest city in poland and had a very large population of jews, over 100,000. life was very normal outside of the fact there were occasional polygrams -- bagram -- my parents were both schoolteachers, and my father was a mathematician. he was a civic leader. the only jew that was elected to the city council. that is very important because it served to give him a chance to escape w

some of the other jewish refugees who were able to survive thanks to the transit visas issued by chiune sugihara. including these photos from kobe. students at higher learning institutions of jewish study. we mentioned transit visas. in transit, you are supposed to be passing through. sugihara issued these. they were supposed to be for a 10 day stay in japan. people found themselves there for a long period of time. how long were you and your parents in japan? leo: we were there for over four months. my parents applied to many countries. everybody wanted to go to the u.s. as the first choice, of course. they applied everywhere you could because you knew you would have to leave japan. many ended up in australia or canada. the bulk of them ended up in shanghai and had to live through the war that was coming in a difficult period of time for them. very few, just a couple of hundred got permission to come into the united states. we were on that list and the reason for that is because the afl, the american labor unions all gave a list of endangered people to the state department in the u.s. and that l