Rubin Hirsz

Rubin Hirsz received transit visa no. 1781 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 15 August 1940. The register records rabbinical student - lubavitsch yeshiva, aged 18.

What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polnisch

Age in 1940

18

Occupation

Rabbinical Student - Lubavitsch Yeshiva

The journey

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

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…
  Entry 580 of the Kobe Jewish Community's refugee register: aged 20, born at Slonim, a yeshiva student, who arrived in Japan from Vilnius on 13 February 1941.
• JDC Japan Emigration List — Kobe yeshivas, 1941 (Mir, Kamieniec, Slonim, Kleck, Radin, Telz, Lubavitch & others)
  No 131/22; 1921 Slonim; Polish; cousin Jacobson, 494 Stone Ave. Brooklyn
• 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 1449); the register line's dropped first letters restored, the names agree — approved by the owner's review, 19 Aug 2026
• 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 13 Feb 1941 (line 1781)
• "California, San Francisco, Passenger Lists, 1893-1953", FamilySearch — index entry for Hirsz Rubin, 1946: born about 1921, Poland. Digitised from NARA microfilm publication M1410 (passenger lists of vessels arriving at San Francisco). S…
  FamilySearch's index of the San Francisco passenger lists, read by the archive on 20 September 2026, has Hirsz Rubin, born about 1921 in Poland, arriving at San Francisco in 1946 on the General M. C. Meigs. The register's compiled line gives 1922, and the two are 1 year apart, and the name occurs once on the register. The ship's manifest heading says she sailed from Shanghai, and a passenger born in Poland landing at San Francisco in 1946 from Shanghai is the route's end: the refugees who waited out the war there. So the entry is taken as this person's under the archive's rule of 19 September 2026 for records from the route. The sheet is NARA microfilm publication M1410, film 384, image 458, read by the archive on 20 September 2026.
• UNRRA China Office, S-1132-0000-0181, registration of Polish rabbis and rabbinical students, their lists and sailings, Shanghai 1945–1946 (UN Archives, AG-018-001)
  The list of students of the Lubavitch yeshiva Tomche Tmimim in Shanghai gives his birth as 29 September 1921, in Slonim, and his Polish passport as No. R-95/2/13/41. He was listed among the passengers for the General Meigs to the United States in July 1946 with the Polish rabbinical students of the '29 group'. (United Nations Archives, UNRRA China Office records.)
• UNRRA China Office, S-1132-0000-0181, Mizrachi members list and the United Board of Rabbis' birth-data pages, Shanghai 1945–46 (UN Archives, AG-018-001)
  The United Board of Rabbis and Rabbinical Colleges in Shanghai listed him among its members after the war, born in 1921 in Slonim. (United Nations Archives, UNRRA China Office records.)
• Polish rabbis and rabbinical students registered with UNRRA, Shanghai (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, China Office;… — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, list 48676
  The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration's Shanghai register of Polish rabbis and rabbinical students, indexed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, has Hirsz Rubin, rabbinical student, arrived in China in Aug 1941, wishing to go to Canada. The name occurs once on the register; the list is of the refugees who came from Vilna by way of Kobe, and an arrival in Shanghai in Aug 1941 is the route this line is recorded as taking.
• List of members of the United Board of Rabbis and Rabbinical Colleges, Shanghai (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, list 48661)
  Hirsz Rubin is named on the list of members of the United Board of Rabbis and Rabbinical Colleges in Shanghai, indexed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This is the only line on the register with this given name and surname; the Board was the body of the Polish rabbis and yeshiva students who reached Shanghai from Kobe in 1941, and their families, the route the register records for this line.
• Davar, 19 March 1942 (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press)
  Hirsz (Zvi) Rubin and Mojsze Rubin, students of the Lubavitch yeshiva, sent greetings from Shanghai to Moshe Rapalanski of Hadera and the Swadlow family; Davar printed them on 19 March 1942 among the greetings from Shanghai (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 Herszel Rubin, born in 1921, of Słonim, who was in Wilno during the war; the year and the town agree with this register line. Credit: Yad Vashem Archives.
• 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 7189, Rubin Hirsz, born 1921 at Słonim, who came from Otwock; the year agrees with the age the register gives, and the town with what the archive already holds.

×