Szaja Szymanowicz received transit visa no. 1202 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 6 August 1940. The register records rabbi - kollel kowno talmudic academy, aged 31.
What the register records
Nationality as recorded
Polnisch
Age in 1940
31
Occupation
Rabbi - Kollel Kowno Talmudic Academy
Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list
wife Eta (22), daughter Marijasa (1)
The journey
Reached Japan; reached Shanghai; registered in Kobe for USA.
Travelled with, and never given a number
Eta — wife, aged 22
Marijasa — daughter, aged 1
The register recorded visa holders. It did not reliably record the wives and children who travelled on somebody else’s visa, so these people have no entry of their own and cannot be searched for. Where the archive has recovered a name, it is here.
What is known
This is a Polish Legation certificate (Zaswiadczenie) issued in Kaunas on 1 August 1940 to Szaja Szymonowicz, a Polish citizen born 15 February 1908 in Rubiezewicze, and his wife Eta, born 1917 in Tomaszgrod. The document, issued in lieu of passports, notes they were accompanied by their daughter Marijasa, born 9 March 1940. It was signed by Karol Skariszewski, First Secretary of the Legation, and countersigned by the H.B.M. Consul acting for Polish interests.
This is a Polish Legation certificate (Zaswiadczenie/Certificat) issued in Kaunas (Kaunas), Lithuania, on 1 August 1940, in lieu of passports for Polish citizen Szaja Szymonowicz (born 1908 in Rukiszewicze) and his wife Eta (born 1917 in Tomaszgrod). The document notes they were accompanied by their daughter Marijasza, born 9 March 1940. It confirms their Polish citizenship and authorizes travel abroad.
The family's single sheet of paper carries the entire escape. On the front, the Polish Legation in Kaunas certifies Szaja (b.1908, Rubieżewicze), his wife Eta (b.1917), and their infant daughter Marijasza, born that March — the certificate standing in for passports that no longer existed. On the back, in order: Zwartendijk's Curaçao declaration No.2344, written on 2 August 1940 — the consulate's last day, one number below the highest ever recovered — then Sugihara's transit visa of 8 August, the Japanese landing permit, and the long way out of Kobe in late 1941: a British visa for Palestine, transit rights through Burma, Ceylon and India granted by telegram from the Government of Burma, a…
Polish Legation at Kaunas — certificate Nr. Sz-172, issued 1 August 1940 to SZYMONOWICZ Szaja, born 15 January 1908 at Rubiezewicze, and his wife SZYMONOWICZ Eta, born 1917 at Tomaszgrod, gmina Klesow, a trader; issued in place of passpo… The certificate that stands behind this line, issued five days before Sugihara wrote the visa. The register gives 'Szaja Szymanowicz, 31, Rabbi — Kollel Kowno Talmudic Academy, wife Eta (22), daughter Marijasa (1)'. The Legation's certificate gives Szaja Szymonowicz born 15 January 1908 — thirty-two in August 1940 — his wife Eta born 1917, and their daughter Marijasze born 9 March 1940, five months old when they queued in Kaunas. The surname differs by one letter between the two records; the wife's name, the daughter's name and the daughter's age agree, and a wife called Eta with an infant called Marijasze is not a coincidence. His photograph and hers are on the document.
