Rescuers of Jews

     Jan Zwartendijk (1896-1976) became the representative of the Dutch company Philips Electric in Lithuania in 1938 and worked in Kaunas. On 14 June 1940, L. P. J. de Decker, the Dutch Ambassador to the Baltic States residing in Riga, appointed him Honorary Consul of the Netherlands in Lithuania. The very next day, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union.
     In the summer of 1940, seeking to help Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution, Zwartendijk issued the so-called “Curaçao visas” – documents that allowed travel to Dutch Caribbean colonies, including Curaçao and Suriname. Working in cooperation with Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Vice-Consul in Kaunas, who issued Japanese transit visas, he enabled thousands of people to leave Europe and thus escape the Holocaust.
     By the beginning of August 1940, when the Soviets closed the Dutch Consulate in Kaunas, Zwartendijk had issued at least 2,345 “Curaçao visas.” Before leaving Lithuania, he destroyed the consular records, and therefore the exact number of visas issued remains unknown.
     For many years, Zwartendijk did not know the outcome of his efforts or how many people had been saved. Only after his death did his family receive news that more than two thousand recipients of his visas had survived the Holocaust. Among the refugees, his name was well known, and for providing a route out of occupied Europe he became known as the “Angel of Curaçao.”
     In 1997, Jan Zwartendijk was awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations. By decision of the Yad Vashem Memorial Institute, his name is included in the list of Dutch Righteous Among the Nations.