Rudawski Chaim

Rudawski Chaim received transit visa no. 1916 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 19 August 1940. Aged 46 in 1940.

What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polish

Age in 1940

46

Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list

wife Malka (34), son Moszek (17)

The journey

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

Travelled with, and never given a number

• Malka — wife, aged 34
• Moszek — son, aged 17

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

Chaim Yitzchak and Malka Rudawski, originally from Poland, purchased forged Sugihara transit visas from a Jewish forger named Abram Richter, who made the visas himself. Using these forged documents they escaped via Kobe, Japan, arriving in San Francisco in May 1941. Chaim died in 1944/45, Malka died in the 1990s, and the couple had no descendants; Chaim reportedly met Richter again in Israel in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

Mark, a relative of mine and her husband arrived to San Francisco from Kobe Japan in May 1941. They were originally from Poland. Their names are Chaim Yitzchak and Malka Rudawski. He died in 1944/5, she died in the 1990s. No descendants. Chaim, in his booki, mentioned the name of the Jewish man who sold them forged Sugihara visas. Abram Richter. He made the visas himself. He survived the war and lived in Israel. Married a Jewish woman from India. On one of his visits in Israel Chaim met with Richter.

Where this comes from

• Ancestry.com Public Member Tree: Chaim Yitzchak Rudawski, born 3 March 1894 at Kock, arrived San Francisco 10 May 1941 (citing the California passenger lists, 1893–1957). Seen on Ancestry.com by David Rosen, 5 September 2026; a compilati…
  A family tree on Ancestry.com, compiled by a member of that site and found by David Rosen, gives Chaim Yitzchak Rudawski as born 3 March 1894 at Kock, son of Moshe Rudawski and Bracha Przecznik, with two marriages recorded, to Tauba Szajowicz and to Malka Zylbertal, born 1907, and two children, Brucha (born 1918, later Katz) and Moshe, later Murray. For his movements it cites a record of residence in Lithuania and the California passenger lists for an arrival at San Francisco on 10 May 1941. The consulate's own note against this line names his wife Malka, 34, and his son Moszek, 17, and a relative's account already on this page has the couple reaching San Francisco from Kobe in May 1941 — so the tree and the archive agree on the wife, the son, the year of birth and the arrival, and none of that came from the tree. The arrival is cited here from the tree; the passenger list it rests on is the record to consult, and the tree is not reproduced.
• "California, San Francisco, Passenger Lists, 1893-1953", FamilySearch — index entry for Chaim Icek Rudawski, 1941: born about 1894, Poland. Digitised from NARA microfilm publication M1410 (passenger lists of vessels arriving at San Franc…
  FamilySearch's index of the San Francisco passenger lists, read by the archive on 20 September 2026, has Chaim Icek Rudawski, born about 1894 in Poland, arriving at San Francisco in 1941. The register's compiled line gives 1894, and the two agree. The name occurs once on the register, and a Polish-born passenger landing at San Francisco in 1941 fits the route through Japan, so the entry is taken as this person's under the archive's rule of 19 September 2026 for records from the route.
• JDC Archives, New York, collection AR 33/44 file 53 (the Jewish Community of Kobe's returns to the JDC, 1941; Set I, item 00761) — Set I pp. 24–32 — April 1941 (and a May continuation sheet)
  He left Yokohama on the Asama Maru on 26 April 1941, bound for the USA (the Jewish Community of Kobe's list of refugees who left Japan in April 1941 (JDC Archives, AR 33/44 file 53)). The list reads: "Rudawski Chaim Icek, ″ Malka, ″ Moszko (Asama Maru, 26th)". (Asama Maru, Yokohama, 26 April 1941, the USA.)
• New York City death certificates, 1944–1946 (Municipal Archives of the City of New York; indexed from the certificates on FamilySearch, "New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795–1949")
  His death certificate closes his story: Chaim Rudawski died at Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan on 21 February 1945, aged 51, a presser by trade. The certificate, held by the Municipal Archives of the City of New York and indexed from the document by FamilySearch, gives his birth on 3 January 1894 at Kock, his father Morris and his wife Malka: the wife the register's compilers name, and the town, father and year the family tree David Rosen found had given, with the day of birth differing. Read in the index, October 2026.
• 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 4704, Rujdawski Chaim Icchok, born 1894 at Kock, who came from Nowy Dwór; the year agrees with the age the register gives.
• Facebook thread (Alexandra Goldberg, Mark Halpern, c.2019) — Abram Richter named as forger who made and sold Sugihara visas

×