Bursztyn Chaja

Bursztyn Chaja received transit visa no. 1610 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 12 August 1940. The register records tailor, aged 31.

Documents

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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.

Drauge keliauja dukterys Sura gim 1932 m. ir Taiba gim 1934 m. Pilietybė neišaiškinta Užsiėmimas siuvėja Tinka keliauti į visas šalis / Pour tous les pays Vilniaus Miesto ir Apskrities Viršininkas

IMMIGRATION VISA No 645 Polish quota DATED July 23, 1940 ISSUED TO Chaja Perla Bursztyn AMERICAN CONSUL AT Kaunas, Lithuania TRANSIT VISA. Seen for the journey through Japan (to Suranam, Curacao and other Netherlands colonies) to U.S.A. 1940 VIII 12 Consulat du Japon a Kaunas ВИЗА № 11473 Владивосток

Where this comes from

• List of Refugees, Vilna, 1940 — JDC Archives, New York, collection AR 33/44, file 00876. The contemporary register of Polish Jewish refugees in Lithuania, running to more than nine thousand numbered entries; the fullest independent check…
  The 1940 Vilna refugee list has, at entry 571, Chaja Bursztejn, born 1909 at Sękaszyzna Węgr., who came from Brok nad Bugiem.; the year agrees with the register's compiled age.
• 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
• "Washington, King, Seattle, Passenger Lists, 1890-1957", FamilySearch — index entry for Chaja Perla Bursztyn, 1940: born about 1909, Poland. Digitised from NARA microfilm publication M1383 (passenger and crew lists of vessels arriving at…
  FamilySearch's index of the Seattle passenger lists, read by the archive on 20 September 2026, has Chaja Perla Bursztyn, born about 1909 in Poland, arriving at Seattle in 1940. The register's compiled line gives 1909, and the two agree. The name occurs once on the register, and a Polish-born passenger landing at Seattle in 1940 fits the route through Japan, so the entry is taken as this person's under the archive's rule of 19 September 2026 for records from the route.
• "Washington, King, Seattle, Passenger Lists, 1890-1957", FamilySearch — index entry for Chaja Perla Bursztyn, 1940: born about 1909, Poland. Digitised from NARA microfilm publication M1383 (passenger and crew lists of vessels arriving at…
  The Heian Maru sailed from Kobe in the middle of October 1940 and reached Seattle on 31 October; the tenth page of its manifest, thirty names, all admitted, has Chaja Perla Bursztyn, aged 31, married, a tailor, Polish, last residence Vilna, on a quota immigration visa issued at Kaunas on 23 July 1940, with her daughters Sura, 7, and Thiba, 5, on the lines below her. The register's line is a tailor of 31 with children Sara 7 and Tauba 5, which is this family to the year. (The sheet is in the National Archives' passenger and crew lists of vessels arriving at Seattle, microfilm M1383; the archive read FamilySearch's copy.)
• 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 Chaja Bursztejn, born in 1909, of Brok, who was in Wilno during the war; the year and the town agree with this register line. Credit: Yad Vashem Archives.
• The Lithuanian sauf-conduit of Chaja-Perla Bursztyn (No. 1610), Series A No. 07284, with a photograph of her and two children, held open in the hand.
• A visa page of Chaja-Perla Bursztyn's sauf-conduit (No. 1610): the Sugihara transit visa of 12 August 1940, an American immigration visa and a Soviet visa, held open in the hand.
• The Heian Maru, arriving at Seattle in 1940: list or manifest of alien passengers, the sheet that names Feiga Market — US National Archives, Record Group 85 (Immigration and Naturalization Service), Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Ar…
• The Heian Maru, arriving at Seattle in 1940: the continuation sheet, with the relatives named and the destinations, for the sheet that names Feiga Market — US National Archives, Record Group 85 (Immigration and Naturalization Service), P…

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