Sugihara Database

BACKGROUND

When Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, the Dutch consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, an ethnic German, left his post amid controversy tied to his German wife being a Nazi sympathiser. With no professional diplomat aligned with the Dutch government-in-exile available to replace him, Dutch ambassador L.P.J. de Decker turned to local businessman—Jan Zwartendijk, director of the Philips office in Kaunas. Zwartendijk had no diplomatic training or experience, but agreed to take on the honorary consul role in addition to his full-time job, assuming it would be quiet with so few Dutch nationals.

The very next day, June 15, 1940, the Soviet Red Army invaded and occupied Lithuania. By July, the desperate knocks came to the door. Two Dutch nationals— Pessla Lewin, and Nathan Gutwirth—separately approached the Dutch legation seeking destination visas for the Dutch East Indies or West Indies. The East Indies, they were told, were out of the question. As for the West Indies—specifically Curaçao and Surinam—no entry visa was required, but travelers did need a landing permit from the local governor in Curaçao. That permit was nearly impossible to obtain.

“Could we leave out the part about needing to obtain a permit?” Pessla asked. She had no real interest in going to Curaçao—but needed a visa of some kind to get out.

The ambassador adjusted the wording in her passport. He stamped it “no entry visa is required,” and omitted any mention of the governor’s approval. He mailed the passport back to her with the altered text. Then he asked Zwartendijk to copy the same phrasing into the identity papers of her Dutch family and also for the young Dutch yeshiva student Gutwirth. Zwartendijk complied.

Across town at the Japanese consulate, a diplomat named Chiune Sugihara had been stationed since late August 1939. His true assignment, under the guise of diplomacy, was intelligence gathering. Trained as a diplomat and fluent in Russian, Sugihara was tasked with monitoring Soviet and German troop movements and anticipating the timing of a German attack on the Soviet Union. He and his wife, children, and sister-in-law were the only Japanese nationals in Lithuania. His cover: a functioning consulate in Kaunas.

By the summer of 1940, Vilnius had become a bottleneck. Fourteen thousand Polish Jews had fled there after the German and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939—only to find themselves trapped again under the Soviet grip.¹ Now they were desperate for a way out.

Once Pessla’s family had their pseudo-destination visas to Curaçao, they went to the Japanese consulate to apply for transit visas through Japan. The Dutch documents looked legitimate—written in French, the language of diplomacy. Sugihara stamped them all.

That could have been the end of the story. But Nathan Gutwirth took the visa to Rabbi Zorach Warhaftig, a respected Polish-Jewish lawyer and Zionist leader. Warhaftig saw its potential and urged Nathan to go back to the Dutch consul and ask if he would be willing to issue them to a few people who were Jewish refugees from Poland?

Nathan returned to Zwartendijk that same day. Zwartendijk listened—then, without hesitation, said yes. That “yes” set everything in motion.

Zwartendijk made the decision completely on his own. He didn’t ask permission. He didn’t notify the ambassador. He simply got to work—first writing the visas by hand, then switching to a rubber stamp as the crowds grew. The lines outside his Philips office stretched around the corner and up the stairs. From early morning until late at night, he sat upstairs stamping papers. Even if the visas were fake, they might just be the lifeline they needed to escape immediate danger.

With that destination visa in hand, refugees walked to the Japanese consulate and requested transit visas through Japan. Sugihara gave them to anyone who asked.

Zwartendijk’s visa satisfied the first Japanese requirement: a visa to a final destination. The second requirement was proof of financial means to travel through Japan. Not everyone had this, but when applicants explained that they would receive support from Jewish aid organizations upon arrival, Sugihara accepted that explanation. While remaining technically within Japanese rules, he was flexible—and willing.

No one was turned away by either man. With both Dutch and Japanese visas in hand, refugees could apply to the Soviet NKVD (precursor to the KGB) for exit permits and purchase tickets for the Trans-Siberian Railway from Intourist (state travel bureau). The route stretched from Moscow to Vladivostok. From there, they boarded ships to Tsuruga, Japan. Most continued on to Kobe and Yokohama, hoping to obtain valid visas to final destinations in North or South America, or elsewhere.

On August 3, 1940, the Soviets ordered the closure of all non-Soviet businesses. That included the Philips office—and with it, Zwartendijk’s consulate. At the ambassador’s request, he burned all visa records in a potbelly stove so they would not fall into the wrong hands. He had no diplomatic immunity and was returning to Nazi-occupied Holland with his wife, two children, and newborn baby. If the Nazis had discovered what he had done, it’s likely they would have been arrested and most possibly executed.

The Curaçao destination visa #2,345 issued by Jan Zwartendijk on August 2, 1940, was the highest number found, belonging to Eliasz Kupinski.

Sugihara was permitted to keep his consulate open until August 25. After that, he issued a few final visas from his hotel room before leaving Lithuania. Unlike Zwartendijk, he took his records with him. The highest number written on the Sugihara list was #2,139, issued to Abelis Chaimas.

About ten percent of the fourteen thousand Polish Jewish Refugees in Lithuania obtained visas.

