By the summer of 1940 the refugees stranded in Soviet-occupied Lithuania faced a paradox. Japan would grant a transit visa — permission to pass through — only to someone with an onward destination. But every real destination demanded its own visa, and the consulates were closing. Without somewhere to be going, no one could legally leave.
The island that asked for nothing
The answer came from an unlikely quarter. Two refugees — Nathan Gutwirth, a Dutch citizen studying at the Telz yeshiva, and Pesla Lewin — realised that the Dutch colonies of Curaçao and Surinam required no ordinary entry visa. Admission was technically left to the discretion of the colonial governor. The Dutch ambassador in Riga, L. P. J. de Decker, agreed to a careful half-truth: that no visa was required to enter them — quietly omitting the governor's permission.
In Kaunas, the man who turned that formula into an escape route was Jan Zwartendijk, the local director of Philips radio and, since May 1940, the acting Dutch consul. Beginning in late July he wrote the same declaration into passport after passport:
“The Netherlands Consulate hereby declares that no visa is required for the admission of aliens to Surinam, Curaçao, and other Dutch possessions in the Americas.” — the “Curaçao visa” formula, Kaunas, 1940
It was a destination on paper only. Almost none of the refugees ever set foot on Curaçao — but the words were enough. In roughly eleven days Zwartendijk issued about 2,345 of these endorsements, working until the Soviets shut the consulate in early August.
Two documents, one escape
Zwartendijk's endorsement and Sugihara's visa were useless apart and decisive together. With a stated destination in hand, a refugee could ask Sugihara for the Japanese transit visa — and with both, apply for the Soviet exit permit that opened the Trans-Siberian railway to the Pacific.
The man who doubted he had helped
Zwartendijk went home to the Netherlands and, for decades, feared that the refugees he had stamped into an imaginary destination had been caught and killed. He was wrong: the great majority survived. Only late in life did he learn what his eleven days had done. In 1997, more than twenty years after his death, Yad Vashem named Jan Zwartendijk Righteous Among the Nations.
Jan Zwartendijk · in brief
- Who
- Jan Zwartendijk (1896–1976), Philips director & acting Dutch consul, Kaunas
- What
- The “Curaçao visa” — a declaration that no visa was needed for the Dutch West Indies
- When
- Roughly 24 July – 3 August 1940 (about 11 days)
- How many
- About 2,345 endorsements
- With
- Ambassador L. P. J. de Decker, who authorised the wording
- Honour
- Righteous Among the Nations, Yad Vashem, 1997
In this archive
Because a refugee usually carried the Curaçao endorsement and the Sugihara visa in the same passport, the two documents often survive together — as on Majer Klejn's papers above. Yet the Curaçao endorsement is the rarer survivor, and part of this project is to reunite each Sugihara visa with the other documents of its journey. If your family kept one, we would like to see it.
Further reading: Jan Brokken, The Just (2021), and reporting by JTA and The Times of Israel — all gathered on the Resources page.