Questions the sources disagree about
Not everything unresolved here is a missing name. Some of it is history the
published accounts tell differently, and the archive would rather show the disagreement than
pick a winner quietly.
Who thought of leaving the governor out of the Curaçao wording?
The endorsement worked because it said Curaçao required no entry visa and said nothing about
the colonial governor, whose permission was the real barrier and was almost never given.
Ambassador de Decker is the man who cut that half of the standard text — but
whose idea it was that he should is not settled. It has been credited to
Pessla Lewin, in whose correspondence with de Decker the Curaçao notion
appears to have arisen, and to Nathan Gutwirth, whose own account is that he
asked de Decker in July 1940 to leave the governor out. Published accounts say plainly that it
is not clear which of the two suggested the omission, and the archive holds no document that
settles it.
What turned a handful of Dutch endorsements into thousands is better attested, though still
not documentary: Gutwirth himself putting the question to Zwartendijk — would he issue to
non-Dutch refugees? — and Zwartendijk answering that he would write it for anyone who came;
the one person Gutwirth had told of the way out was Warhaftig, who spread the word. If you hold
a letter, a memoir passage or an interview that bears on the first question, we would like to
see it. The full account is on the Curaçao page.
Sources: Libi Astaire, “The Angel of Curacao”,
Mishpacha 901, 2 March 2022, for the meeting between Gutwirth and Warhaftig and for the
state of the attribution; and, for Gutwirth’s question to Zwartendijk, an
account given to this archive in August 2026. The archive holds no document for that
exchange and would welcome one.
The other way through Japan: shipping-line cables in place of a transit visa
Sugihara’s Kaunas visa is the channel that is remembered, but it was not the only one. In
his 1999 oral history, Zorach Warhaftig describes a parallel arrangement after
the Kaunas consulate closed: the Japanese consulate in Moscow would accept a
cable from a shipping line — the NYK, Nippon Yūsen Kaisha — confirming a booked
passage, and honour it in place of a transit visa, for a fee he recalls as about ten dollars a
ticket. By his account this carried well over a thousand more refugees east. How many travelled
on such a cable rather than on a Kaunas visa, and how the two channels overlap in this register,
is not something the archive can yet count. But the mechanism itself is now documented here:
the dossier of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Krawiec holds two Wagons-Lits/Cook agency letters from
Kaunas — 9 October 1940, relaying the New York cable “advise when able sail”,
and 29 January 1941, “landing money waiting… shipticket at Cook Kobe, ten dollars
transferred Amerconsul Moscow” — the booked passage, the funds and the Moscow consulate
in one paper trail. His record →
Source: oral history interview with Zorach Warhaftig, USHMM “Flight and
Rescue” collection (RG-50.494.0019), 1999 — the figures and the fee are as he recalls
them in testimony, not from a document.
Where a visa could come from, when it is on no list
Some travellers demonstrably crossed on Sugihara-style visas and appear on no register. The
archive now knows several distinct reasons, each documented to a different standard. Visas
written at the Metropol Hotel after the consulate closed are on a separate
list of fewer than twenty names, not the main register (per George Bluman; the Vancouver
Zalkow and Kaplan families are on it). Saburo Nei, Japan's acting consul at
Vladivostok, issued transit visas of his own. And some visas were bought:
Chaim Goldberg, who crossed in March 1941, names in his memoir the man who forged and sold
visas to him and his companion; published research (cf. Hillel Levine) identifies at least one
refugee who both held a Sugihara visa and forged others; and the Polish intelligence officers
who worked alongside Sugihara are reported to have had duplicate stamps cut. A single document
now shows the scale: of the seventy-four refugees refused at Tsuruga in March
1941 and readmitted on the Netherlands Legation's certificate,
thirty-five held no Sugihara visa at all (Mark Halpern's count against the
register). The archive records all of this as context for reconciliation — and passes no
verdict on any particular family's document.
The certificate and the seventy-four names →
Sources: the Netherlands Legation certificate, Tokyo, 18 March 1941 (Minister
J. C. Pabst), provided with analysis by Mark Halpern, August 2026; George Bluman on the
Metropol Hotel list; Chaim Goldberg's memoir as relayed by Halpern.
