Jakob Ederman

Jakob Ederman received transit visa no. 880 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 2 August 1940. The register records rabbinical student - mir yeshiva, aged 19.

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What the register records

Nationality as recorded

Polnisch

Age in 1940

19

Occupation

Rabbinical Student - Mir Yeshiva

The journey

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

What is known

Yaakov (Jacob) Ederman, born 1921 in Luck, Poland, was a Mir yeshiva student who fled with the yeshiva to Vilna in October 1939. Fluent in Polish, he negotiated with the Polish legation at the British consulate in Kaunas to obtain roughly 300 certificates for yeshiva members lacking valid passports. He left for Japan in early 1941 bearing Sugihara transit visa #880, stayed in Kobe until fall 1941, then went to Shanghai for the rest of the war, immigrating to the United States in 1947.

Yaakov left for Japan in early 1941, bearing Sugihara transit visa #880. Since Yaakov spoke Polish fluently, he was tapped by the leadership of the Mir Yeshiva to negotiate with the Polish legation at the British consulate in Kaunas to obtain visas for the members of the yeshiva.

Where this comes from

• Study of the Mir Yeshiva's wartime displacement — the yeshiva's flight from Poland into Lithuania, its billeting at Keidan and Kedainiai, and its passage through Kobe to Shanghai.
  named in this history of the Mir Yeshiva's escape
• USHMM pa1117025: Yaakov Ederman entertains guests at a Jewish wedding in Shanghai.
  The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's biography of Rabbi Jacob (Yaakov) Ederman states his transit visa number: 880. That is this line. The register enters him as a rabbinical student of nineteen at the Mir yeshiva, with a visa of 2 August 1940. As with the Melamed family, the identification rests on a number the family itself states, not on the spelling of a name.
• UNRRA China Office, S-1132-0000-0181, registration of Polish rabbis and rabbinical students, their lists and sailings, Shanghai 1945–1946 (UN Archives, AG-018-001)
  UNRRA's China Office registered him in Shanghai in 1946 among the Polish rabbis and rabbinical students; he had arrived in China in August 1941. In 1946 he was among the students accepted by the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in New York. (United Nations Archives, UNRRA China Office records.)
• The JDC's Shanghai migration files, 1946–1950 — the index of emigrants from Shanghai (JDC Archives, New York, collection AR 33/44, file 14)
  Jakob Ederman of the Mir yeshiva is in the JDC's index of its Shanghai emigration cases as Jacob Jehuda Edermann, filed among those leaving for the United States, as the register's compiled line has him. (JDC Archives, New York, AR 33/44, the Shanghai migration index)
• Polish rabbis and rabbinical students registered with UNRRA, Shanghai (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, China Office;… — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, list 48676
  The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration's Shanghai register of Polish rabbis and rabbinical students, indexed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, has Jakob-Jehuda Ederman, rabbinical student, arrived in China in Aug 1941, wishing to go to the United States. The name occurs once on the register; the list is of the refugees who came from Vilna by way of Kobe, and an arrival in Shanghai in Aug 1941 is the route this line is recorded as taking.
• Students of the Mir yeshiva in Shanghai: three lists of the students of the Rabbinical College "Mirrer Yeshiva" (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, lists 48681, 48682 and 48654)
  Jakob Lejb Ederman is named on all three lists of the students of the Mir yeshiva in Shanghai indexed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The name occurs once on the register, and the lists are of the yeshiva that came from Vilna by way of Kobe to Shanghai in 1941, the route the register records for its students.
• List of persons processed by the American Joint Distribution Committee's migration department, Shanghai, 1–30 April 1946 (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, list 48686)
  The American Joint Distribution Committee's migration department in Shanghai processed Jakob Ederman for emigration in April 1946, according to its list for that month, indexed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The name occurs once on the register, and the register already records this line's arrival in Shanghai.
• La-karov ve-la-rachok, 28 March 1946 — the Far Eastern Palestine Committee's list of Jewish refugees in Shanghai (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press)
  The Far Eastern Palestine Committee's list of Jewish refugees in Shanghai, printed by the Jewish Agency Search Bureau's bulletin La-karov ve-la-rachok on 28 March 1946, lists Jakob Ederman: born 1921 at Luck, a student of the Lublin yeshiva, arrived in 1941 from Wilno; the year and the trade agree with the archive's compiled register (National Library of Israel, Historical Jewish Press).
• 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 Jakub Jehuda Ederman, born 1921, of Łuck, who was in Wilno during the war; both his names and his year agree with this register line. Credit: Yad Vashem Archives.
• 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 7501, Jakub Jehuda Ederman, born in 1921.
• Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Mir yeshiva students in Shanghai, c. 1945–46 (photograph 30207, Max Reid), courtesy of Rabbi Jacob Ederman

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