Deren Chaskiel

Deren Chaskiel received transit visa no. 2031 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 20 August 1940. The register records rabbinical student - lubavitsch yeshiva, aged 14.

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polish

Age in 1940

14

Occupation

Rabbinical Student - Lubavitsch Yeshiva

The journey

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

What is known

Mendel Wolff, grandson of Chaskiel Deren (visa No. 2031), visited the Sugihara House museum in Kaunas, where a wall display shows the original visa lists and photographs of Sugihara-visa recipients. Deren is noted as having been one of the last people to receive a Sugihara transit visa.

one of the last people to receive the visa

Where this comes from

• 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…
  Entry 115 of the Kobe Jewish Community's refugee register: aged 16, born at Wyszkow, a yeshiva student, who arrived in Japan on 13 February 1941.
• 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 1369); the names closely match this register line — approved by the owner's review, 19 Aug 2026 — the ledger reads: Deren Chackiel, student, born 10 December 1925 Wyszkow, single; registered 13 December 1941 on a passport issued by the Shanghai consulate itself (D-58, 5 December 1941).
• 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 13 Feb 1941 (line 2031)
• "California, San Francisco, Passenger Lists, 1893-1953", FamilySearch — index entry for Chackiel Deren, 1946: born about 1926, 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 Chackiel Deren, born about 1926 in Poland, arriving at San Francisco in 1946 on the General M. C. Meigs. The register's compiled line gives 1926, 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 1946 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 384, image 494, read by the archive on 20 September 2026.
• UNRRA China Office, S-1132-0000-0181, registration of Polish rabbis and rabbinical students, their lists and sailings, Shanghai 1945–1946 (UN Archives, AG-018-001)
  The list of students of the Lubavitch yeshiva Tomche Tmimim in Shanghai gives his birth as 10 December 1925, in Wyszkow, and his Polish passport as No. D-58/3/17/41. He was listed among the passengers for the General Meigs to the United States in July 1946 with the Polish rabbinical students of the '29 group'. (United Nations Archives, UNRRA China Office records.)
• UNRRA China Office, S-1132-0000-0181, Mizrachi members list and the United Board of Rabbis' birth-data pages, Shanghai 1945–46 (UN Archives, AG-018-001)
  The United Board of Rabbis and Rabbinical Colleges in Shanghai listed him among its members after the war, born in 1925 in Wyszkow. (United Nations Archives, UNRRA China Office records.)
• List of members of the United Board of Rabbis and Rabbinical Colleges, Shanghai (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, list 48661)
  Chaskiel Deren is named on the list of members of the United Board of Rabbis and Rabbinical Colleges in Shanghai, indexed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The name occurs once on the register; the Board was the body of the Polish rabbis and yeshiva students who reached Shanghai from Kobe in 1941, and their families, the route the register records for this line.
• La-karov ve-la-rachok, 21 March 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 21 March 1946, lists Chaskiel Deren: born 1925 at Wyszkaw, a yeshiva student, arrived in 1941 from Wilno; the year, the town and the trade agree with the Kobe Jewish community's refugee register (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press).
• 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 Chackiel Deren, born in 1924, of Wyszków, who was in Wilno during the war; the year and the town agree with this register line. Credit: Yad Vashem Archives.
• Sugihara House (FB): Mendel Wolff visiting — grandson of DEREN CHASKIEL No.2031, "one of the last people to receive the visa"
• Shanghai Ledger, page 171 (left): entries 1363-1370, registered 13 December 1941 on passports issued by the Shanghai consulate itself 3-5 December 1941: Borensztajn Josef (student, b. 1916 Solec), the Chanowicz siblings of Glebokie — Ger…
• Shanghai Ledger, page 171 (right): entries 1363-1370, registered 13 December 1941 on passports issued by the Shanghai consulate itself 3-5 December 1941: Borensztajn Josef (student, b. 1916 Solec), the Chanowicz siblings of Glebokie — Ge…

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