It remains unclear how many visas Sugihara issued at the Hotel Metropolis after the consulate closed, how many blanks he handed out at the Kaunas train station, how many forgeries circulated after his departure using a duplicate seal, or whether the visas mailed back from Japan could ever be used. No other lists exist. Although some children traveled on their parents’ documents, the numbers were relatively small. And according to Polish Ambassador Tadeusz Romer—who was stationed in Japan and coordinated refugee aid—about 2,300 refugees from Poland—97% of them Jewish—reached Japan between autumn 1940 and summer 1941.²

The life-saving work lasted nine days for Jan Zwartendijk, from July 24 to August 2, 1940, and nearly two months for Chiune Sugihara, who issued transit visas at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas from July 9 to August 26, and then continued writing them from his hotel until his departure on September 4 or 5.

Zwartendijk returned to the Netherlands and lived in dread throughout the next four years of Nazi occupation. He continued working for Philips. His life-saving actions were never discovered.

Sugihara returned to Japan after the war but, like many civil servants, he lost his post, amid widespread downsizing, as the defeated nation no longer needed a large foreign service and its diplomatic corps was dismantled under the Allied occupation.

Sugihara’s skills in Russian helped him find work. From 1956 to 1960, he worked at Japan’s Agency of Science and Technology, translating commercial and technical materials into Russian, German, French, and English. In 1960, when trade resumed between Japan and the USSR, Sugihara traveled to Moscow and assisted Japanese firms with Soviet trade throughout the 1960s and early 70s.

Many of the refugees never knew the names of the men who signed their papers. To them, it was “Sempo” and “Mr. Radio Philips”—and the memory of a door that had opened just wide enough for them to step through. Both consuls began by writing the visas by hand—page after page, day after day—until the crowds grew so large they had to switch to rubber stamps. Each visa was a quiet act of defiance. Each one, a lifeline.

The two men never met—but they worked in tandem, unknowingly coordinating a rescue effort that neither could have accomplished alone. One without the other would have been a closed door.

Neither Zwartendijk nor Sugihara was ordered to help. They made their decisions alone, guided by conscience and a willingness to take risks for strangers.

They shared other qualities, too. Neither sought credit. Neither spoke publicly of what they had done. Zwartendijk's youngest son didn’t learn the full story until he was in his thirties. Sugihara, too, remained silent.

It took decades for either man to receive recognition. Sugihara was honored by Yad Vashem in 1985, just a year before his death. Zwartendijk died in 1976 and was recognized posthumously in 1997.

Today, their stories are often told together—as they always should have been. Without both consuls, the rescue would not have been possible.

One man provided the key. The other, the door.

Arlette Liwer’s own family was saved thanks to both consuls and is currently writing a book on this subject.

Note: The Japanese transit visa database was created by George Bluman with the assistance of Akira Kitade. George and I began collaborating after we discovered that his family and mine had arrived in Vancouver on the same ship from Japan. His work has been invaluable to my research, and I've at times connected survivors to him to help expand his records. We agree that certainly without the initial permits given by Zwartendijk, Sugihara could not have issued his transit visas.

^{1. Efraim Zuroff, author of “Our People,” Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel Office and its chief nazi-hunter, in a telephone conversation with the author on May 22, 2022. ↵}

^{2. Tadeusz Romer, report to the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, London, 6 October 1942, Kuibyshev, in Diplomatic Activities 1913—1975, Vol. 2: Japan (1940—1941), Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa.
Cited in Ewa Pałasz-Rutkowska, “The Polish Ambassador Tadeusz Romer — A Rescuer of Refugees in Tokyo”, Darbai ir Dienos 2017, (Lithuanian Historical Studies) 2017, 67:250. ↵}

DATABASE

This database contains the names and visa dates of 2,115 Polish, Lithuanian, German, Dutch, and Russian Jews.

The fields in the database are as follows:

• List #
• Name
• Age in 1940 (see Note A)
• Occupation (see Note A)
• Family members and other relationships (see Note A)
• Nationality
• Arrived in Japan (see Note A)
• Arrived in Shanghai, China (usually from Japan) (see Note A)
• Helped by Romer (see Note A)
• Next destination from Japan, other than Shanghai (see Note A);
• Comments (b = born, f= from) (see Note A)

Note A
These are additional fields per Professor Bluman’s research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In 2013, a database was created using information obtained by David Eagleman from Hiroki Sugihara, one of the sons of Chiune Sugihara. Data entry was done mostly by Malinda Dillman, and partially by Susan King and David Eagleman. We also thank the Holocaust Museum Houston, where Malinda Dillman volunteers, for the use of their facilities and volunteer time. For more information, please contact the Holocaust Museum Houston

Subsequent to the above database creation, George Bluman (Professor Emiritus, UBC), whose parents and other family members were issued visas by Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara, and Akira Kitade, did extensive research on the lists. He was able to add additional information to the database created from the Holocaust Museum Houston data. The information provided in this dataset comes from Professor Bluman’s work. For more information, please see “Chiune Sugihara Lists” on Professor Bluman’s website. We gratefully acknowledge Professor Bluman’s permission to use his data.

Thank you to Nolan Altman, Director of Data Acquisition and Coordinator of Holocaust Database, for his continued devotion and dedication to JewishGen's important work.

November 2025