Frenkiel Majer-Szachna

Frenkiel Majer-Szachna received transit visa no. 276 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 30 July 1940. The register records clerk, aged 42.

Documents

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polnisch

Age in 1940

42

Occupation

Clerk

Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list

brother of #275

The journey

Reached Japan; registered in Kobe for New Zealand.

What is known

This passport page contains a Curacao/Surinam visa issued by the Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk in Kaunas on 29 July 1940, declaring that no entry visa was required for Netherlands possessions in America. It is accompanied by a Japanese transit visa from the Consulate of Japan in Kaunas dated 30/VIII 1940 ('Seen for the journey to Surinam Curacao and other Netherland's colonies through Japan'), a Soviet Vilnius registration stamp, and a later British visa (No. 16368) issued at the British Consulate General in Kobe, Japan on 25 July 1941, valid for travel to New Zealand via Australia. The holder was among the refugees who escaped through Japan and continued onward toward the British Commonwe…

This is a Polish citizenship certificate (Zaświadczenie/Certificat No. F-146) issued by the Legation of Poland in Kaunas (Légation de Pologne à Kaunas) on 16 December 1939 to Majer-Schachno Fränkel, born 9 June 1898 in Kraków, described as single and employed as an official. The certificate confirms his Polish citizenship in lieu of a passport and authorized foreign travel. It was countersigned by the British Chargé d'Affaires acting for Polish interests in Lithuania, and later annotated in 1941 in Vilnius.

A Curacao (Zwartendijk) endorsement issued at the Netherlands Consulate in Kaunas on 29 July 1940 stating that no visa is required for admission to Surinam, Curacao and other Dutch possessions in America. A Sugihara Japanese transit visa was added on 30 July 1940 for the journey to Surinam, Curacao and other Netherlands colonies through Japan. The document also bears a British visa endorsement from the British Consulate in Kobe, Japan, including a New Zealand visa reference.

Le Consulat des Pays-Bas a Kaunas declare par la presente que pour l'admission d'etrangers au Surinam, au Curacao et autres possessions neerlandaises en Amerique un visa d'entree n'est pas requis Kaunas 29 juillet 1940 Transit Visa. 30/VIII 1940. Seen for the journey to Surinam Curacao and other Netherland's colonies through Japan. BRITISH VISA BRITISH CONSULATE GENERAL, KOBE, JAPAN. No. 16368 25th July, 1941 Valid for travel to New Zealand via Australia single journey only This Visa is no guarantee of leave to land.

Légation de Pologne à Kaunas Nr. F-146 FRÄNKEL MAJER-SCHACHNO a produit dans cet Office des preuves confirmant qu'il est citoyen polonais. Chargé des intérêts Polonais en Lithuanie.

No 1284 Le Consulat des Pays Bas a Kaunas declare par la presente que pour l'admission a etrangers au Suriname, au Curacao et autres possessions neerlandaises en Amerique un visa d'entree n'est pas requis Kaunas 29 juillet 1940 Transit Visa. 30/VII 1940 Seen for the journey to Surinam, Curacao and other Netherland's colonies through Japan Consul du Japon a Kaunas BRITISH CONSULATE KOBE, JAPAN N 16368 New Zealand visa

