Berliner Pinkus Imman received transit visa no. 1256 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 6 August 1940. The register records yeshiva, aged 24.
What the register records
Nationality as recorded
British
Age in 1940
24
Occupation
Yeshiva
The journey
Reached Japan; registered in Kobe for Australia.
What is known
This is a Sugihara transit visa stamp seen in a passport, authorizing travel through Japan en route to Curacao and other Netherlands colonies and to the U.S.A. The stamp bears the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania seal and Chiune Sugihara's signature dated 6 August 1940. It is catalogued here as the document of Pinkus Berliner.
A Sugihara transit visa stamp issued at the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania, permitting the journey through Japan to Suranam, Curacao and other Netherlands colonies, and onward to the U.S.A. Dated 1940 VIII. 6, bearing the seal of the Consulat du Japon a Kaunas and Japanese-language consular markings.
Pinkus Berliner, born in London in 1916 and a British subject by birth, was studying in the yeshiva world of Poland and Lithuania when the war closed in. His British passport traces the whole escape: registration in Warsaw (1938) and the Mir district, flight through Riga and Tallinn in September 1939 — including a Norwegian visa that was never used — into Lithuania, then the American consul's student visa (19 Jul 1940) and Sugihara's transit visa (6 Aug 1940, amended 'to U.S.A.'). He crossed the USSR to Vladivostok on an Intourist passage booked 27 Oct 1940 and stepped ashore in Cairns, Australia on 3 December 1940.
Where this comes from
Pinkus Berliner British passport — page 08 of 15: identity, J-registration, Warsaw/Stołpce/Riga/Tallinn/Lithuania stamps, US visa (Kaunas Jul 1940), Sugihara visa 6 Aug 1940 'to U.S.A.', Soviet transit, Cairns arrival 3 Dec 1940 Four pages of his British passport. The register enters him as British and the document is a British passport; the Sugihara visa it carries is dated 6 August 1940, which is this line's own date. Until today this entry carried no source a reader could see, although eleven further pages of the same passport were recorded against his visa record.
Pinkus Berliner British passport — page 09 of 15: identity, J-registration, Warsaw/Stołpce/Riga/Tallinn/Lithuania stamps, US visa (Kaunas Jul 1940), Sugihara visa 6 Aug 1940 'to U.S.A.', Soviet transit, Cairns arrival 3 Dec 1940 Four pages of his British passport. The register enters him as British and the document is a British passport; the Sugihara visa it carries is dated 6 August 1940, which is this line's own date. Until today this entry carried no source a reader could see, although eleven further pages of the same passport were recorded against his visa record.
Pinkus Berliner British passport — page 10 of 15: identity, J-registration, Warsaw/Stołpce/Riga/Tallinn/Lithuania stamps, US visa (Kaunas Jul 1940), Sugihara visa 6 Aug 1940 'to U.S.A.', Soviet transit, Cairns arrival 3 Dec 1940 Four pages of his British passport. The register enters him as British and the document is a British passport; the Sugihara visa it carries is dated 6 August 1940, which is this line's own date. Until today this entry carried no source a reader could see, although eleven further pages of the same passport were recorded against his visa record.
Pinkus Berliner British passport — page 12 of 15: identity, J-registration, Warsaw/Stołpce/Riga/Tallinn/Lithuania stamps, US visa (Kaunas Jul 1940), Sugihara visa 6 Aug 1940 'to U.S.A.', Soviet transit, Cairns arrival 3 Dec 1940 Four pages of his British passport. The register enters him as British and the document is a British passport; the Sugihara visa it carries is dated 6 August 1940, which is this line's own date. Until today this entry carried no source a reader could see, although eleven further pages of the same passport were recorded against his visa record.
Pinkus Berliner British passport (Mirweb scan) — page 13 of 15: identity, J-registration, Warsaw/Stołpce/Riga/Tallinn/Lithuania stamps, US visa (Kaunas Jul 1940), Sugihara visa 6 Aug 1940 'to U.S.A.', Soviet transit, Cairns arrival 3 Dec…
Pinkus Berliner British passport (Mirweb scan) — page 15 of 15: identity, J-registration, Warsaw/Stołpce/Riga/Tallinn/Lithuania stamps, US visa (Kaunas Jul 1940), Sugihara visa 6 Aug 1940 'to U.S.A.', Soviet transit, Cairns arrival 3 Dec…
Pinkus Berliner British passport (Mirweb scan) — page 14 of 15: identity, J-registration, Warsaw/Stołpce/Riga/Tallinn/Lithuania stamps, US visa (Kaunas Jul 1940), Sugihara visa 6 Aug 1940 'to U.S.A.', Soviet transit, Cairns arrival 3 Dec…
Pinkus Berliner British passport (Mirweb scan) — page 03 of 15: identity, J-registration, Warsaw/Stołpce/Riga/Tallinn/Lithuania stamps, US visa (Kaunas Jul 1940), Sugihara visa 6 Aug 1940 'to U.S.A.', Soviet transit, Cairns arrival 3 Dec…
Pinkus Berliner British passport (Mirweb scan) — page 04 of 15: identity, J-registration, Warsaw/Stołpce/Riga/Tallinn/Lithuania stamps, US visa (Kaunas Jul 1940), Sugihara visa 6 Aug 1940 'to U.S.A.', Soviet transit, Cairns arrival 3 Dec…
Pinkus Berliner British passport (Mirweb scan) — page 11 of 15: identity, J-registration, Warsaw/Stołpce/Riga/Tallinn/Lithuania stamps, US visa (Kaunas Jul 1940), Sugihara visa 6 Aug 1940 'to U.S.A.', Soviet transit, Cairns arrival 3 Dec…