Rachel Sternheim

Rachel Sternheim received transit visa no. 16 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 26 July 1940. Aged 54 in 1940.

What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Neserlands

Age in 1940

54

Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list

mother of #13

The journey

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

What is known

Rachel Sternheim, a Dutch citizen and mother of Peppy Sternheim Lewin, was smuggled with her family over the border into Lithuania after the Nazi invasion of Poland. She received Sugihara's visa No. 16 on July 26, 1940, and escaped via the purported Curacao route.

Where this comes from

• 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…
  #26, 55, born Baligrod
• How my grandmother’s chutzpah helped Japan's consul save thousands of Jews | The Times of Israel
• Alyza D. Lewin, Times of Israel/JTA (26 Apr 2016): "How my grandmother's chutzpah helped Japan's consul save thousands of Jews" — Peppy Sternheim Lewin obtained the FIRST Curaçao formula (de Decker, Riga, 11 Jul 1940 in her passport; Zwa…
• Akira Kitade, Japan Forward (22 Jan 2018): "The Woman Who Opened the Path for Visas for Life" — Peppy Sternheim Lewin (b.1911); only THREE Dutch nationals on the register: Rachel Sternheim No.16, Levi Sternheim No.18, Nathan Gutwirth No.…