Pinchos Szajngarten

Pinchos Szajngarten received transit visa no. 1204 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 6 August 1940. The register records rabbinical student - mir yeshiva, aged 19.

What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polnisch

Age in 1940

19

Occupation

Rabbinical Student - Mir Yeshiva

The journey

Reached Japan; reached Shanghai; registered in Kobe for USA.

What is known

Pinchos Szajngarten received visa No.1204 from Sugihara on 6 August 1940 and lived on as Paul Shain — remembered by his granddaughter for the Nu-Salt he sprinkled at Passover, the pinched cheeks, the crinkle between his eyebrows she now sees in her own children. Her first child was born on 6 August 2020, eighty years to the day after the visa. "I am alive because of Chiune Sugihara. My children are alive because of Chiune Sugihara… there is one feeling that supersedes all others: gratitude."

Where this comes from

• "California, San Francisco, Passenger Lists, 1893-1953", FamilySearch — index entry for Pinches Szajngarten, 1946: born about 1920, Poland. Digitised from NARA microfilm publication M1410 (passenger lists of vessels arriving at San Franc…
  FamilySearch's index of the San Francisco passenger lists, read by the archive on 20 September 2026, has Pinches Szajngarten, born about 1920 in Poland, arriving at San Francisco in 1946 on the General M. C. Meigs. The register's compiled line gives 1921, and the two are 1 year apart, and the name occurs once on the register. The sheet names the ship but its heading could not be read for the port she sailed from, so this is held as a lead until it can. The sheet is NARA microfilm publication M1410, film 385, image 457, read by the archive on 20 September 2026.
• The HIAS Shanghai registration of refugees, 1… — Arolsen Archives, Bad Arolsen, collection 3.1.1.3 (registrations of former persecutees in Asia), unit 19532. A page may be shown singly with this citation; Arolsen is told where it appears.
  The HIAS Shanghai registration (Arolsen Archives, 3.1.1.3, unit 19532) lists Pinchos Szajngarten, a rabbinical student born on 2 July 1920 in Warsaw, who reached Shanghai from Lithuania by way of Siberia on 30 August 1941, together with his brother Zodick, born on 4 July 1912 in Warsaw, also a rabbinical student. A third brother, Arje Gedalje Szajngarten, was in Tel Aviv. The list reads: entry 6953, Arolsen 3.1.1.3/78797471 (unit 19532): "SZAJNGARTEN Pinchos (single), 2.7.20 Warsaw, Pol., rabbi-student, 30.8.41 from Lith. via Siberia; brother: Zodick, 4.7.12 Warsaw, rabbi-student; brother Arje Gedalje Szajngarten, Hamazbir 8, Tel Aviv". Also 18997 (3.1.1.3/78796411): "Szajngarten Pichos 20 [Warsaw]", "Szajngarten Zodick 12"; and 19613 (3.1.1.3/78797720): "188. Szajngarten, Pinchos — Mirer Yeschiwa, New York".
• UNRRA China Office, S-1132-0000-0181, registration of Polish rabbis and rabbinical students, their lists and sailings, Shanghai 1945–1946 (UN Archives, AG-018-001)
  UNRRA's China Office registered him in Shanghai in 1946 among the Polish rabbis and rabbinical students; he had arrived in China in August 1941 and wished to go on to Australia. (United Nations Archives, UNRRA China Office records.)
• Polish rabbis and rabbinical students registered with UNRRA, Shanghai (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, China Office;… — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, list 48676
  The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration's Shanghai register of Polish rabbis and rabbinical students, indexed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, has Pinchos Szajngarten, rabbinical student, arrived in China in Aug 1941, wishing to go to Australia. The name occurs once on the register; the list is of the refugees who came from Vilna by way of Kobe, and an arrival in Shanghai in Aug 1941 is the route this line is recorded as taking.
• Students of the Mir yeshiva in Shanghai: three lists of the students of the Rabbinical College "Mirrer Yeshiva" (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, lists 48681, 48682 and 48654)
  Pinchos Szajngarten is named on two of the three lists of the students of the Mir yeshiva in Shanghai indexed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The name occurs once on the register, and the lists are of the yeshiva that came from Vilna by way of Kobe to Shanghai in 1941, the route the register records for its students.
• Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem — the card file of Jewish refugees from Poland who found refuge in various countries, 1939–1941
  Yad Vashem's card file of Jewish refugees from Poland who found refuge in various countries, 1939–1941, has a card for Pinchos Szajngarten, a student born in 1920, of Warsaw, who was in Wilno during the war; his year and his city agree with this register line. Credit: Yad Vashem Archives.
• Julie Shain (LinkedIn, International Holocaust Remembrance Day post): grandfather Pinchos Szajngarten (Paul Shain), visa No.1204 issued 6 Aug 1940; her first child born 6 Aug 2020, eighty years to the day; correspondence with Nobuki Sugi…

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