Bursztyn Chaja received transit visa no. 1610 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 12 August 1940. The register records tailor, aged 31.
What the register records
Nationality as recorded
Polnisch
Age in 1940
31
Occupation
Tailor
Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list
children (Sara (7),Tauba (5))
The journey
Reached Japan; registered in Kobe for USA.
Travelled with, and never given a number
Sara — child, aged 7
Tauba — child, aged 5
The register recorded visa holders. It did not reliably record the wives and children who travelled on somebody else’s visa, so these people have no entry of their own and cannot be searched for. Where the archive has recovered a name, it is here.
What is known
This is a Lithuanian safe-conduct document (Leidimas / Sauf-Conduit) issued in lieu of a foreign passport to Chaja-Perla Bursztyn, a seamstress (couturière) born 26 May 1909 in Senkažyzna, residing in Vilnius. She traveled with her daughters Sura (born 1932) and Taiba (born 1934). The document was issued at Kaunas by the Vilnius City and District Chief, valid for all countries, expiring 28 November 1940.
Chaja Perla Bursztyn, a Polish refugee, received a Japanese transit visa signed at Kaunas in August 1940, plus a U.S. immigration visa (No. 645 Polish quota, dated July 23, 1940) issued through the American Consul at Kaunas. The Sugihara-stamped transit visa permitted the journey through Japan to Surinam, Curacao and other Netherlands colonies en route to the U.S.A. A Soviet transit visa allowed passage via Vladivostok, covering Chaja and her daughters Sura, Frajda, Perla and Tajba.
hunt/familysearch: US arrival manifest: Chaja Perla Bursztyn, Seattle, 1940 "Seattle Passenger Lists", FamilySearch, entry for Chaja Perla Bursztyn, 1940. Ship: Heian Maru. Matched from the Heian Maru's Polish-born passenger list (198 people, of whom 57 matched the register). Register No.1610 'Bursztyn Chaja' records age 31; the manifest gives born 1909, arriving 194