Cerne Lichtensteiniene

Visa no. 5 · Kaunas, 19 July 1940

Cerne Lichtensteiniene received transit visa no. 5 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 19 July 1940. Aged 63 in 1940.

Documents

Document — Cerne Lichtensteiniene — CERNE LICHTENSTEIN'S PETITION FOR NATURALIZATION, No. 84225, District Court of the United States at San Francisco — given to this archive by Dr Ruth Leiserowitz, 27 August 2026. It is the document that carries her whole journey in two printed lines. She gives her name as CERNE LICHTENSTEIN, also known as CERNE LICHTENSTEINIENE — the Lithuanian married form; she was 68, a housewife, a widow, living at 3650 25th Street, San Francisco; born 5 SEPTEMBER 1877 at RADVILISKIS, Lithuania. She had married JOSEPH LICHTENSTEIN at Radviliskis on 10 August 1899; he was born at Gelvonai about 1877, never entered the United States, and died on 15 October 1930. Two sons: SAMUEL M., born 4 April 1909 at KEDAINIAI, living in San Francisco, and MEYER, born 5 June 1912, living in GLASGOW, Scotland. Then the two lines that matter for this register: her LAST PLACE OF FOREIGN RESIDENCE WAS KAUNAS, LITHUANIA, and she EMIGRATED TO THE UNITED STATES FROM KOBE, JAPAN, entering at San Francisco on 27 SEPTEMBER 1940 aboard the SS PRESIDENT COOLIDGE. She declared her intention to become a citizen at San Francisco on 17 September 1941.

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded: Lithuanian
Age in 1940: 63

The journey

Reached Japan; registered in Kobe for USA.

What is known

Transit visa No. 5 issued on 19 July 1940 to Cerne Lichtenstein, a Lithuanian national.

