Jan Zwartendijk: The Dutch Consul Who Opened The Door To Tthe Sugihara Scheme

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Fig. Jan Zwartendijk

Jan Zwartendijk, the representative of the Philips plants in Lithuania. After the invasion of The Nederlands, was named representative of the Netherlands in the occupied Lituania. He issued 2,345 de facto visas for Curaçao, to Jews of the Vilna Ghetto, saving their life. He was named Righteous Among the Nations.

Date    1941

Source            The "Green House"

Author           Unknown author

This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:9-_Vilnius-Maison_verte-DSC05370-Jan_Zwartendijk.JPG

In 1939, Jan Zwartendijk, acting Dutch consul in Kaunas informed Sugihara of the possible destination, Curaçao, the Dutch Caribbean island which was a Dutch colony. This enabled Sugihara to issue transit visas. Sugihara Chiune was a Japanese diplomat who saved 6000 Jewish people from persecution in WW2.

Together, the efforts of Zwartendijk and Sugihara helped save the lives of thousands of Jewish refugees. Their actions were taken without official approval from their respective governments and in defiance of their superiors' orders. In 1997, both Zwartendijk and Sugihara were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance authority in Israel, in honor of their bravery and compassion in helping Jewish refugees during the darkest days of the Holocaust.


[1] Youtube site:https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Chiune+Sugihara+Doc.+1

(translation by the author)

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