The Curaçao formula was a legal fig leaf — a visa to nowhere that let a transit visa exist. Sugihara stamped it thousands of times without comment. But when a refugee stood before him holding a real destination — an American quota visa, Canadian papers — the consul did something no regulation asked of him: he crossed out the fiction and wrote the truth. to Suranam, Curaçao and other Netherlands' colonies to U.S.A.
Six surviving documents show it. They are scattered across three continents — family collections in America, a museum case in Lithuania, a video frame from a Japanese broadcast — and together they show a man reading each life in front of him, one at a time. Two of them belonged to men who stood in the same consular queues without knowing their grandchildren would find each other.
1. “to U.S.A.” — Szaps Jaskolka, No. 805
A nineteen-year-old apprentice baker from Długosiodło, Poland, Szaps Jaskolka had done the nearly impossible: the American consulate in Kaunas issued him Polish-quota visa No. 3813 on 31 May 1940 — two weeks before the Soviet occupation closed that door for everyone else. When he reached Sugihara's desk on 5 August, the consul saw the American visa, crossed out Curaçao, and wrote to U.S.A. Szaps crossed Siberia, landed at Tsuruga on 29 September, had his lapsed visa reissued in Tokyo, and sailed from Kobe on the SS President Cleveland — ashore in San Francisco on 25 October 1940, under five months after he petitioned the Vilnius police for the return of his confiscated refugee certificate. His father and three sisters, left behind, were murdered in June 1941. He became Saul Jaskoll, a US Army veteran — and the grandfather of this archive's founder. His record →
2. “to U.S.A.” — Josef Kaplan, No. 700
For Josef Kaplan of Zelwa, a student at a Vilna yeshiva, Sugihara didn't amend the stamp — he wrote the entire visa by hand, and wrote it true: “Seen for the journey to U.S.A. through Japan.” And here the archive folded in on itself. Kaplan's American quota visa is No. 3814, issued by Consul E. Tomlin Bailey on 31 May 1940 — the visa directly after Szaps Jaskolka's No. 3813, from the same consul, on the same day. Their safe-conduct booklets are five serials apart. The two young men stood in the same lines through the entire escape — American consulate, safe-conduct office, Sugihara's desk — and crossed Japan within a day of each other. Their families learned of one another eighty-six years later, through this archive: Kaplan's daughter and Jaskolka's grandson, correcting each other's records. His record →
3. “to U.S.A.” — Markus-Chaim Nowogrodzki, No. 1506
Nowogrodzki held US non-immigrant visa No. 4 of 20 July 1940 — one of only a few dozen the American consulate issued before closing. Sugihara's visa of 8 August carries the same correction: Curaçao struck, “to U.S.A.” above it. He sailed the northern Pacific and was admitted at Seattle on 31 October 1940. His record →
4. “to U.S.A.” — Lejzer Lewinsztejn, No. 663
On Lewinsztejn's visa of 1 August 1940 Sugihara went further — the whole clause is rewritten: “Seen for the journey to U.S.A. through Japan.” His Soviet exit visa, issued that December, names his destination the same way: America, via Vladivostok. The document survives only as a frame of broadcast video. His record →
5. “to Canada and…” — Jakub Zalkow
In the Lithuanian passport of Jakub Zalkow — travelling with his wife Mera and their children — the printed destination is amended by hand to Canada. The family landed in Japan in the autumn of 1940 on a Fukui permit valid to mid-November. Zalkow appears on no surviving register page: an off-list issuance, like as many as a thousand others. The family's record →
6. “to Canada, England” — Alexander Hafftka, declaration No. 1362
Alexander Hafftka's booklet holds both hands at once: Zwartendijk's Curaçao declaration No. 1362 on the left page — and on the right, Sugihara's visa of 31 July with the island formula crossed out in favour of “to Canada, England”. One document, two rescuers, and the fiction discarded the moment a real route existed. His record →
And one we cannot yet name
A seventh document — passport Nr. 13776, a late visa of 24 August 1940 amended “Seen for journey to Canada through Japan” — survives with its holder still unidentified. If the handwriting of this page belongs to your family, we would like to hear from you.