Perkal Szlama

Perkal Szlama received transit visa no. 1969 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 19 August 1940. The register records clothing (weaver), aged 25.

What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polish

Age in 1940

25

Occupation

Clothing (Weaver)

The journey

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

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 4377, Szloma Perkal, born 1914 at Zalechów, who had come from Warsaw; the year agrees with the register's age.
• 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 1443); the names closely match this register line — approved by the owner's review, 19 Aug 2026 — the ledger reads: Perkal Szlama Fajwel, office clerk, born 14 December 1914 Zelechow, single; 674 Tongshan Road; registered 13 December 1941 on a passport issued by the Shanghai consulate itself (P-88, 13 December 1941).
• JDC Archives, New York — Shanghai Migration Files, box index (AR 33/44, file 00014): the alphabetical index to the JDC's Shanghai emigration case files, 1946-1950 — some 2,640 case files covering about 5,400 persons, each family under on…
  JDC Shanghai Migration Files, case file no. 1969 — an emigration case file opened for the family in Shanghai after the war; the file itself can be requested from the JDC Archives (names closely match; approved under the owner's standing review)
• 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 24 Feb 1941 (line 1969)
• Oral history interview with Stephen Perkal (born Szlama Perkal) — USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, interview 55418. Catalogue: born Dec 14 1914, Żelechów (Lublin, Poland); born Zelechow 14 Dec… — the interviewee may be living
  USC Shoah Foundation VHA interview 55418: Stephen Perkal (born Szlama Perkal) — the interviewee himself — gave a testimony (catalogue: born Dec 14 1914, Żelechów (Lublin, Poland)); born Zelechow 14 Dec 1914; Bluman: No.1969 Perkal Szlama, weaver, 25; the Shanghai ledger (entry 1443) and the 1942 dossier give Perkal Szlama Fajwel, born 14 Dec 1914 Zelechow — the same date
• "California, San Francisco, Passenger Lists, 1893-1953", FamilySearch — index entry for Szlama Perkal, 1947: born about 1915, Poland. Digitised from NARA microfilm publication M1410 (passenger lists of vessels arriving at San Francisco).…
  FamilySearch's index of the San Francisco passenger lists, read by the archive on 20 September 2026, has Szlama Perkal, born about 1915 in Poland, arriving at San Francisco in 1947 on the General W. H. Gordon. The register's compiled line gives 1915, and the two are 0 years 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 1947 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 391, image 766, read by the archive on 20 September 2026.
• The HIAS Shanghai registration of refugees, 1941–1… — Arolsen Archives, Bad Arolsen, collection 3.1.1.3, unit 19532 (further entries read on the same pages). A page may be shown singly with this citation; Arolsen is told where it appears.
  The HIAS Shanghai registration (Arolsen Archives, 3.1.1.3, unit 19532) lists Szlama Fajwel Perkal, a clerk born on 14 December 1914 in Żelechów, who reached Shanghai from Vilnius by way of Siberia on 24 February 1941. He named his brother-in-law, Emanuel Pat, in New York and an uncle, Gershon Perkal, in Chicago. The list reads: entry 5630, Arolsen 3.1.1.3/78797301 (unit 19532): "PERKAL Szlama Fajwel, 14.12.14 Zelechow, Pol., clerk, 24.2.41 from Vilnius, via Siberia; 1. brother-in-law Emanuel Pat, 175 East Broadway Rm. 401, New York; 2. uncle Gershon Perkal, 3118-15th Place, Chicago".
• The JDC's Shanghai migration files, 1946–1950 — the index of emigrants from Shanghai (JDC Archives, New York, collection AR 33/44, file 14)
  Szlama Perkal is in the JDC's index of its Shanghai emigration cases, typed there as Szlawa Perkal, filed among those leaving for Canada or England; the register's compiled line sends him to Canada. (JDC Archives, New York, AR 33/44, the Shanghai migration index)
• La-karov ve-la-rachok, 3 October 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 3 October 1946, lists Szlama Fajwel Perkal: born 1914 at Zelechow, a clerk, arrived in 1941 from Vilna by way of Siberia; the year and the town agree with the 1940 Vilna refugee list (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press).
• 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…
  The Kobe Jewish Community's refugee register lists Szlama Fajwel Perkal, aged 27, born at Zelechow, a clerk, who reached Japan on 24 February 1941. Sugihara's ledger lost the first letter of his given name; the register has it in full.
• 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…
  The Kobe community's list of refugees and their relatives abroad has, at entry 212, Szlama Fajwel Perkal, born in 1914 at Zelechow, whose uncle G. Perkal was in Michigan. Sugihara's ledger lost the first letter of his given name; the list has it in full.
• 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 Szlama Perkal, of Warsaw, who was in Wilno during the war. The archive attaches it under its rule of 19 September 2026: the card file is a record of the refugees in Wilno, where the road through Sugihara's visas began; the full name occurs once on the register; and the card places the person in Wilno in 1939–41, on the road to Sugihara's visas. Credit: Yad Vashem Archives.

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