Maks Sztejn
Maks Sztejn received transit visa no. 808 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 2 August 1940. The register records expeditor, aged 37.
What the register records
- Nationality as recorded
- Polnisch
- Age in 1940
- 37
- Occupation
- Expeditor
- Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list
- husband of #807, children (18, 15)
The journey
Reached Japan; registered in Kobe for USA.
What is known
The Sztejn family of Białystok, Poland fled following the outbreak of war in 1939, crossing into Lithuania in stages and settling in Vilna. In summer 1940 Maks obtained Curacao visas and then transit visas from Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara in Kovno on August 2, 1940, along with Palestine immigration visas. The family reached Kobe, Japan in fall 1940, traveled onward to Bombay via Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma and Sri Lanka on their Palestine visas, obtained American visas on May 1, 1941, and arrived in New York on June 11, 1941. Bianca's grandmother was caught at the border and never rejoined them, and most of the rest of the Sztejn family perished in the Holocaust.
Maks went to Kovno and first obtained Curacao visas and then received ones issued by Japanese diplomat Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara on August 2, 1940. They arrived in Kobe, Japan in the fall of 1940, and stayed there for a few months before traveling to Bombay (Mumbai, India) via Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma, Sri Lanka on the strength of their Palestine visas. They then started on a 42-day trek to the United States via South Africa and Trinidad arriving in New York on June 11, 1941.
Where this comes from
- The numbered Sugihara visa list, the page of 2 August 1940 carrying Nos. 795 to 865 (among them No. 805, Szaps Jaskolka), photographed beside a ruler.
- Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum