Moses Kaplan received transit visa no. 2 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 15 July 1940. The register records farmer, aged 34.
What the register records
Nationality as recorded
Lithuanian
Age in 1940
34
Occupation
Farmer
Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list
wife Sonja (24), son Akeda (7)
The journey
Reached Japan; registered in Kobe for Canada.
Travelled with, and never given a number
Atid — child, aged 6
Sonja — wife, aged 24
Akeda — son, aged 7
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
Transit visa No. 2 issued by Sugihara on 15 July 1940 to Moses Kaplan, a Lithuanian national.
Where this comes from
FamilySearch, United States Social Security Numerical Identification Files (NUMIDENT), 1936-2007 — the record of ATID KAPLAN, naming his parents MOSES KAPLAN and SONIA ROMM. Atid was born 15 March 1934 at "Kavnus, Soviet Union" — Kaunas… Names MOSES KAPLAN with wife SONIA ROMM and son ATID, born 15 March 1934 at "Kavnus" — Kaunas. Four things line up with this register entry and none of them is the surname. The compiled list records this man's son as "Akeda (7)": ATID is what the clerk was reading, and a boy born in March 1934 was six turning seven in the summer of 1940. It records his wife as "Sonja (24)": here she is Sonia, and the record gives what the register never did — her own name, ROMM. And the boy was born at KAUNAS, which fits the one thing that sets this line apart from the other fourteen Kaplans on the register: No. 2 is the only Lithuanian among them. A shared surname would prove nothing; an unusual given name, an age, a birthplace and a wife together are another matter. Atid Kaplan died in Florida on 3 November 2001.
The numbered Sugihara visa list, searchable text — the register of the visas issued at Kaunas, transcribed and reconciled by Dr George Bluman (University of British Columbia) and the researcher and author Akira Kitade. This is the text b…