The Sugihara Visa Archive

Nachum Preger

Visa no. 1840 · Kaunas, 16 August 1940

Nachum Preger received transit visa no. 1840 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 16 August 1940. The register records rabbinical student - lubavitsch yeshiva, aged 18.

Documents

Document — Nachum Preger
Shanghai Ledger, page 180 (left): entries 1435-1442, registered 13 December 1941 on Tokyo-issued passports of 3-4 December 1941: Nowogrodzki Elja Chaim (office clerk, b. 30 Dec 1904 Lodz), Przewozman Abraham (labourer, b. 20 Sep 1894 Siedlce), Pecyna Motel (student, b. 10 May 1918 Ostroleka, at 35 Moulmein Road), the Phastag brothers of Warsaw — Mojsze (b. 13 Oct 1918) and Dawid (b. 2 Sep 1916), Portowicz Josef (b. 15 Nov 1920 Wyszkow, at 35 Moulmein Road), Potasznik Mendel (b. 2 Apr 1908 Wolozyn), Preger Nachum (b. 20 Mar 1922, at 35 Moulmein Road). Library of Congress digitisation of the Polish Consulate's register
Document — Nachum Preger
Shanghai Ledger, page 180 (right): entries 1435-1442, registered 13 December 1941 on Tokyo-issued passports of 3-4 December 1941: Nowogrodzki Elja Chaim (office clerk, b. 30 Dec 1904 Lodz), Przewozman Abraham (labourer, b. 20 Sep 1894 Siedlce), Pecyna Motel (student, b. 10 May 1918 Ostroleka, at 35 Moulmein Road), the Phastag brothers of Warsaw — Mojsze (b. 13 Oct 1918) and Dawid (b. 2 Sep 1916), Portowicz Josef (b. 15 Nov 1920 Wyszkow, at 35 Moulmein Road), Potasznik Mendel (b. 2 Apr 1908 Wolozyn), Preger Nachum (b. 20 Mar 1922, at 35 Moulmein Road). Library of Congress digitisation of the Polish Consulate's register

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded
Lithuanien
Age in 1940
18
Occupation
Rabbinical Student - Lubavitsch Yeshiva

The journey

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

What is known

Reb Nochum Preger was a student of the Lubavitch yeshiva Tomchei Temimim, from Maloryta, who reached the Japanese consul's window out of the refugee crush in Vilna. In his grandson's account he was the forty-fourth of fifty-two yeshiva students granted visas; the consul's own register carries his line, No. 1840, a transit visa dated 16 August 1940. He took the long way east — Moscow, the Trans-Siberian railway to Vladivostok, then Kobe, where the community's relief roster records him arriving in February 1941 — and on through Shanghai, until at last he crossed to America. He settled on President Street in Brooklyn. On the first night of Passover in 1981 the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menach… Reb Nochum Preger was a student of the Lubavitch yeshiva Tomchei Temimim, from Maloryta, who reached the Japanese consul's window out of the refugee crush in Vilna. In his grandson's account he was the forty-fourth of fifty-two yeshiva students granted visas; the consul's own register carries his line, No. 1840, a transit visa dated 16 August 1940. He took the long way east — Moscow, the Trans-Siberian railway to Vladivostok, then Kobe, where the community's relief roster records him arriving in February 1941 — and on through Shanghai, until at last he crossed to America. He settled on President Street in Brooklyn. On the first night of Passover in 1981 the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, passing between two Seders, stopped before the house and asked whether this was his mikdash me'at, his small sanctuary; told that it was, he blessed him that the verse “And I will dwell in them” be fulfilled in fact. The family's story is told by his grandson, Dovid Greenwald.

If not for Sugihara's actions, I wouldn't be here to write this essay. It's that simple.

Where this comes from

Open this entry in the full register →