Abraham Swislocki received transit visa no. 61 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 27 July 1940. The register records journalist, aged 34.
What the register records
Nationality as recorded
Polnisch
Age in 1940
34
Occupation
Journalist
Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list
husband of #62, child Norbert (4)
The journey
Reached Japan; reached Shanghai; registered in Kobe for Palestine.
Travelled with, and never given a number
Norbert — child, aged 4
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 heavily-stamped document traces the escape route of the Swislocki family from Lithuania in the summer of 1940. Jan Zwartendijk, acting Dutch consul in Kaunas, issued a 'Curaçao visa' declaring that no entry visa was required for Dutch possessions such as Curaçao, which then allowed Chiune Sugihara to stamp a Japanese transit visa for the family's journey through Japan. Subsequent British transit visas issued in Kobe, Japan (for Palestine, Australia, and British India) and an Egyptian transit visa extension from Tokyo in 1941 show the family's continuing attempts to reach a final destination, ultimately aiming for Palestine. The document was preserved by the family, later identified w…
This composite sheet documents the multi-stage transit journey of a holder identified as A. Abraham Swislocki, who obtained a transit visa through the Japanese Consulate at Kaunas (seal 'Consulat du Japon, Lithuanie' and 'Consul du Japon à Kaunas' visible) around July 1940, consistent with Sugihara-issued transit visas of that period. The passport page also bears British Transit Visas issued at the British Consulate General in Kobe, Japan (Nos. 14486, 16121, 16525) in 1941 permitting transit toward Palestine via the Union of South Africa and Ceylon, an Egyptian Consulate General transit visa issued in Tokyo (No.36) valid from May 1941 and later extended to December, and a Palestine entry…
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… #623, age 35, b. Warsaw, journalist, from Vilno