Chiune Sugihara Visa: A Family’s Holocaust Story
How a Chiune Sugihara Transit Visa Led to a Holocaust Family Reunion
In the summer of 1940, Japanese Vice-Consul Chiune Sugihara defied his government’s orders and issued over 2,100 transit visas to Jewish refugees in Kaunas, Lithuania, saving thousands of lives. One of those visas ended up in my personal collection. What I did not know, until a Canadian historian named Fred Lepkin walked into a hotel lounge in Bangkok, was that the document I had acquired linked directly to his family.
A Sugihara Travel Document With a Dual Purpose
The full technical details of this document are covered in my companion article, “Altered Sugihara Document Saved Jewish Lifes.” What matters here is that the visa was issued to two siblings: Benno and Bertha, who hailed from Bialystok, Poland. Both were saved from the Nazis through this single life-saving document.
How Fred Lepkin Found the Document
Fred Lepkin is a Canadian historian and avid genealogist, methodically tracing his family’s roots. A relative of his, during routine online research, found passport-collector.com and landed on my article about this specific Sugihara visa. Fred contacted me by email. I sent him all available images and data from the document.
Shortly after, Fred mentioned he was traveling to Bangkok. We arranged to meet at the sky lounge of the Sofitel hotel. Over the course of that meeting, Fred laid out his family tree with precision and passion, showing additional photographs and documents connected to Benno and Bertha.
The Lapidus Family: Bialystok to Paris
Benno and Bertha were siblings. Fred’s connection to them runs through his great-aunt, Marie Scher (born Lapidus), who was a sister of Benno, Bertha, and Elizabeth. Fred inherited a small studio apartment in Paris from Marie in 1988, along with her papers, documents, and correspondence.
Those papers revealed something remarkable: Marie and her companion Arkady had survived the German occupation of Paris not by fleeing, but by being hidden by a French friend who took extraordinary personal risk. That friend did not only shelter them; she transferred her own identity to Marie. Under German occupation, concealing Jews carried the death penalty. Transferring one’s identity to a Jewish fugitive went even further. This unnamed rescuer faced a specific death sentence had she been discovered.
Property Restitution: A Case Still Open
Marie’s papers showed ongoing efforts to reclaim her family’s Polish property in Bialystok. Three years before our meeting, Fred had registered a claim with a dedicated restitution organization and received a claim number. As of our meeting, nothing had advanced. Then, by another of those coincidences that this kind of historical detective work seems to generate, Fred encountered a Polish lawyer in Bangkok who specialized precisely in such property claims. Whether that meeting leads somewhere remains to be seen.
Chiune Sugihara: The Diplomat Who Saved Thousands
For those unfamiliar with the historical context: Chiune Sugihara served as Japan’s Vice-Consul in Kaunas, Lithuania from 1939 to 1940. When Jewish refugees began massing outside his consulate in July 1940, desperate for transit visas to escape Nazi persecution, he appealed to Tokyo multiple times for authorization. Tokyo refused each time. Sugihara issued the visas anyway. Between July and August 1940, he produced over 2,100 transit visas, covering entire families. In 1985, Israel recognized him as Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem. He died the following year.
Why Passport History Matters
This story did not begin in an archive. It began because someone typed a search query, found a niche website about passport history, and recognized a name on a document. It is not the first time a collectible in my collection has unlocked a story larger than the object itself. The Sugihara visa connecting me to Fred Lepkin’s family is a precise illustration of why these documents should be preserved, researched, and contextualized rather than treated as decorative artifacts.
Fred, it was a privilege to meet you in Bangkok. I hope the property claim and the search for your family’s full story continue to move forward.
Tom Topol | Passport Historian & Author
Featured in media incl. CNN, BBC, Newsweek. Awarded by the U.S. Dept. of State
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