5 Lithuanian Cerne Lichtenstein transit 7/19/1940 2

Where this comes from

CERNE LICHTENSTEIN'S PETITION FOR NATURALIZATION, No. 84225, District Court of the United States at San Francisco — given to this archive by Dr Ruth Leiserowitz, 27 August 2026. It is the document that carries her whole journey in two pr…
Her petition for naturalization at San Francisco names her as Cerne Lichtenstein, also known by the Lithuanian married form Cerne Lichtensteiniene, born at Radviliskis on 5 September 1877, the widow of Joseph Lichtenstein. She states that her last place of foreign residence was KAUNAS and that she emigrated to the United States FROM KOBE, JAPAN, entering at San Francisco on 27 September 1940. Sugihara wrote her onto this register at Kaunas on 19 July 1940, ten weeks earlier. The identification does not rest on the name: it rests on the name together with Kaunas as her last residence, Kobe as the port she left from, and an arrival that falls where a Kaunas transit visa of July 1940 would put it. Given to this archive by Dr Ruth Leiserowitz.
THE SS PRESIDENT COOLIDGE'S MANIFEST OF ALIEN PASSENGERS, sheet 30, sailing from YOKOHAMA on 15 SEPTEMBER 1940 and landing at San Francisco on 27 SEPTEMBER 1940 — given to this archive by Dr Ruth Leiserowitz, 27 August 2026. CERNE LICHTE…
She is the first line on sheet 30 of the SS President Coolidge's manifest, which sailed from Yokohama on 15 September 1940 and landed at San Francisco on 27 September 1940 — the arrival her naturalization petition describes. The sheet gives her age as 63, a widow, a citizen of Lithuania born at Radviliskis, and her last permanent residence as the KAUNAS DISTRICT. She carried an American immigration visa issued in Lithuania on 28 June 1940, three weeks before Sugihara wrote her transit visa; the transit visa is what let her cross the Soviet Union to reach the ship. Given to this archive by Dr Ruth Leiserowitz.
Petition for Naturalization no. 84225, U.S. District Court, San Francisco — CERNE LICHTENSTEIN, also written CERNE LICHTENSTEINIENE, register No. 5. Sent to the archive by Prof. Ruth Leiserowitz, 27 August 2026. Born 5 September 1877 at…
Her own naturalization petition, and it closes her journey end to end. The register calls her Cerne Lichtensteiniene and gives her age as 63; the petition gives her name both ways — Cerne Lichtenstein, also Lichtensteiniene — and a birth date of 5 September 1877, which makes her 62 turning 63 in the summer of 1940. Her last foreign residence is typed as “Roumo” — probably Kauno, Kaunas, though the archive will not tidy a document into what it expects. She emigrated from Kobe, and she landed at San Francisco on 27 September 1940 aboard the SS President Coolidge. Sugihara wrote her visa on 19 July 1940. Seventy days from a consulate in Kaunas to a pier in California, and she was sixty-two. She was a widow: Joseph Lichtenstein, whom she married at Radviliskis in 1899, had died in 1930 and never saw America. She was going to her son Samuel, born at Kedainiai in 1909, who was already in San Francisco; her other son Meyer was in Glasgow.
List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States, Form 500, list no. 30 — SS PRESIDENT COOLIDGE, passengers sailing from YOKOHAMA, JAPAN, 15… — recorded here only so that the surname is not later mistaken for register No. 1110.
The sailing itself, and it closes her journey to the day. She left YOKOHAMA on 15 SEPTEMBER 1940 aboard the President Coolidge, took shore leave at Honolulu on 22 September, and landed at San Francisco on the 27th — which is exactly what her naturalization petition would later say. IT ALSO SETTLES A WORD THE ARCHIVE COULD NOT READ. Her petition gave her last foreign residence as “Roumo, Lithuania”, which we published as unreadable rather than guess. The manifest gives it plainly: KAUNO APSKRITIS, the Kaunas district. The petition's clerk had mangled Kauno. And one detail reverses the usual order of this story. Her United States immigration visa, QIV no. 268, was issued on 28 JUNE 1940 — three weeks BEFORE Sugihara wrote her transit visa on 19 July. She was not looking for somewhere to go. She already had America; what she lacked was a way to cross. That is what the Kaunas consulate gave her. She was sixty-three years old, a widow, and the manifest records that she reads Russian.
"California, San Francisco, Passenger Lists, 1893-1953", FamilySearch — index entry for Cerne Lichtensteiniene, 1940: born about 1877, Lithuania. Digitised from NARA microfilm publication M1410 (passenger lists of vessels arriving at San…
FamilySearch's index of the San Francisco passenger lists, read by the archive on 20 September 2026, has Cerne Lichtensteiniene, born about 1877 in Lithuania, arriving at San Francisco in 1940. The register's compiled line gives 1877, and the two agree. The name occurs once on the register, and a passenger born in Lithuania landing at San Francisco in 1940 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.
J. — The Jewish News of Northern California (San Francisco), 27 January 1961 (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press)
Cerne Lichtenstein lived out her life in San Francisco. Her petition for naturalization had named two sons, Samuel in San Francisco and Meyer in Glasgow; by 1961 a Dr. Meier Lichtenstein — presumably that son — was in San Francisco too. By January 1961 she had died: that month the Chevra Thilim congregation's Tefillin Club breakfast was sponsored by her son and his wife in her memory, as J., the Jewish News of Northern California, reported on 27 January 1961 (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press).
The numbered Sugihara visa list, searchable text — the register of the visas issued at Kaunas, transcribed and reconciled by Dr George Bluman (University of British Columbia) and the researcher and author Akira Kitade. This is the text b…
CERNE LICHTENSTEIN'S PETITION FOR NATURALIZATION, No. 84225, District Court of the United States at San Francisco — given to this archive by Dr Ruth Leiserowitz, 27 August 2026. It is the document that carries her whole journey in two pr…
THE SS PRESIDENT COOLIDGE'S MANIFEST OF ALIEN PASSENGERS, sheet 30, sailing from YOKOHAMA on 15 SEPTEMBER 1940 and landing at San Francisco on 27 SEPTEMBER 1940 — given to this archive by Dr Ruth Leiserowitz, 27 August 2026. CERNE LICHTE…

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