Sondheimer Setty

Sondheimer Setty received transit visa no. 1317 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 6 August 1940. Aged 42 in 1940.

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded

German

Age in 1940

42

Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list

wife of #1319

The journey

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

What is known

A Sugihara transit visa stamped in a passport at the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania, on 6 August 1940, authorizing the journey through Japan to Surinam, Curacao and other Netherlands colonies. The passport bears the signature of the acting consul (Sugihara) and Japanese transit stamps, including a Fukui Prefecture transit stamp dated 16-3-14 (Showa 16 = 1941).

A Japanese transit visa issued by the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania, on 4 August 1940, permitting the journey through Japan to Surinam, Curacao and other Netherlands colonies. The visa bears the seal of the Consulate of Japan at Kaunas and a later Japanese entry stamp dated 16-3-14 (14 March 1941) at Fukui. This is consistent with visas issued during the Sugihara/Zwartendijk period.

The Sondheimer family fled Nazi Germany in 1934 and settled in Kaunas, Lithuania, where Moritz ran a small plastics factory. After the Soviet takeover in 1940, they obtained German passports (Setty's issued January 1938, Moritz and Hanni's in July 1940, with Karl listed on his father's), a Curacao visa from Dutch Consul Zwartendijk, and Japanese transit visas from Sugihara—being among the few non-Polish recipients. They traveled via Moscow and the Trans-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok (where possessions were confiscated), then to Yokohama, and were deported to Shanghai in late summer 1941 where they worked to survive. After the war Hanni married an American Army officer and immigrated to…

TRANSIT VISA Seen for the journey through Japan (to Suranam, Curacao and other Netherlands' colonies) 1940 VIII. 6 Consul du Japon a Kaunas PERMITTED TO TRANSIT

TRANSIT VISA Seen for the journey through Japan (to Suranam, Curacao and other Netherlands' colonies.) 1940 VIII 4 Consul du Japon a Kaunas. PERMITTED TO TRANSIT Nr. 13909

Passport issued to Setty Sondheimer with visas to Caracao and Japan. The Sondheimers were among the few recipients of Sugihara visas who were not Polish citizens. After receiving the passports, Hanni was sent first to the Dutch Consul, Zwartendijk to get a final visa to Curacao and then to the Japanese consulate to apply for Japanese transit visas for the family. after their arrival in Japan and they went to Yokohama after being told that Kobe was for Polish Jews The family went to Moscow and traveled on the Trans-Siberian railroad in relative luxury. However, all their possessions were confiscated in Vladivostok.

Where this comes from

• JDC Shanghai migration file: SONDHEIMER Setty
  JDC Archives, New York collection AR3344, 'Complete Shanghai Migration Files' (NY_AR3344_00014), page 136: SONDHEIMER Setty, file no. 3330. Match: register No.1317 'Zondgejmer Julia' (repaired: Sondheimer Setty), and the register independently records this person as reaching Shanghai. Both name part
• JDC Archives, New York — Shanghai Migration Files, box index (AR 33/44, file 00014): the alphabetical index to the JDC's Shanghai emigration case files, 1946-1950 — some 2,640 case files covering about 5,400 persons, each family under on…
  JDC Shanghai Migration Files, case file no. 3330 — an emigration case file opened for the family in Shanghai after the war; the file itself can be requested from the JDC Archives
• Oral history interview with Hanni Vogelweid (née Sondheimer) — USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, interview 36950. Catalogue: born Oct 5 1923, Berlin (Prussia, Germany); born Berlin 5 Oct 1923; p… — the interviewee may be living
  USC Shoah Foundation VHA interview 36950: Hanni Vogelweid (née Sondheimer) — her mother Setty — gave a testimony (catalogue: born Oct 5 1923, Berlin (Prussia, Germany)); born Berlin 5 Oct 1923; parents Moritz and Malchen (Setty) Sondheimer, Nos.1319/1317
• 983449
• Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• The Sugihara transit visa of 6 August 1940 of Setty Sondheimer (No. 1317), with Japanese landing and Fukui transit stamps, p. 12 of her passport.
• 983462
• USHMM: Page from Setty Sondheimer's passport stamped with an Equadorian visa.
• USHMM: Stamped page of a German passport issued to Setty Sondheimer by the German Consulate in Kaunas.
• USHMM: Page from Setty Sondheimer's passport stamped with a visa to Equator.
• USHMM: German passport issued to Setty Sondheimer by the German Consulate in Kaunas.
• USHMM: Page of Setty Sondheimer's passport issued by the German Consulate in Kaunas.
• USHMM: Stamped passport issued to Setty Sondheimer by the German Consulate in Kaunas.
• USHMM: Stamped page of a passport issued to Setty Sondheimer by the German Consulate in Kaunas.

and 7 further records, shown on the full entry.

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