Gorfajn Jechak

Gorfajn Jechak received transit visa no. 1050 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 5 August 1940.

What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polnisch

The journey

Reached Japan; registered in Kobe for Palestine.

Where this comes from

• Haaretz, 2 February 1942, and HaTzofe, 3 February 1942 (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press)
  In February 1942 Icchak Gorfajn was among the immigrants on their way from India to the Land of Israel listed by Haaretz (2 February) and HaTzofe (3 February 1942) (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press). The archive counts this as a corroboration under its rule of 19 September 2026: the list is a record of the Sugihara route itself, the Jewish Agency's own roll of the Kobe refugees sent on through Bombay; the full name occurs once on the register; and India in the winter of 1941–42 is where that road ran. No second personal fact has yet been found.
• HaBoker, HaTzofe, Omer and Haaretz, 19 September 1941 (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press)
  Icchak Gorfajn reached Bombay on the way from Japan to Palestine. On 19 September 1941 the Tel Aviv papers HaBoker, HaTzofe and Omer printed a telegram from the committee of Polish-Jewish refugees listing 'these Polish refugees, immigrants to the Land of Israel', whose address at that time was Cook's office in Bombay; the name is on it. The archive attaches it because the list is one of the refugees on the Sugihara route, the name occurs once on the register, and the place and date fit (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press).
• Izkor — the fallen of the Jewish Brigade and of Kfar Etzion, read 18 October 2026
  Izkor, the Israeli Ministry of Defence's memorial to the fallen, remembers Corporal Yitzhak Gorfein, son of Rachel and Mordechai, born in Poland in December 1922, who reached the Land of Israel in 1942 after two years' wandering through Russia, Japan and India, served in the Jewish Brigade, and fell in Italy on 12 April 1945. The route agrees with the lists of refugees in Bombay and India on which this name appears; the register gives no age or birthplace to check it against. (Izkor, read 18 October 2026.) The archive attaches it because the name Icchak Gorfajn stands on both lists of the refugees sent from Kobe through Bombay to Palestine, in September 1941 and February 1942, and the memorial gives that same road, through Japan and India, and the same year.

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