Where this comes from

• 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…
  Entry 65 of the Kobe community's list of refugees and their relatives abroad: born 1898 at Krakow; relatives abroad: a cousin, B. Sender, care of Steinfeld, Rua Goulard 62/61, Rio de Janeiro; a cousin, Dr Menachem Dunkelblum, Achad Haam 15, Tel Aviv.
• 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 142 of the Kobe Jewish Community's refugee register: aged 43, born at Krakow, a clerk, who arrived in Japan from Vilnius on 24 February 1941.
• "List of persons arriving on route to New Zealand" — the arrival roster for the sailing from Japan, September 1941: 33 typed names, from Dr George Bluman’s own marked-up cop… — September 1941, not July; he had misread his own handwriting.
  Named on the list of persons arriving on route to New Zealand, sailing from Japan in 1941. The register spells it Frenkiel. This is the man whose British visa, issued at Kobe on 25 July 1941 for New Zealand via Australia, the archive already holds.
• 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 1381); the names closely match this register line — approved by the owner's review, 19 Aug 2026
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database — 'List of Polish war refugees in China', 242 names: the Polish (Sugihara-stream) group in wartime Shanghai, among them Gedalia Zupnik of the Mir, Chaim Ba…
  USHMM 'List of Polish war refugees in China' (242 names); the names closely match this register line — approved by the owner's review, 19 Aug 2026
• Aleksander B. Skotnicki, Chiune Sugihara. Konsul, który ratował Żydów, p. 208: Majer Frankel's certificate of Polish citizenship with Zwartendijk's declaration No. 1284 of 29 July 1940, Sugihara's transit visa of 30 July 1940 and a Briti…
  Page 208 of Aleksander B. Skotnicki's Chiune Sugihara. Konsul, który ratował Żydów reproduces a certificate of Polish citizenship headed with the Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk's declaration for "Frankel Majer Sz…ne", numbered 1284 (a declaration number, not a register number), Kaunas, 29 July 1940; with it are a Sugihara transit visa of 30 July 1940 — the register's date for this entry — and a British visa issued at Kobe on 25 July 1941, valid for travel to New Zealand via Australia. The name and the visa date agree; the page does not show his personal details, so his age and birthplace are not checked against it.
• HIAS Shanghai (the Far Eastern Jewish Central Information Bureau for Emigrants, M. Birman, manager) to HIAS New York: the list of refugees who left Shanghai during August 1946 — sixteen names on the first sheet, all sailing on 11 August…
  HIAS Shanghai's list of refugees who left Shanghai during August 1946 names a 'Frenkel, Mayer' among the sixteen who sailed on 11 August 1946 aboard the S.S. Marine Lynx for the United States. Under the archive's rule of 19 September 2026 a name on a list of the Sugihara refugees' own route counts as a corroboration when the full name occurs once on the register and the record's place and date fit the route; all three hold here, and the line is attached on that basis.
• The censuses of Kraków, 1870–1921 (Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie, zespoły 29/86–29/91), as indexed by archival.name
  Majer Schachno Fränkel appears in the 1900 census of Kraków as a child, Majer Jchachne, in a household of the Kazimierz district, and in the 1910 census again; both give his birth as 19 July 1898 at Kraków, where his Kaunas certificate on this page gives 19 June 1898 — the same year and day, a month apart. The match rests on more than the name: the Kobe community's list gives this line the same birth year and birthplace. (Read on archival.name's index of the Kraków censuses; the census books are in the National Archive in Kraków.)
• A visa page of Majer Szachna Frankiel (No. 276): the Dutch consul's Curaçao declaration signed by Jan Zwartendijk at Kaunas on 29 July 1940, the Sugihara transit visa of 30 July 1940, and a British visa issued at Kobe in 1941 for New Zea…
• The certificate of identity issued by the Polish Legation in Kaunas to Majer-Schachno Fränkel (No. 276), born 19 June 1898 in Kraków, No. F-146, dated 16 December 1939, with his photograph and a Vilnius registration stamp of 1941.
• A visa page of Majer Szachna Frankiel (No. 276): Zwartendijk's Curaçao declaration of 29 July 1940, the Sugihara transit visa of 30 July 1940 and a British visa issued at Kobe — a colour photograph of the same page.
• A visa page of Majer Szachna Frankiel (No. 276), with the Sugihara transit visa of 30 July 1940 and a British visa issued at Kobe — in black and white, another copy.
• Frankel (Majer/Mojżesz) certificate — Zwartendijk declaration No.1234 (29 Jul 1940), Sugihara visa 30 Jul 1940, British Kobe visa No.16368 (25 Jul 1941): New Zealand via Australia — cropped from book p.208
• Aleksander B. Skotnicki, Chiune Sugihara. Konsul, który ratował Żydów, p. 208 (second photograph of the page): Majer Frankel's certificate of Polish citizenship with Zwartendijk's declaration No. 1284 of 29 July 1940, Sugihara's transit…

and 2 further records, shown on the full entry.

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