Abram Gelbfisch

Abram Gelbfisch received transit visa no. 222 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 30 July 1940. The register records rabbi - talmudic academy (kowno), aged 28.

What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polnisch

Age in 1940

28

Occupation

Rabbi - Talmudic Academy (Kowno)

Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list

wife Mirijam (29), daughter Rachele (0)

The journey

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

Travelled with, and never given a number

• Mirijam — wife, aged 29
• Rachele — daughter, aged 0

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.

Where this comes from

• 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 222)
• "California, San Francisco, Passenger Lists, 1893-1953", FamilySearch — index entry for Abram-Dawid Gelbfisz, 1947: born about 1912, Poland. Digitised from NARA microfilm publication M1410 (passenger lists of vessels arriving at San Fran…
  FamilySearch's index of the San Francisco passenger lists, read by the archive on 20 September 2026, has Abram-Dawid Gelbfisz, born about 1912 in Poland, arriving at San Francisco in 1947 on the Marine Lynx. The register's compiled line gives 1912, 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 387, image 230, 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)
  UNRRA's China Office registered him in Shanghai in 1946 among the Polish rabbis and rabbinical students, as a rabbi who wished to go on to Canada. (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 1911 in Siedlec. (United Nations Archives, UNRRA China Office records.)
• 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…
  Abram Gelbfisch registered with the Polish Consulate in Shanghai in December 1941 as Abram Dawid Gelbfisz, a teacher, born at Siedlce in 1911, married, living at 220 Kungping Road. (Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives, the Shanghai consulate's register, digitised by the Library of Congress.)
• 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 Abram-Dawid Gelbfisz, aged 30, born at Siedlce, who reached Japan on 13 February 1941. Sugihara's ledger writes the name Gelbfisch; the register writes Gelbfisz.
• 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 Abram Dawid Gelbfish, born in 1911 at Siedlce. Sugihara's ledger writes the name Gelbfisch; the list writes Gelbfish.
• La-karov ve-la-rachok, 28 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 28 March 1946, lists Abram Dawid Gelbfisz: born 1911 at Siedlce, a rabbi, arrived in 1941 from Kowno by way of Siberia; the year, the town and the trade agree with the Kobe Jewish community's refugee register and the Kobe community's list of refugees and their relatives (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press).

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