Kerszencwejg Chaim

Visa no. 1760 · Kaunas, 14 August 1940

Kerszencwejg Chaim received transit visa no. 1760 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 14 August 1940. The register records tailor, aged 29.

Documents

Document — Kerszencwejg Chaim — A page of a February 1947 list of liberated former persecutees, giving each person a contact address in Melbourne. Typed, alphabetical, ENKER to KRUK; stamped "C.L.I. FEB 17 1947", numbered page 3, carrying the reference S.950/14 in ink and a circled 92.39. Most entries are care of J. or I. Waks at 258a Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, with others giving a named relative — a nephew, a sister, a brother-in-law, a cousin. Two consecutive lines carry this register's people: "KERSZENCWAJG, Chaim / wife: Perla" and, separately and under a different spelling, "KIRSZENCWAJG, Dawid M." with no wife entered. At least ten other names on the page are also names found on the visa list, among them Gelbron Boruch and Kamieniecki Josef; they have not been checked one by one. Supplied to this archive by Jan M. Gronski, a relative, 4 September 2026. The two Kerszencwejg lines and the stamp are shown here by courtesy of the family; the rest of the page is held back until the other names on it have been checked one by one. Its compiling body and holding institution are not yet established.

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded: Polnisch
Age in 1940: 29
Occupation: Tailor
Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list: brother of #1762, plus two family members

The journey

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

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 2711, Chaim Kerszencwejg, born 1911 at Warszawa, who came from Warszawa; the year agrees with the register's compiled age.
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 136 of the Kobe community's list of refugees and their relatives abroad: born 1911 at Warsaw; relatives abroad: a sister, Kacelnik, Rio de Janeiro; an aunt, G. Pinkes, Brooklyn.
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 244 of the Kobe Jewish Community's refugee register: aged 30, born at Warsaw, a tailor, who travelled from Vilnius.
The Shanghai Ledger — register of Polish citizens kept by the Consulate of Poland in Shanghai, 1934-1943 (original at the Archives of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ref. 43/2003; digitised by the Library of Congress; indexed as…
Registered with the Polish Consulate in Shanghai (ledger entry 1331) — the consulate's register of Polish citizens who reached the city, 1934-1943
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database — the Flight and Rescue electronic dataset (source 20725): USHMM's own transcription of the Kaunas register, 2,140 persons with citizenship, visa type, iss…
USHMM Flight and Rescue dataset: arrived in Japan 25 Feb 1941 (line 1760)
A page of a February 1947 list of liberated former persecutees, giving each person a contact address in Melbourne. Typed, alphabetical, ENKER to KRUK; stamped "C.L.I. FEB 17 1947", numbered page 3, carrying the reference S.950/14 in ink…
PERLA WAS HIS WIFE, NOT HIS SISTER, AND DAWID WAS HIS BROTHER. The compilation this archive checks itself against enters No. 1762 as his sister and this line as "brother of #1762". Jan M. Gronski, a relative, writes that Perla (Pola) was Chaim's wife, that Dawid was Chaim's brother, and that Perla married Dawid after Chaim died. The February 1947 list of liberated former persecutees bears the first of those out in a contemporary document: it enters "KERSZENCWAJG, Chaim" with "wife: Perla" beneath his name, in the form the sheet uses for a wife throughout, and it enters "KIRSZENCWAJG, Dawid M." separately, under his own spelling, with no wife. Both were at the same Melbourne address in February 1947. Dawid is not on Sugihara's register under any spelling. Given by Jan M. Gronski, 4 September 2026.
Shanghai, 7 March 1945: pass No. 5027 to leave the designated area (無國籍避難民指定地域外出域證), issued by the Shanghai Stateless Refugees Affairs Office to Kerszencwejg Chaim, tailor, aged 34, stateless of Polish origin, of lane 542 Changyang Road,…
Shanghai, 7 March 1945: pass No. 5027 to leave the designated area, issued by the Shanghai Stateless Refugees Affairs Office to Kerszencwejg Chaim, tailor, aged 34, stateless of Polish origin, living at lane 542, Changyang Road, with his photograph. The monthly pass out of the Hongkew district, valid from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and renewed by stamps of 7 April, 7 May, 7 June, 7 July and 8 August 1945. From the family's papers, given by Jan M. Gronski, a relative, 11 September 2026.
Shanghai, 6 March 1944: Resident Certificate (居住證) No. 2142 of the Shanghai municipal police, issued to Dawid Majer Kirszencwejg, tailor, aged 30, Polish refugee, of 826 East Yuhang Road, with his photograph and both index-finger prints.…
Shanghai, 6 March 1944: Resident Certificate No. 2142 of the Shanghai municipal police, issued to Dawid Majer Kirszencwejg, tailor, aged 30, Polish refugee, of 826 East Yuhang Road, with his photograph and the prints of both index fingers. He is not on the Kaunas register. His family gives him as Chaim's younger brother, born in Warsaw in 1914 or 1915, and as Perla's second husband; the certificate's age and trade agree, and the February 1947 Melbourne list enters 'KIRSZENCWAJG, Dawid M.' at the same contact address as Chaim and Perla. From the family's papers, given by Jan M. Gronski, a relative, 11 September 2026.
La-karov ve-la-rachok, 31 March 1946 — the Far Eastern Palestine Committee's list of Jewish refugees in Shanghai (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press)
The Far Eastern Palestine Committee's list of Jewish refugees in Shanghai, printed by the Jewish Agency Search Bureau's bulletin La-karov ve-la-rachok on 31 March 1946, lists Chaim Kerszencweig: born 1911 at Warsaw, a tailor, arrived in 1941 from Lithuania; the year, the town and the trade agree with the 1940 Vilna refugee list, the Kobe Jewish community's refugee register, the Kobe community's list of refugees and their relatives (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press).
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 Chaim Kirszencwajg, born in 1911, of Warsaw, who was in Wilno during the war; the year and the city agree with this register line. Credit: Yad Vashem Archives.
Shanghai, 7 March 1945: pass No. 5027 to leave the designated area (無國籍避難民指定地域外出域證), issued by the Shanghai Stateless Refugees Affairs Office to Kerszencwejg Chaim, tailor, aged 34, stateless of Polish origin, of lane 542 Changyang Road,…
Shanghai, 6 March 1944: Resident Certificate (居住證) No. 2142 of the Shanghai municipal police, issued to Dawid Majer Kirszencwejg, tailor, aged 30, Polish refugee, of 826 East Yuhang Road, with his photograph and both index-finger prints.…
A page of a February 1947 list of liberated former persecutees, giving each person a contact address in Melbourne. Typed, alphabetical, ENKER to KRUK; stamped "C.L.I. FEB 17 1947", numbered page 3, carrying the reference S.950/14 in ink…

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