Zorach Warhaftig

Visa no. 455 · Kaunas, 30 July 1940

Zorach Warhaftig received transit visa no. 455 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 30 July 1940. Aged 34 in 1940.

Documents

Document — Zorach Warhaftig — The certificate of identity issued by the Polish Legation in Kaunas to Zorach Warhaftig (No. 455), born 2 February 1906, dated 16 July 1940, with his photograph.

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded: Polnisch
Age in 1940: 34
Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list: husband of #454, son Emanuel (0)

The journey

Reached Japan; registered in Kobe for Canada.

Travelled with, and never given a number

Emanuel — son, 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.

What is known

This is a Polish Legation certificate (Zaswiadczenie / Certificat) issued in lieu of a passport by the Legation of Poland in Kaunas on 16 July 1940 to Zorach Warhaftig, a Polish citizen born 2 February 1906 in Wolkowysk. He was married and worked as a lawyer (avocat). The certificate, stamped by His Britannic Majesty's Legation (charged with protection of Polish interests), authorized travel abroad. Warhaftig was a Polish-Jewish refugee associated with the escape route through Lithuania.

This passport page documents Zorach Warhaftig's escape route. It bears a Curacao endorsement (No. 45) issued by the Dutch Consulate in Kaunas on 24 July 1940 stating no entry visa was required for Surinam, Curacao and other Netherlands possessions in America, plus a Japanese transit visa stamped by the Consulate of Japan in Kaunas (August 1940). Later stamps show a U.S. immigration visa No. 476 issued at Tokyo on 25 February 1941, a Canadian Legation in-transit endorsement (Tokyo, No. 333, 26 May 1941), a medical examination stamp, and admission to the United States at Rouses Point, N.Y. on July 1941. Warhaftig, a prominent religious Zionist leader, ultimately reached the United States an…

This page contains immigration and consular stamps documenting Zorach Warhaftig's travels and entry into North America. It includes a U.S. Immigration Visa No. 1391 issued to Zorach Warhaftig by the American Consul at Montreal, Canada on February 25, 1942 (Polish non-preference quota), Canadian Immigration stamps from Lacolle, P.Q. and Vancouver, B.C. (1941), and a note recording admission at Rouses Point, NY on 2/27/42 for permanent stay. A French consular visa (Londres) is also present.

Poselstwo Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w Kownie / Légation de Pologne à Kaunas WARHAFTIG ZORACH Zaswiadczenie niniejsze zostalo wydane wobec braku ksiazeczek paszportowych i uprawnia do wyjazdu za granice. charged with the protection of Polish interests

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. Seen for the journey through Japan (to Surinam, Curacao and other Netherlands' colonies.) Consul du Japon a Kaunas Immigration Visa 476 FEB 25 1941 Issued to Zorach Warhaftig SEEN AT HIS MAJESTY'S CANADIAN LEGATION TOKYO No. 333 CATEGORY In Transit DATE May 26, 1941 Admitted July 1941 at Rouses Point, N.Y. as a visitor

Immigration Visa No. 1391 dated FEB 25 1942 Issued to Zorach Warhaftig American Consul at MONTREAL, CANADA Admitted at Rouses Point NY on 2/27/42 for permanent stay M. Zorach WARHAFTIG No 10158 Valable pour un seul voyage CANADIAN IMMIGRATION ONE MONTH JUN 17 1941 Vancouver, B.C.

Where this comes from

Study of the Mir Yeshiva's wartime displacement — the yeshiva's flight from Poland into Lithuania, its billeting at Keidan and Kedainiai, and its passage through Kobe to Shanghai.
named in this history of the Mir Yeshiva's escape
US arrival manifest: Zorach Warhaftig, Seattle, 1941
"Seattle Passenger Lists", FamilySearch, entry for Zorach Warhaftig, 1941. Ship: Hikawa Maru. Matched from the Hikawa Maru's Polish-born passenger list (162 people, 35 matched). Register No.455 'Zorach arhaftig' records age 34; the manifest gives born 1906, arriving 1941.
"Washington, King, Seattle, Passenger Lists, 1890-1957", FamilySearch — index entry for Zorach Warhaftig, 1941: born about 1906, Poland. Digitised from NARA microfilm publication M1383 (passenger and crew lists of vessels arriving at Sea…
FamilySearch's index of the Seattle passenger lists, read by the archive on 20 September 2026, has Zorach Warhaftig, born about 1906 in Poland, arriving at Seattle in 1941. The register's compiled line gives 1906, and the two agree. The name occurs once on the register, and a Polish-born passenger landing at Seattle in 1941 fits the route through Japan, so the entry is taken as this person's under the archive's rule of 19 September 2026 for records from the route.
Takayoshi Iwata, "Kobe and Jewish Refugees" (神戸とユダヤ難民), Kobe City history bulletin no. 26, March 2017 — English translation published by the City of Kobe
In his memoir he records that he stayed in Kobe only a few days before going on to Yokohama with some of the Poalei Zion functionaries, and that most of them soon returned to Kobe, 'the nerve center' of the refugees' life in Japan. (Takayoshi Iwata, 'Kobe and Jewish Refugees', Kobe City history bulletin no. 26 (2017), English translation published by the City of Kobe, quoting Zorach Warhaftig, Refugee and Survivor (1988).)
Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem — a file of the Righteous Among the Nations Department (M.31.2/2861)
Yad Vashem's Righteous Among the Nations file M.31.2/2861 names Zerakh Warhaftig, born in Warsaw on 2 February 1906, who was in Kaunas during the war; the date agrees with this register line. Credit: Yad Vashem Archives.
Casablanca of the North: Kaunas 1939–1940 (exhibition catalogue), Linas Venclauskas (compiler), Sugihara Diplomats for Life Foundation, Kaunas, 2018
Linas Venclauskas's article in the Sugihara House exhibition catalogue (Sugihara Diplomats for Life Foundation, 2018) records that Zorah Warhaftig and his wife Nauma were entry no. 327 on the Lithuanian State Security list of 28 August 1940 permitting people to leave Lithuania.
The certificate of identity issued by the Polish Legation in Kaunas to Zorach Warhaftig (No. 455), born 2 February 1906, dated 16 July 1940, with his photograph.
A visa page of Zorach Warhaftig (No. 455): Zwartendijk's Curaçao declaration of July 1940, the Sugihara transit visa, a visa issued at Tokyo on 25 February 1941, and a Canadian stamp of 26 May 1941.
A visa page of Zorach Warhaftig (No. 455): a United States immigration visa issued at Montreal on 25 February 1942, Canadian immigration stamps at Lacolle, and a French visa issued in London.
The Lithuanian sauf-conduit of Zorach Warhaftig (No. 455), accompanied by his wife Nauma and son Emanuel, issued at Kaunas in 1940, with the family's photographs.
A visa page of the Warhaftig family's Lithuanian sauf-conduit: the Sugihara transit visa of 19 August 1940 and a Soviet visa, No. 114592/114593.
A visa page of the Warhaftig family's Lithuanian sauf-conduit: a visa No. 2269, and British consular stamps and endorsements from Kaunas, 1940, for Palestine, for 'Warhaftig Zorach, wife Nauma and son Emanuel'.
A visa page of Zorach Warhaftig (No. 455): Zwartendijk's Curaçao declaration, the Sugihara transit visa, a visa issued at Tokyo on 25 February 1941, and a Canadian stamp of 26 May 1941 — a second copy.
Zorach Warhaftig - Wikipedia

and 15 further records, shown on the full entry.

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