Salomon Boruch Szmul
Salomon Boruch Szmul received transit visa no. 299 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 30 July 1940. The register records engineer, aged 33.
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What the register records
- Nationality as recorded
- Polnisch
- Age in 1940
- 33
- Occupation
- Engineer
- Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list
- brother of #27, cousin of #599
The journey
Reached Japan; reached Shanghai; aided by the Polish ambassador Tadeusz Romer; registered in Kobe for Palestine and then USA.
What is known
The father of Richard A. Salomon received Sugihara transit visa #299. Richard Salomon, a founder and CEO of Vantage Point Consultants and involved in Holocaust education organizations, speaks about why Sugihara acted as he did. The document is an invitation to a B'nai B'rith International commemorative breakfast program.
Bernard Salomon, a Polish Jew, fled the Nazi invasion after failing to bring his parents to safety, walking 170 miles from Mlava, Poland to Kaunas, Lithuania. Sugihara issued him the 299th exit visa on July 30, 1940, enabling safe passage by train through Siberia and by boat to Kobe, Japan; he later traveled by ship to Shanghai and on to Calcutta, India. Bernard survived the Holocaust but died in 1955 when the author's father was less than 2 years old.
Rick Salomon's father was issued Sugihara transit visa number 299 in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1940, allowing him to flee the Nazis eastward through Soviet territory and Japan. His descendants, including Rick, a co-founder of the Illinois Holocaust Museum, and his children and grandchild, are alive because of Sugihara's actions.
Richard A. Salomon, whose father received visa #299, will explore why Sugihara acted as he did. At great risk to himself and his family, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara dared to do what was right, signing transit visas in order to save thousands of Jews from extermination by the Nazis.
he provided the 299th exit visa to my grandfather on July 30, 1940 (See "Visas For Life" by Sugihara, p.160) to permit safe passage by train through Siberia and by boat to Kobe, Japan My grandfather later went by ship to Shanghai and on to Calcutta, India. my grandfather was forced to travel alone by foot over barbed-wire terrain on a 170-mile journey from Mlava, Poland to Kaunas, Lithuania
His father was issued visa number 299. But for him, we wouldn't be here.
Where this comes from
- B'nai B'rith International, invitation to a breakfast programme for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 'Sugihara: Being an Upstander in a Tumultuous World', with Richard A. Salomon, whose father received visa No. 299; Friday 27 Jan…
- The Legacy of Sugihara: How One Japanese Diplomat Saved My Grandfather from the Holocaust and Taught Me the Lesson of Life | HuffPost Religion
- Descendants of man who saved thousands of Jews in WWII meet growing families he saved - CBS Chicago