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Front cover of a brochure from the Soviet travel agency Intourist, describing the amenities of the Trans-Siberian Express. Despite their anxieties, most of the Jewish refugees traveling on the train felt like tourists. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
Voucher for travel on the Trans-Siberian Railroad purchased at the "Intourist Travel Company of the USSR" in England for Joseph and Ruth Schaffer. Thousands of Jewish refugees fled Nazi Europe on the Trans-Siberian Railroad through the Soviet Union to Japan with the help of Japanese visas provided by Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
The Soviet travel agency Intourist issued this type of luggage tag, showing a route map, to passengers on the Trans-Siberian Express. Some Jewish refugees traveled on the Trans-Siberian Express as they fled eastward. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
A train ticket for travel on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
Leo was seven years old when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Before the war, Leo's father was a mathematics teacher and member of the Bialystok City Council. Fearing arrest, Leo's father fled Bialystok for Vilna just before the German occupation. Leo and his mother eventually joined his father in Vilna. After the Soviets occupied Vilna, Leo's father obtained transit visas to Japan. The family left Vilna in December 1940, traveled across the Soviet Union on the Trans-Siberian Express, and arrived in Japan in January 1941. Leo's family obtained visas for the United States and immigrated in April 1941.
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