Wajs Mendel

Wajs Mendel received transit visa no. 695 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 1 August 1940. The register records mechanic, aged 37.

Documents

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polnisch

Age in 1940

37

Occupation

Mechanic

The journey

Reached Japan; reached Shanghai; registered in Kobe for Australia.

Where this comes from

• 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 279 of the Kobe community's list of refugees and their relatives abroad: born 1903 at Warsaw, Polish; relatives abroad: a cousin, B. Wajs, 11-80 46th Street, Brooklyn; J. Cantkier, Calle Estanislao Zaballo 534, department 3, Rosario, Province of Santa Fe, Argentine Republic.
• 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 690 of the Kobe Jewish Community's refugee register: aged 38, born at Warsaw, a clerk, who arrived in Japan on 23 February 1941.
• The Shanghai Ledger — register of Polish citizens kept by the Consulate of Poland in Shanghai, 1934-1943 (original at the Archives of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ref. 43/2003; digitised by the Library of Congress; indexed as…
  Registered with the Polish Consulate in Shanghai (ledger entry 1472); the names closely match this register line — approved by the owner's review, 19 Aug 2026 — the ledger reads: Wajs Mendel, office clerk, born 15 February 1903 Warsaw; 129/5 Macgregor Road; registered 13 December 1941 on a passport issued by the Shanghai consulate itself (W-108, 5 December 1941).
• "California, San Francisco, Passenger Lists, 1893-1953", FamilySearch — index entry for Mendel Wajs, 1947: born about 1903, Poland. Digitised from NARA microfilm publication M1410 (passenger lists of vessels arriving at San Francisco). R…
  FamilySearch's index of the San Francisco passenger lists, read by the archive on 20 September 2026, has Mendel Wajs, born about 1903 in Poland, arriving at San Francisco in 1947. The register's compiled line gives 1903, and the two are 0 years apart, and the name occurs once on the register. The crossing is after the war and its ship has not yet been read, so this is held as a lead until it has.
• The JDC's Shanghai migration files, 1946–1950 — the index of emigrants from Shanghai (JDC Archives, New York, collection AR 33/44, file 14)
  Mendel Wajs appears as Mendel Wais in the JDC's index of its Shanghai emigration cases, filed among those leaving for Australia — the destination the register's compiled line gives him. (JDC Archives, New York, AR 33/44, the Shanghai migration index)
• Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem — the card file of Jewish refugees from Poland who found refuge in various countries, 1939–1941
  Yad Vashem's card file of Jewish refugees from Poland who found refuge in various countries, 1939–1941, has a card for Mendel Wajs, aged 36, of Warsaw, who was in Wilno during the war; his age and his city agree with this register line. Credit: Yad Vashem Archives.
• Shanghai Ledger, page 184 (left): entries 1467-1474, registered 13 December 1941 on passports issued by the Shanghai consulate itself 1-5 December 1941: the Witelson brothers of Warsaw — Szmul (student, b. 1 Jul 1920) and Szlama Zelman (…
• Shanghai Ledger, page 184 (right): entries 1467-1474, registered 13 December 1941 on passports issued by the Shanghai consulate itself 1-5 December 1941: the Witelson brothers of Warsaw — Szmul (student, b. 1 Jul 1920) and Szlama Zelman…

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