The seventy-four names, against the register
The certificate's names, cross-referenced line by line against Sugihara's register — the
comparison is the work of Mark Halpern, researcher. As the list below now
stands, forty lines match a register row and thirty-four do not. A link means
the name corresponds to a register line, spelling drift and all; “not on the register”
means exactly that and nothing more — many of the thirty-four crossed on visas from Saburo Nei
at Vladivostok, on purchased papers, or on documents this archive has not seen.
There is an account of how the rescue of these seventy-four was arranged, given to the archive by
the family of Nathan Gutwirth. By that telling, Gutwirth — himself already in Japan
— heard that a shipload had been refused at Tsuruga for want of Curaçao declarations or any other
proof of an onward destination, and was being sent back toward Vladivostok and the risk of Siberia.
He and his friend Lev Sternheim took his own Curaçao declaration to the Dutch consul
Niek de Voogd, who gave them a hundred blank sheets of consulate letterhead;
declarations were typed onto them at the Jewish community's offices. The ship's captain had promised
not to unload at Vladivostok if a radio message reached him before Soviet waters. It did; the ship
turned back, and the refugees landed at Tsuruga. The archive records this as the family's account and
not as a reading of its document: what it holds is the Legation's certification of the seventy-four
by name, and whether that is the paper described here or a further step after it is not settled.
Four of the forty rest on reading through damage: the register's own text loses the first
letter of a surname often enough that its rows are marked for it, so the line the link lands on
may look like a different name. Each of the four says what the register page actually reads.
- Beiler Abraham Mojzesz → No. 1427
- Goldberg Chaim · not on the register
- Gastner Hirsz → No. 1870
- Tanienter Szaja → No. 1375 (register row reads Lanienter)
- Seroka Szymon → No. 1918
- Ruchlejmer Izak · not on the register
- Szwaroman Szlama Uszer → No. 1824
- Lewin Szepsel → No. 1494
- Lew Mejer Dawid → No. 1455
- Altszuler Antonina · not on the register
- Krakowski Wolf Abram → No. 1674
- Mendelson Manus → No. 1869
- Arabczyk Benjamin · not on the register
- Guberman Efraim → No. 1956
- Guberman Sara · not on the register
- Ulrych Baruch → No. 1675
- Wajngarten Jakub Berek → No. 1354
- Goldberg Boruch Icko → No. 1601
- Wajntraub Josek · not on the register
- Piszow Chil · not on the register
- Bryzman Szymon → No. 1786
- Znamirowski Symcha → No. 1773
- Znamirowska Leonia → No. 1774
- Znamirowski Izrael · not on the register
- Mandelbaum Berko Jakub → No. 1432
- Garden Izrael Mojze → No. 1425
- Podchlebnik Szlama · not on the register
- Goldszmidt Henoch · not on the register
- Kozlowski Benjamin · not on the register
- Sezemen Jecheskiel → No. 1673
- Gelbron Boruch Mojsze → No. 2005
- Klotek Abram → No. 1937 (register row reads Mlotek)
- Rubinstein Daniel → No. 1523
- Sztiglic Izrael → No. 1922
- Szepsenbaum Rytla · not on the register
- Zaulner Aron · not on the register
- Bursztynarz-Abramczyk Michel → No. 1403
- Bursztynarz-Abramczyk Jankiel → No. 1594 · candidate; the given names differ (the register reads Abram). George Bluman identifies both Bursztynarz spellings on his list as real men — two brothers, 24 and 26, both of the Novaredoker Yeshiva in Białystok — and the certificate names exactly two.
