Siegfried Hopfer

Siegfried Hopfer received transit visa no. 1 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 9 July 1940. The register records mir yeshiva, aged 26.

Documents

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded

German

Age in 1940

26

Occupation

Mir Yeshiva

The journey

Reached Shanghai.

What is known

Transit visa No. 1 issued by Chiune Sugihara in Kaunas on 9 July 1940 to Siegfried Hopper, a German national, for a fee of 2 litas.

1 German iegfried Hopper transit 7/9/1940 2

Where this comes from

• List of Refugees, Vilna, 1940 — JDC Archives, New York, collection AR 33/44, file 00876. The contemporary register of Polish Jewish refugees in Lithuania, running to more than nine thousand numbered entries; the fullest independent check…
  The 1940 Vilna refugee list has, at entry 7530, Siegfried Hopfer, born 1914, who had come from Mir; the year agrees with the register's compiled age.
• "Washington, King, Seattle, Passenger Lists, 1890-1957", Fami… — entry for Siegfried Hopfer, 1940. Digitised from NARA microfilm publication M1383, roll 256, "Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at Seattle, Washington, 1890-1957"
  Seattle, admitted 22 August 1940, S.S. Hie Maru sailing from Kobe. Age 25, single, student, German, born Rexingen, Germany; last permanent residence Kedainiai, Lithuania; US immigration visa issued at Kaunas, 10 May 1940. Bound for New York City to join his brother at 600 W. 183rd St. — the clerk's hand is unclear on the given name, and his own draft card names him Irving Hopfer Nearest relative left behind: a friend, Leo Adler, Kedainiai. 5ft 5in, fair, black hair, brown eyes. The friend he named as his nearest connection in the country he was leaving — Leo Adler of Kedainiai — is himself entry No. 678: a fellow German student of the Mir Yeshiva, which had fled to that town. Two lines of the register, joined by a question an American official asked at the dockside.
• Online-Ortsfamilienbuch "Juden im Deutschen Reich" — family report for Siegfried Samuel Hopfer, drawn from the Rexingen Familienbuch 1812-1919 (Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, J 386 Bu 498). Licensed CC BY 4.0
  Siegfried Samuel Hopfer, born 21 November 1914, of Rexingen. Father Alfred Abraham Hopfer, born 29 January 1878 at Rexingen; mother Bella Blanda Zurndorfer, born 10 September 1886 at Rexingen. Brother Irwin Jakob Chaim Hopfer, born 20 October 1908 — the brother in New York the arrival manifest names as James I. Hopfer. Sister Hedwig Hopfer, born 8 January 1912. Drawn from the Rexingen Familienbuch 1812-1919.
• JDC Transmigration Bureau card index — the entry for Siegfried Hopfer. The Bureau was the office through which relatives in America paid refugees' fares, and its index runs to some 66,400 records, free to search, with the card images att…
  The Transmigration Bureau was set up by the Joint Distribution Committee in New York to take deposits from friends and relatives in America towards the fare of someone trying to get out of Europe. A card in his name means somebody on this side paid, or offered to. His brother was already in New York, at 600 W. 183rd Street. The card as catalogued gives a name and a number and no age, so it is held as corroboration and not as the thing that identifies him — the arrival manifest does that.
• "Tompkins, New York, United States records", images, FamilySearch — image 503 of 1295; New York. Supreme Court (Tompkins County), Petitions for naturalization vol. 13, petition no. 1556. Image Group Number 005394189
  His own sworn petition for naturalization, filed at the Supreme Court in Ithaca. It states, in one document, everything the archive had assembled from four others: born 21 November 1914 at Rexingen, Wurttemberg; last place of foreign residence Kedainiai, Lithuania; emigrated to the United States from Kobe, Japan; lawful entry for permanent residence at Seattle, Washington on 22 August 1940 aboard the SS Hie Maru. He is 29, a teaching assistant, living at 232 Linden Avenue, Ithaca. He married Hannah Pollak on 23 August 1942 at New York; she was born at Budapest on 8 April 1923, came to America on 9 September 1925 and became a citizen through her father, Aladar Pollak. No children. Five feet four, 130 pounds, brown eyes, brown hair, a scar on a finger of the left hand. He asks that his name be changed to Samuel Hopfer.
• "New York, New York City, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1940-1947", FamilySearch — entry for Siegfried Hopfer, 16 October 1940. Local Board No. 65, 1 East 44th Street, New York; serial 881, order 2617
  Registered on the first national registration day, 16 October 1940 — eight weeks after he landed. Aged 25, born 21 November 1914 at Rexingen, Germany; citizenship 'applied for first papers'; no employment; place of employment or business, 'Student at Torah Vodaas Rabbinical School'. Living at 701 West 177th Street in New York, and the person who will always know his address is his brother, Mr Irving Hopfer, at the same address. Five feet six, brown eyes, brown hair.
• The numbered Sugihara visa list, searchable text — the register of the visas issued at Kaunas, transcribed and reconciled by Dr George Bluman (University of British Columbia) and the researcher and author Akira Kitade. This is the text b…
• The Hie Maru, arriving at Seattle in 1940: list or manifest of alien passengers, the sheet that names Hopfer Siegfried — US National Archives, Record Group 85 (Immigration and Naturalization Service), Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels…
• The Hie Maru, arriving at Seattle in 1940: the continuation sheet, with the relatives named and the destinations, for the sheet that names Hopfer Siegfried — US National Archives, Record Group 85 (Immigration and Naturalization Service),…

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