Mojzesz Mowszowski

Visa no. 659 · Kaunas, 1 August 1940

Mojzesz Mowszowski received transit visa no. 659 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 1 August 1940. The register records office employee, aged 63.

Documents

Document — Mojzesz Mowszowski — The certificate of identity issued by the Polish Legation in Kaunas to Mojżesz Mowszowski (No. 659), born 1 September 1877, dated 4 July 1940, with his photograph.

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded: Polnisch
Age in 1940: 63
Occupation: Office employee
Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list: father of #1109

The journey

Reached Japan; aided by the Polish ambassador Tadeusz Romer; registered in Kobe for South Africa.

What is known

A Polish citizenship certificate (Zaswiadczenie/Certificat, Nr. M-157) issued by the Polish Legation in Kaunas on 4 July 1940 for Mojzesz Mowszowski, born 1 September 1877 in Warsaw, a widower and office employee. Issued in lieu of a passport to enable travel abroad, it bears stamps from the British Legation in Lithuania and appears connected to the Japanese consulate in Kaunas (Sugihara transit route).

This document contains a Japanese transit visa stamp 'Seen for the journey through Japan (to Suranam, Curacao and other Netherlands' colonies)' issued by the Consul of Japan at Kaunas, dated 1940-08. It bears the Curacao endorsement number 1520 for holder Mojzesz Mowszowski, signed by the Dutch acting consul at Kaunas (Jan Zwartendijk) on 29 July 1940. Additional Japanese entry-permit and Yokohama Specie Bank Kobe branch stamps indicate travel through Japan in early 1941.

This page shows a British Visa No. 1598Z issued at the British Consulate General in Kobe, Japan on 15 April 1941, valid for a single journey to the Union of South Africa (linked to Immigration Permit No. 80). The refugee (catalogued here as Mojzesz Mowszowski) traveled from Kobe through the Straits Settlements (Singapore & Penang, stamped 11 May 1941) and the Portuguese colony of Mozambique via Lourenco Marques (7 June 1941) en route to Johannesburg, reporting at Cape Town on 15 July 1941. The routing through Kobe is consistent with escape from Lithuania via the Trans-Siberian route.

Poselstwo Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w Kownie / Legation de Pologne a Kaunas Zaswiadczenie niniejsze zostalo wydane wobec braku ksiazeczek paszportowych i uprawnia do wyjazdu za granice. MOWSZOWSKI MOJZESZ BRITISH VICE-CONSUL for H.M. Minister charged with the protection of Polish interests.

TRANSIT VISA. Seen for the journey through Japan (to Suranam, Curacao and other Netherlands' colonies.) 1940 VIII Consul du Japon a Kaunas. Le Consul 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. 1520 Kaunas, 29/VII 40

BRITISH VISA BRITISH CONSULATE GENERAL, KOBE, JAPAN. No. 1598Z Dated 15th April, 1941 Valid for travel to Union of South Africa single journey only Visa for the Union of South Africa authorised by telegram No.585 from Secretary of the Interior Department Pretoria Immigration Permit No. 80 to be handed over on arrival IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT STRAITS SETTLEMENTS ALLOWED ON SHORE DURING SHIP'S STAY IN PORTS OF SINGAPORE & PENANG 11 MAY 1941 IMIGRACAO — VIA MARITIMA PORTO DE LOURENCO MARQUES Reported at Cape Town 15/7/41

Where this comes from

List of Refugees, Vilna, 1940 — JDC Archives, New York, collection AR 33/44, file 00876. The contemporary register of Polish Jewish refugees in Lithuania, running to more than nine thousand numbered entries; the fullest independent check…
The 1940 Vilna refugee list has, at entry 8267, Mojzesz Mowszowski, born 1877 at Bialystok, who had come from Bialystok; the year agrees with the register's compiled age.
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 182 of the Kobe community's list of refugees and their relatives abroad: born at Bialystok; relatives abroad: a son, Mow N., 25 Walestr, Cape Town, Africa; a son, L. Newszowski, Fertstr 70, Belawaio (Bulawayo), Southern Rhodesia, Africa.
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 483 of the Kobe Jewish Community's refugee register: aged 64, born at Warsaw, a rabbi, who arrived in Japan from Vilnius on 2 February 1941.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database — the Flight and Rescue electronic dataset (source 20725): USHMM's own transcription of the Kaunas register, 2,140 persons with citizenship, visa type, iss…
USHMM Flight and Rescue dataset: arrived in Japan 2 Feb 1941 (line 659)
Certificate of Polish citizenship No. M-117, issued to Mojzesz Mowszowski on 4 July 1940 by the Representation of the Polish Republic at the British Consulate in Kaunas and signed by Consul Preston, reproduced with its reverse on a page…
The certificate names Mojzesz Mowszowski and gives his birth as 1 September 1877 at Warsaw - he turned 63 that September, the age the register records for 1940. His employment is entered as office assistant, and the register records him as an office employee. The Japanese transit visa on the reverse is dated 1 August 1940, which is the issue date the register gives for this entry.
JDC Archives, New York, collection AR 33/44 file 53 (the Jewish Community of Kobe's returns to the JDC, 1941; Set I, item 00761) — Set I pp. 24–32 — April 1941 (and a May continuation sheet)
He left Kobe on the Africa Maru on 30 April 1941, bound for South Africa (the Jewish Community of Kobe's list of refugees who left Japan in April 1941 (JDC Archives, AR 33/44 file 53)). The list reads: "Mowszowski Mojsze — Polish — Kobe — South Africa". (Africa Maru, Kobe, 30 April 1941, South Africa.)
The certificate of identity issued by the Polish Legation in Kaunas to Mojżesz Mowszowski (No. 659), born 1 September 1877, dated 4 July 1940, with his photograph.
A visa page of Mojżesz Mowszowski (No. 659): the Sugihara transit visa of August 1940, Zwartendijk's Curaçao declaration of 29 July 1940, and Japanese landing stamps.
A visa page of Mojżesz Mowszowski (No. 659): a British visa issued at Kobe for the Union of South Africa, and Portuguese stamps at Lourenço Marques, Mozambique, 1941.
A page of Mojżesz Mowszowski's certificate (No. 659) with an endorsement of 1941 on reporting his arrival.
Owner's ephemera collection (photographed Jul 2026): Flight and Rescue catalog pages (Soltz cert — Mrs. Shmuel Soltz, Israel; Nowogrodzki spread — full name Markus-Chaim, US non-immigrant visa No.4 of 20 Jul 1940, Soviet visa 114477, Sea…
Certificate of Polish citizenship No. M-117, issued to Mojzesz Mowszowski on 4 July 1940 by the Representation of the Polish Republic at the British Consulate in Kaunas and signed by Consul Preston, reproduced with its reverse on a page…
Mojżesz Mowszowski certificate (No.659) — front + reverse with Zwartendijk 29 Jul and Sugihara visa 1 Aug 1940, cropped from book p.300

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