- Goldberg Szmuilo Morduch → No. 1481 (register row reads Toldberg)
- Korentajer Szymon · not on the register
- Korentajer Emma · not on the register
- Korentajer Felicja · not on the register
- Fuks Abram · not on the register
- Fuks Szajna Hendla · not on the register
- Kalisz Szymon → No. 607
- Kalisz Icchok → No. 1013
- Epsztein Abram · not on the register
- Bimbad Szloma → No. 1344 (register row reads Zimbad)
- Podchlebnik Efraim · not on the register
- Finklesztajn Benjamin → No. 1428
- Sztyzer Nachman Boruch → No. 1976
- Jakubowicz Moszek Lajzer → No. 1861
- Langer Mozes Izak → No. 2032
- Szejnbaum Lejb → No. 1402
- Sznajder Nachman → No. 1462
- Susel Sosia Mariam · not on the register
- Prokosz Szmul · not on the register
- Prokosz Perla · not on the register
- Kandel Abram Josef · not on the register
- Lewi Josef Chaim · not on the register
- Apsztajn Salomon · not on the register
- Apsztajn Sura · not on the register
- Berezowski Zelezniak Oskar · not on the register
- Berezowski Zelezniak Maria · not on the register
- Zalc Jakub · not on the register
- Schmert Maks → No. 1558
- Pinkus Henryk → No. 1872
- Fajgenblum Cyrla → No. 1549
- Warhaftig Ignacy · not on the register
- Kozlowski Rubin Josef · not on the register
- Margolis Izrael → No. 1350
- Gerichter Szaja → No. 1367
- Szechter Dawid Samuel · not on the register
- Szymkin Jozef → No. 1702
One of the absences the archive can already account for. The three
Korentajer lines — Szymon, Emma and Felicja — are not on Sugihara's register
because Szymon's visa was not Sugihara's. It was No. 21 issued at
Vladivostok by Saburo Nei, Japan's acting consul there, a correction
established for this archive by Akira Kitade and recorded on the
corrections page. It is a worked example of what the thirty-four
generally are: people who crossed on a Japanese transit visa that was not written in Kaunas.
Netherlands Legation certificate, Tokyo, 18 March 1941 —
document and register comparison provided by Mark Halpern, researcher, August 2026; the
Korentajer identification per Akira Kitade (email; Emerging Heroes, p. 85); the
Gutwirth account from the Nathan Gutwirth family archive and his own memoir, relayed with his
grandson's assistance by Arlette Liwer-Stuip, August 2026.
The certificate itself →
Questions standing on a single record
16 questions on 7 register lines, newest first. Each is also on the person’s own page, where the documents and the reasoning behind it are. Several of these would be settled by one record in one archive, and the archive would rather say so plainly than let a page read as though it were finished.
No. 2004 · Ruchla Ambaras
The World Jewish Congress's copy of the HIAS Shanghai list (received in London 11 June 1946) names a fourth member of this family, Szmul Ambaras, born 1923, beside Ber, Ruchla and Chaja; the Polish Consulate's Shanghai ledger of December 1941 registered the family as three persons without him. Who he was — a son, a nephew, a namesake — is an open question; nothing yet explains it.
No. 1654 · Dawid Apotheker
The register carries this man twice: No. 1300, issued 6 August 1940, and No. 1654, issued 13 August 1940, both 'Dawid Apotheker', Polish. The family's suitcase documents fit the second date; his Shanghai identity book and HIAS registration were filed under the first. On the owner's ruling of 19 September 2026 the two lines are treated as one man who was issued two visas, and his documents are shown on both pages.
Do the documents published on this record belong here? The photographs, the suitcase and the account attached to this entry are of a man who was in Kobe in the spring of 1941 and spent four years in Shanghai. They were placed here on the strength of an index that assigns the name to this line. The register's other Dawid Apotheker, No. 1300, carries the Kobe records. The archive is working to establish which line is the right one and will say so when it knows.
Sugihara's register carries the name Dawid Apotheker twice — at No. 1300, written 6 August 1940, and at No. 1654, written a week later on 13 August. Whether that is one man entered twice or two men who shared a name is not settled, and the archive has not decided which records belong to which line.
No. 1300 · Apoteker Dawid
The register carries this man twice: No. 1300, issued 6 August 1940, and No. 1654, issued 13 August 1940, both 'Dawid Apotheker', Polish. The family's suitcase documents fit the second date; his Shanghai identity book and HIAS registration were filed under the first. On the owner's ruling of 19 September 2026 the two lines are treated as one man who was issued two visas, and his documents are shown on both pages.
Was this the David Apotheker who reached Kobe? The Kobe arrivals list of February 1941 describes a David Apotheker as Czechoslovak, aged 33, born at Bardejov, a merchant, arriving on 2 February from Kovno. Sugihara's ledger writes this line as Polish, and the compiled list gives his trade as diamond cutter. The description and the ledger do not agree.
Sugihara's register carries the name Dawid Apotheker twice — at No. 1300, written 6 August 1940, and at No. 1654, written a week later on 13 August. Whether that is one man entered twice or two men who shared a name is not settled, and the archive has not decided which records belong to which line.
No. 998 · Ignacy Weyland
Given name amended 19 September 2026 on the owner's ruling. The compiled register's line read 'Ignacy / Mikhail'; Andrew Jakubowicz showed (letters of 28 August and 2 September 2026) that the pairing was a hedge in Bluman's compilation repeated without attribution. The Kaunas register itself reads Ignacy. The page now shows Ignacy (Michał), the second name in brackets as the alternative reading the compilation carried.
