Praszkier Hersz

Praszkier Hersz received transit visa no. 1048 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 5 August 1940. The register records farmer, aged 29.

Documents

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polnisch

Age in 1940

29

Occupation

Farmer

The journey

Reached Japan; reached Shanghai.

What is known

This is a Japanese railway travel application (鉄道旅行願) filed with the Hyogo Prefecture Foreign Affairs Section by refugee Hersz Praszkier. The document requests permission to travel by rail from Kobe to Tokyo/Yokohama via the Tokaido line, dated 19 August, with a planned return around 24 August. It bears the stamp of the Jewish Community of Kobe (Ashkenazim), indicating Praszkier was among the refugees who reached Japan and stayed in Kobe.

A letter from the Jewish Community of Kobe (Ashkenazim), Committee for Assistance to Refugees, Stay Permits Department, addressed to Mr. Praszkier Hersz. It informs him that his stay permit and passport have been handed to the police authorities for extension, and asks him to call by 26 August 1941. This reflects the situation of a Jewish refugee who had reached Kobe, Japan, likely via the Sugihara/Zwartendijk transit visa escape route.

A letter from the Jewish Community of Kobe (Ashkenazim), Committee for Assistance to Refugees, Stay Permits Department, addressed to Mr. Hersz Praszkier on 19 August 1941. It informed him that his stay permit and passport had been handed to the local police authorities for an extension, and asked him to call by 26 August 1941. This reflects the situation of a Jewish refugee who reached Kobe, Japan, consistent with the Sugihara/Zwartendijk transit visa escape route.

鉄道旅行願 PRASZKIER HERSZ THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF KOBE (ASHKENAZIM) KOBE JAPAN 豪洲國入國通過査証

Your permit of stay in this Country has been handed together with your passport to the Police Authorities here to arrange for the permit's further extension. THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF KOBE (ASHKENAZIM) COMMITTEE FOR ASSISTANCE TO REFUGEES.

Your permit of stay in this Country has been handed together with your passport to the Police Authorities here to arrange for the permit's further extension. We expect to have the above document returned to us within a week, and therefore ask you to call on us not later than on 26.8.41

Where this comes from

• The Kobe relatives list — refugees at Kobe in 1941 recorded with their relatives abroad. Seventy-six pages in numbered sheets (LIST No. 7, No. 16 and others), each line giving a name, age, birthplace, occupation and citizenship, and then…
  Entry 255 of the Kobe community's list of refugees and their relatives abroad: aged 30, born at Wloclawek, a farmer; relatives abroad: a cousin, Joseph Praszkier, 520 8th Avenue, New York; Irving Prashkier, 25 Parade Place, Brooklyn.
• The Shanghai Ledger — register of Polish citizens kept by the Consulate of Poland in Shanghai, 1934-1943 (original at the Archives of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ref. 43/2003; digitised by the Library of Congress; indexed as…
  Registered with the Polish Consulate in Shanghai (ledger entry 1131); the register line's dropped first letters restored, the names agree — approved by the owner's review, 19 Aug 2026 — the ledger reads: Praszkier Hersz, FARMER (rolnik), born 15 May 1911 Wloclawek, single; 68 Wayside Road, flat 8; Tokyo-issued passport of 20 August 1941 (Ser. II 004148) on a British Legation Kaunas certificate of 24 July 1940 (P-175) and a Wloclawek certificate of 1937.
• Hersz Praszkier (No. 1048) — Kedem Auction House lot 108 (May 2021), four sheets 1939–42
  Four sheets from Kedem Auction House lot 108 (May 2021) are made out to Praszkier Hersz: a Ciechanów certificate of October 1939, a railway-travel application and a stay-permit letter from Kobe of August 1941, and a Shanghai pass of 2 January 1942. The pass gives his age as 30, agreeing with the register's 29 in 1940, and a stay permit at Kobe in 1941 fits the transit visa the register dates 5 August 1940.
• Kedem Auction House, lot 108 (May 2021) — a strip cut from a certificate: Sugihara transit visa of 5 August 1940 with the consulate seal, the note admitting the bearer under the Jewish Association of Kobe's guarantee, and a Fukui entry p…
  A strip cut from a certificate, carrying Sugihara's transit visa of 5 August 1940 with the consulate seal, a note admitting the bearer under the guarantee of the Jewish Association of Kobe, and a Fukui entry permit of 3 March to 2 April 1941. The strip carries no name. It is placed here because Kedem Auction House sold it in lot 108 (May 2021) with Hersz Praszkier's travel documents, which Kedem confirmed to the archive on 22 September 2026, and because its visa date, 5 August 1940, is the date of his line in the register. Credited to Kedem Auction House.
• 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 4403, Praszner Hersz, born 1911 at Włocławek, who came from Włocławek; the year agrees with the age the register gives, and the town with what the archive already holds.
• Letter of the Jewish Community of Kobe (Ashkenazim), Stay Permits Department, to Praszkier Hersz, 19 August 1941, on the extension of his permit to stay in Japan.
• A document held in the archive's files
• A document held in the archive's files
• Invaluable/Kedem lot 108 — Hersz Praszkier travel-document collection (high-res)
• Application for rail travel from Kobe to Tokyo and Yokohama by Hersz Praszkier (No. 1048), addressed to the foreign affairs section of Hyōgo Prefecture, August 1941, bearing the seal of the Jewish Community of Kobe; marked N226.
• Kedem auction 78 lot 108 (25.5.2021, unsold, est. $20-25k): Hersz Praszkier travel-document collection — Włocławek/Ciechanów Nazi exit permits Oct 1939, Vilna refugee reg. 4474, Zwartendijk 1.8.40, Sugihara visa 5.8.40 (=register No.1048…
• Hersz Praszkier (No. 1048) — Kedem Auction House lot 108 (May 2021), four sheets 1939–42
• Shanghai Ledger, page 142 (left): entries 1130-1137, registered 15-20 September 1941: Pinkus Henryk (cashier, b. 16 Jul 1892 Warsaw), Praszkier Hersz (farmer, b. 15 May 1911 Wloclawek), Pinkiert Noe (student, b. 1910 Warsaw, wife Alicja…
• Shanghai Ledger, page 142 (right): entries 1130-1137, registered 15-20 September 1941: Pinkus Henryk (cashier, b. 16 Jul 1892 Warsaw), Praszkier Hersz (farmer, b. 15 May 1911 Wloclawek), Pinkiert Noe (student, b. 1910 Warsaw, wife Alicja…

and 1 further records, shown on the full entry.

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