The Sugihara Visa Archive

Artur Lermer

Visa no. 1829 · Kaunas, 16 August 1940
Artur Lermer
Detail of a document published in full on this page.

Artur Lermer received transit visa no. 1829 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 16 August 1940. The register records teacher, aged 31.

Documents

Document — Artur Lermer
The Lithuanian sauf-conduit of Artur Lermer (No. 1829), Series A No. 02994, No. 392, issued at Kaunas in 1940, with the photographs of a man, a woman and an infant.
Document — Artur Lermer
Musée de l'Holocauste Montréal — the Lermer family's safe-conduct (Chiune Sugihara): Lithuanian safe-conduct of 5 September 1940; Arthur Lermer, his wife Miriam and their son Zoria escaped to Tokyo; donated by their daughter Judith Lermer, 2002. With two family photographs, Tokyo 1940. Lead from Prof. Ruth Leiserowitz, 10 Aug 2026; and the museum's "Objects of Memory" video (guide Arlene Blumer, transcribed by the archive): the family's flight began in Poland, autumn 1939 — Arthur, his pregnant wife and HER SISTER fled eastward; son Zoria born in Łuck on the road; smuggled into Vilnius; denied by both the American and Dutch consulates before Sugihara granted the ten-day transit visa; Canada visas secured in Tokyo; arrived Canada May 1941. Daughter: Judith Lermer Crawley
Document — Artur Lermer
Musée de l'Holocauste Montréal — the Lermer family's safe-conduct (Chiune Sugihara): Lithuanian safe-conduct of 5 September 1940; Arthur Lermer, his wife Miriam and their son Zoria escaped to Tokyo; donated by their daughter Judith Lermer, 2002. With two family photographs, Tokyo 1940. Lead from Prof. Ruth Leiserowitz, 10 Aug 2026; and the museum's "Objects of Memory" video (guide Arlene Blumer, transcribed by the archive): the family's flight began in Poland, autumn 1939 — Arthur, his pregnant wife and HER SISTER fled eastward; son Zoria born in Łuck on the road; smuggled into Vilnius; denied by both the American and Dutch consulates before Sugihara granted the ten-day transit visa; Canada visas secured in Tokyo; arrived Canada May 1941. Daughter: Judith Lermer Crawley
Document — Artur Lermer
Catalogue still for the oral history of Arthur Lermer — USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, interview 59296 (the archive's public catalogue frame, 352x240); links to the testimony at vha.usc.edu/testimony/59296
Document — Artur Lermer
The HIE, arriving at Seattle in 1941: list or manifest of alien passengers, the sheet that names Solomon Henryk Fiszhaut — US National Archives, Record Group 85 (Immigration and Naturalization Service), Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at Seattle, microfilm publication M1383, roll 261, frame 691 of the file unit “Apr. 28, 1941, SS Hikawa Maru-June 27, 1941, SS Empire Cannery” (NAID 553888815). Public domain; credit: National Archives at Washington, DC.
Document — Artur Lermer
Arriving at Seattle: the continuation sheet, with the relatives named and the destinations, for the sheet that names Salomon Henryk Fiszhaut — US National Archives, Record Group 85 (Immigration and Naturalization Service), Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at Seattle, microfilm publication M1383, roll 261, frame 692 of the file unit “Apr. 28, 1941, SS Hikawa Maru-June 27, 1941, SS Empire Cannery” (NAID 553888815). Public domain; credit: National Archives at Washington, DC.

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded
Lithuanien
Age in 1940
31
Occupation
Teacher
Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list
husband of #1830, child Soria (1)

The journey

Reached Japan; aided by the Polish ambassador Tadeusz Romer; registered in Kobe for Canada.

Travelled with, and never given a number

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 Republic 'Leidimas / Sauf-Conduit' (safe-conduct issued in lieu of a foreign passport) issued at Kaunas in September 1940 to Artur Lermer, a teacher born 3 October 1908 in Krakow. He was accompanied by his wife Miriam, born 1 December 1914 in Lodz, and their infant son Loria, born 18 October 1939. The document was valid for all countries and expires March 1941, with attached Lithuanian visa fee stamps.

Arthur Lermer, his wife Miriam and their small son Zoria received visas Nos.1829-1830 on 16 August 1940 and a Lithuanian safe-conduct on 5 September — among the last documents Sugihara signed before the consulate closed. Photographed in Tokyo in 1940, the family eventually reached Montreal, where Arthur became a noted economist and the safe-conduct entered the Montreal Holocaust Museum's collection.

The family's Lithuanian safe-conduct — issued 5 September 1940, carrying Sugihara visas Nos.1829 and 1830 — survives at the Montreal Holocaust Museum, donated in 2002 by Judith Lermer Crawley, Arthur and Miriam's daughter. The museum's telling of the escape: the story began in Poland, and in the autumn of 1939 Arthur fled eastward with his pregnant wife and her sister, staying ahead of the German advance. Their son Zoria was born in Łuck on the road; the family was smuggled into Vilnius. Both the American and the Dutch consulates turned them down before Sugihara approved a ten-day transit visa. In Tokyo — where two 1940 photographs show Miriam and little Zoria in a park, and the three tog…

LIETUVOS RESPUBLIKA / REPUBLIQUE DE LITHUANIE LEIDIMAS SAUF-CONDUIT Le porteur est accompagne de sa femme Miriam nee le 1.XII.1914 Lodze et fils Loria ne le 18.X.1939 Tinka keliauti i visas salis / Pour tous les pays

Where this comes from

and 1 further records, shown on the full entry.

Open this entry in the full register →