Josef Kaplan received transit visa no. 700 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 1 August 1940. Aged 22 in 1940.
What the register records
Nationality as recorded
Polnisch
Age in 1940
22
The journey
Reached Japan; registered in Kobe for USA.
What is known
This is a Lithuanian 'Leidimas / Sauf-Conduit' (safe-conduct document issued in lieu of a passport for travel abroad) for Josef Kaplan. It lists his birthplace as Zelwa (the clerk's hand long misread as 'Zebra'), birthdate 27 December 1918, nationality undetermined, profession student, and domicile Vilnius. The document bears a photograph, his signature, and various stamps.
Josef Kaplan of Zelwa was nineteen, the youngest child, freshly out of the Wołkowysk gymnasium with no prospects, when he and a friend slipped across the Lithuanian border in December 1939. He learned in a Vilna yeshiva while the family's world closed behind him, obtained Leidimas A Nr.07278 in Kaunas, register visa No.700 (1 Aug 1940), and was through Japan and gone before 1940 ended — too early for any of the Kobe relief lists. His daughter Rena Kaplan Klein corrected the record eighty-six years later: the town was Zelwa, not "Zebra," and the year was 1918.
The family provided full-colour scans of both documents in August 2026. The safe-conduct shows the eighteen-year-old — nationality recorded as "undetermined" — photographed in Vilnius; the visa sheet shows Sugihara's visa written out entirely by hand, "Seen for the journey to U.S.A. through Japan", red-underlined, beside the American quota visa No.3814 issued on 31 August 1940, one number after Szaps Jaskolka's. The Fukui prefecture stamp fixes his landing in Japan: PERMITTED TO TRANSIT, 9 October 1940.
Josef Kaplan — full escape dossier (Leidimas/Sauf-Conduit, Sugihara transit visa 1 Aug 1940, Soviet transit visa, US immigration visa No.3814) — family scan re-sent by daughter Rena Kaplan Klein, Jul 2026, with corrections The Lithuanian safe-conduct, Serija A No. 07278, issued in place of a passport, is made out to Kaplan Josef and gives his birth as 27 April 1918, which agrees with the register's age of 22 in 1940, and his residence as Vilnius. The register carries fifteen people of this surname and he is the only Josef among them, so the given name and the birth year together separate him from the rest.
A document held in the archive's files
A document held in the archive's files
Kaplan family collection, courtesy Rena Kaplan Klein — colour scans (Aug 2026): Leidimas Serija A Nr.07278, Josef Kaplan, b. 27 Dec 1918 Zelva, schoolboy, nationality "indéterminée", domicile Vilnius, issued Kaunas 25 May 1940 (Nr.129, v…