Cimring Izrael

Cimring Izrael received transit visa no. 1466 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 7 August 1940. The register records yeshiva student, aged 22.

Documents

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polnisch

Age in 1940

22

Occupation

Yeshiva student

The journey

Reached Japan; aided by the Polish ambassador Tadeusz Romer; registered in Kobe for Palestine.

What is known

A passport spread showing a Sugihara-style Japanese transit visa issued at the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania, dated 1940 VIII 8, permitting the journey through Japan to Surinam, Curacao and other Netherlands colonies. Additional British transit visas from the H.M. Consulate General in Kobe, Japan, and endorsements for Palestine appear, along with Soviet transit stamps dated 1941.

Israel Zimmering, a yeshiva student and Hapoel Hamizrachi member, fled Poland to Lithuania with his friends at the outbreak of war. Through Zorach Warhaftig's efforts the whole group received Sugihara visas (his is register No.1466, 7 Aug 1940) and traveled to Japan; the British visa on his laissez-passer (Kobe, Apr 1941) carried him onward under the Palestine group telegram. He reached Eretz Israel in 1942 and settled in Netanya, where Sugihara survivors formed the 'Yapanchikim' community around the Beit Meir synagogue. His children Hava Appel and Avraham Zimmering preserved and displayed the document.

TRANSIT VISA. Seen for the journey through Japan (to Surinam, Curacao and other Netherlands colonies) 1940 VIII 8. Consulat de Coeur du Japon a Kaunas. BRITISH VISA. BRITISH CONSULATE GENERAL KOBE, JAPAN. Valid for the sole purpose of unavoidable transit British Mandated Territory of Palestine Tokio, le 17 mai 1941

Where this comes from

• The Kobe relatives list — refugees at Kobe in 1941 recorded with their relatives abroad. Seventy-six pages in numbered sheets (LIST No. 7, No. 16 and others), each line giving a name, age, birthplace, occupation and citizenship, and then…
  Entry 57 of the Kobe community's list of refugees and their relatives abroad: aged 22, born at Wlodzimierz, a worker, Polish; relatives abroad: an uncle, Franz Cimring, 1832 State Street, Granite City, Illinois; an uncle, Moses Lejtzes, 302 East 93rd Street, New York.
• JDC Archives, New York, collection AR 33/44 file 53 (the Jewish Community of Kobe's returns to the JDC, 1941; Set I, item 00761) — Set… — "List of refugees who left Japan to places other than Shanghai in the month of May 1941", Nos. 1–321
  He left Kobe on the Manila Maru on 29 May 1941, bound for South Africa (the Jewish Community of Kobe's list of departures, May 1941 (JDC Archives, AR 33/44 file 53)). The list reads: "Ci[m/s]ring Israel Joel (faint)". (Manila Maru, Kobe, 29 May 1941.)
• 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 Izrael Cymryng, born in 1919, of Ludmir (Włodzimierz Wołyński), who was in Wilno during the war; the year and the town agree with this register line. Credit: Yad Vashem Archives.
• The unfolded travel document of Israel Zimmering (No. 1466), held up by two people: the Sugihara transit visa, British visas, and Japanese landing stamps.
• Facebook group צ׳יאונה (סמפו) סוגיהארה — Chiune Sugihara Israel, post by Krichely Yossi: interview with Hava Appel & Avraham Zimmering (Netanya), children of survivor Israel Zimmering, holding his laissez-passer; Netanya 'Yapanchikim' co…

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