Tenenbaum Josef received transit visa no. 1743 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 14 August 1940. The register records rabbinical student - lubavitsch yeshiva, aged 23.
What the register records
Nationality as recorded
Polnisch
Age in 1940
23
Occupation
Rabbinical Student - Lubavitsch Yeshiva
The journey
Reached Japan; reached Shanghai; aided by the Polish ambassador Tadeusz Romer; registered in Kobe for Canada.
What is known
Reb Mendel Tenenbaum, the Otwock yeshiva's most luminous student — of whose davening the Previous Rebbe said it was worth crossing the ocean just to see — fled Poland in 1939, was caught at the border and made to clean the Shedlitz train platform under German guns, and reached Vilna, where the refugee yeshiva never dropped its study schedule. He escaped on a Sugihara visa (register No.1743, 14 Aug 1940) with the Tomchei Tmimim group, waited out 1941 in Shanghai, and was one of nine students granted Canadian visas — sailing to San Francisco on fruit and sardines rather than eat doubtful meat. The only survivor of his family, he became the quiet Tanya master behind the famous radio shiurim,…
Rabbi Chesky Tenenbaum (Facebook): register page rows 1721-1790, grandfather's name circled at No.1743 Tenebaum Josef (Rabbi Mendel Tenenbaum A"H, sole family survivor)
Rabbi Michoel Seligson, "Our Heros: Reb Yosef M. M. Tenenbaum (1917-1993)" — full biography provided by owner (Chabad community publication)