Is Ignacy Weyland the Izaak Wejland of the 1940 Vilna refugee list? Andrew Jakubowicz's hypothesis (28 August 2026): line 7736 of that list is Wejland Izaak, born Zgierz 1888, listed with Jenta Zysa (born Częstochowa 1897), Jerzy (born 1923) and Bolesław (born 1926), all from Łódź, whom he reads as wife and sons; a Zgierz-born Wejland of Michał's generation could be Michał's brother or cousin, and a man called Izaak might have used the Polish name Ignacy. The archive has not attached that line here. A surname, a town and a workable age are where a match starts, not where it ends. What would decide it: a document naming Ignacy and Izaak in the same breath, or one placing either man at a Kaunas visa in August 1940 — a Polish consular registration, a Kobe committee line, a Shanghai arrival. Whether the Izaak Wejland household used its visas is not known, and nothing is recorded here about what became of them.
Are the compiled family details for this entry crossed with No. 861's? The compiled register gives this entry 'wife Estera (40), son Marcel (13)' and No. 861, Michał Weyland, 'wife Estera (52), child Marceli (18)'. The 1940 Vilna refugee list shows Michał's own household — Estera born Kalisz 1888, so 52 in 1940, and Marceli born Łódź 1927, so 13 — which puts the right wife's age on one entry and the right son's age on the other. That crossing is what made the two entries look like one family entered twice. The archive treats it as an error in the compiled family data, not as evidence that Ignacy and Michał are one man: the entries stay separate, and Michał's family (Andrew Jakubowicz, Marcel Weyland's nephew) states they are two different people. The wife and son shown on this entry are the compiled register's; whether they were Ignacy's own is exactly what is unresolved. What would settle it is a document naming Ignacy Weyland with a wife and child of his own.
No. 1094 · Mordka Rozenbaum
Whose is the Curaçao declaration numbered 1094 (or 1194)? Until 15 September 2026 this page showed that handwritten declaration, with a handwritten Sugihara transit visa on a certificate form, as Mordka Rozenbaum's. The only tie was the number, which matches this register line; the declaration is dated 27 July 1940 and the visa 30 July 1940, where this line's visa was issued on 5 August 1940, and neither sheet, as photographed, shows the holder's name. It has been taken off this page, and the holder is still unidentified.
No. 861 · Michal Wejland
Are the compiled family details for this entry and for No. 998 crossed? The 1940 Vilna refugee list gives Michał Wajland's household in five consecutive lines: Icek Dawid and Sura (both born 1875), Michał (born Zgierz 1889), Estera (born Kalisz 1888) and Marceli (born Łódź 1927). Estera was therefore 52 in 1940 and Marceli 13. The compiled register gives this entry 'wife Estera (52), child Marceli (18)' and No. 998, Ignacy Weyland, 'wife Estera (40), son Marcel (13)' — the right wife's age on one entry and the right son's age on the other. That crossing is what made the two entries look like one family entered twice. The archive treats it as an error in the compiled family data, not as evidence that Michał and Ignacy are one man: the entries stay separate, and Michał's family (Andrew Jakubowicz, Marcel Weyland's nephew) states they are two different people. What would settle No. 998's household is a document that names Ignacy Weyland with a wife and child of his own.
No. 181 · Ludwik Aronson
Where did he go after Shanghai? He sailed there on 18 May 1941 and his own letters place him in the city that month. He is in none of the three registers of Polish refugees in Shanghai that the archive has searched, and no document after June 1941 has been found.
Who was Janina? She is named on the list of those who left Kobe for Shanghai on 18 May 1941, on the line beneath his and carrying his surname. She is not on the list of those who arrived at Kobe in February, when he came in alone. Where she was in between is unknown.
Was he the Ludwik Aronsohn who directed the Powszechny Bank Kredytowy in Krakow? That man's name, city, profession and lodge all agree with this record. His birth date, 21 April 1895, does not. The archive does not identify anyone on agreement of name and trade alone, and has not made this identification.
How old was he? The Kobe arrival list of February 1941 gives his age as 56, which would put his birth about 1885. On a second Kobe list the birth year has been typed over and corrected, and can be read as either 1885 or 1895. Ten years is the difference between two possible men.
