Yes
And Jan Zwartendijk, after thinking for a while, sighs and writes - first in Nathan’s, then in Chaim’s passports:
“The Dutch Consulate in Kaunas states that no visa is required to enter the islands of Curaçao and Suriname.”
Nathan and Chaim are not going to either Curaçao or Suriname, they just need to leave the Soviet Union as soon as possible, they need to reach America, and there is only one way left: the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok, and from there to Japan, the local Jew community will certainly help them, they will receive support from American Jewish societies - because the Jews never abandon their own.
And so both students head to the Japanese Consulate, where Consul Chiune Sugihara issues them transit Japanese visas. They will only be able to stay in Japan for ten days. However, having these two seals - the final visa of Curaçao and the transit visa of Japan - they can get the Soviet permission to leave, so they grab Aaron, who is following them around and blinking strangely, and head to Vilnius. Vilnius is red with red flags, full of joyful people, full of frightened people - trying to find Aaron’s family in this helter skelter of laughing and crying people, three young men visit the leader of the Vilnius Jewish community, Zorach Warhaftig himself, who listens to their story and tells the students to go back to Kaunas and ask Consul Zwartendijk: would he be so kind as to write the same passport statement for anyone asking?
Jan Zwartendijk agreed. Warhaftig spread the message to all the refugees in Vilnius, and people began to flood the Dutch Consulate. And so began the famous Story of Visas. This is how Mr. Radio got a new nickname: Angel of Curaçao.
And so it happened that a former radio and razor salesman, who issued a couple of incorrectly written and thus almost forged visas to a couple of people, wrote over a thousand such visas in the next few days, later got himself a rubber stamp and was able to work faster, issuing another one and a half thousand visas. He worked in a frenzy and became increasingly overwhelmed with fear. The visa he issues is completely worthless if people don’t get a Japanese transit visa. A Japanese transit visa is now Absolutely Vital.
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