Berkowicz Rys

Berkowicz Rys received transit visa no. 1574 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 9 August 1940. The register records student, aged 18.

Documents

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polnisch

Age in 1940

18

Occupation

Student

Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list

daughter of #1573

The journey

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

What is known

This is a Japanese 'Permit for Stay in Japan' (No. 2219) issued to Rys Berkowicz, a Polish Jewish refugee (nationality listed as 波蘭 (猶太系), Poland, Jewish), a 19-year-old female student. The permit, issued by the Governor of Hyogo Prefecture on July 8, 1941, authorized her stay in Japan from June 14 to July 30, 1941, at an address in Kobe. Such permits were part of the paperwork for Jewish refugees who escaped through Japan, many via Sugihara transit visas.

A postcard sent from the Warsaw ghetto (bearing a 'Judenrat Warschau' stamp and a 30-groszy Generalgouvernement postal stamp) addressed to L. Berkowicz, care of 'JEWCOM' (Jewish Community aid organization) at No. 6 Yamamoto-Dori Ichome, Kobe, Japan. The sender, also named L. Berkowicz of Nowolipki, Warszawa, is corresponding with a relative who had reached Kobe, a common destination for refugees traveling on Sugihara/Curacao transit visas. Numbers 7118, 7099, 7129, 7043 are noted on the card.

When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Ruth's father fled to eastern Poland and then Lithuania after the Soviet occupation. Ruth left Warsaw to find her father and joined him in Vilna. Both obtained transit visas for Japan, but only Ruth received a Soviet exit visa; she traveled the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Vladivostok and by ship to Japan, later reuniting with her father and uncles in Kobe before immigrating to the United States. Her mother, brother, and sisters perished in the Holocaust.

PERMIT FOR STAY IN JAPAN No. 2219 Nationality 波蘭 (猶太系) BERKOWICZ Rys Foreigners who wish to stay further after the expiry of the permitted term of stay must apply for its extention to the governor of the prefecture

ABSENDER L. Berkowicz Nowolipki, Warszawa Berkowicz, "JEWCOM" of KOBE No 6. YAMAMOTO-DORI ICHOME KOBE-JAPAN JUDENRAT WARSCHAU

After Soviet forces occupied Lithuania, Ruth and her father obtained transit visas for Japan, but only Ruth obtained a Soviet exit visa. Ruth traveled by the Trans-Siberian Railroad across the Soviet Union to Vladivostok. Her mother, brother, and sisters perished in the Holocaust.

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 15 of the Kobe community's list of refugees and their relatives abroad: born 1921 at Warszawa, Polish; relatives abroad: an uncle, B. Berkowicz, New York.
• The JEWCOM register — the refugee register kept by the Refugee Committee of the Jewish Community of Kobe (Ashkenazim) at No. 6 Yamamoto-dori, 1-chome, whose cable address was 'JEWCOM Kobe'. Eighty-four pages on the committee's own printe…
  Entry 35 of the Kobe Jewish Community's refugee register: aged 20, born at Warsaw, a student, who arrived in Japan from Vilnius on 13 February 1941.
• "List of persons arriving on route to New Zealand" — the arrival roster for the sailing from Japan, September 1941: 33 typed names, from Dr George Bluman’s own marked-up cop… — September 1941, not July; he had misread his own handwriting.
  Named on the list of persons arriving on route to New Zealand, sailing from Japan in 1941. The ledger's line for her reads 'Berkowicz is' — the R lost off the front of her name. The arrival list has it whole.
• Papers Past — the National Library of New Zealand's digitised newspapers (Evening Post, the Dominion, the Press, Auckland Star and others, 1942–1955)
  A possible record, not yet confirmed as this person: the Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune of 22 June 1943, read on Papers Past on 20 October 2026, lists a Nurse R. Berkowicz among nine nurses from Hastings Memorial Hospital who passed the preliminary State examination. The surname and initial match, and the age would fit; the list gives nothing else.
• Permit for stay in Japan, No. 2219, issued by the Governor of Hyōgo Prefecture on 8 July 1941 to Rys Berkowicz (No. 1574), Polish, of Kobe.
• Postcard from L. Berkowicz in Warsaw to L. Berkowicz, care of 'Jewcom' of Kobe, 6 Yamamoto-dori, 1941, on a Generalgouvernement card with a censor's mark.
• Flight and Rescue: Journey to Japan Personal Stories | Holocaust Encyclopedia
• USHMM: A permit issued to Rys Berkowicz for "Stay in Japan."

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