Through Lithuania, Russia, Japan, and China, a Family Stayed Together and Survived the Holocaust

Abraham and Masza Swislocki, a writer and an industrial chemist, had a son, Norbert, in 1936. Family photographs from his early years show smiling faces during a trip to the beach. But the charred edge of those photos belie a change in their fates. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, their home was destroyed by a bomb. Masza returned to search through the rubble, which yielded little. She managed to find photos from that beach trip and, her son remembered, a green hat.

Norbert Swislocki sits between two friends on a sandy beach. His mother, Masza, and another woman watch from a bench. —USHMM, courtesy of Norbert Swislocki

Shortly after they lost their home, Abraham made his way to Vilnius, Lithuania, and sent word that his family should join him there.

“Warsaw was occupied by the Germans, and Vilnius was in Soviet hands and the Soviets were not considered to be as dangerous as the Germans,” Norbert explained in a 1999 testimony that is part of the Museum’s collection. His mother “went around, as I recall, talking to some relatives, grandparents, brothers, sisters, trying to convince them to leave with her and none of them wanted to go. So she decided to take me and just leave. It was a remarkable decision, I realize at this time, for a woman to decide to take her less-than-four-year-old son and essentially walk out of Warsaw with what she could carry.”

Masza left on foot, with a small suitcase in one hand and her son’s hand in the other. They traveled mostly at night, hiding to evade border patrols, sometimes riding in carts, at one point riding in a freight car, and arrived in Vilnius in November 1939.

During a year in Vilnius, Abraham searched for a way out. He managed to obtain documents from two diplomats — Jan Zwartendijk of the Netherlands and Chiune Sugihara of Japan — who would save his family. Zwartendijk provided them bogus permits to enter Curaçao, a Dutch Caribbean island. Those permits gave Sugihara the cover he needed to issue them transit visas through Japan, where the Swislockis planned to stay and find a real destination. The Swislockis purchased tickets to Vladivostok, a port in the far east of the Soviet Union, and on January 25, 1941, began their journey.

From Vilnius, they traveled to Moscow, where they were able to do some sightseeing and attend the ballet before continuing their journey. During their almost two weeks on the Trans-Siberian Railway, Norbert did not have other children to play with and started dismantling apparatus on the train. “I was quickly identified as a … mischievous boy.” He was allowed to sit with the engineers and see how the train was run while they fed him tea and jam. He enjoyed his time being entertained by the large, bearded men, who were bundled up for the Siberian temperatures. “Like all reasonable people, they liked children.”

From left, Simon Bergman, and Masza, Norbert, and Abraham Swislocki take a boat ride in Japan in 1941. The local Jewish community in Kobe, with assistance from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, supported refugees while they sought permission to make another country their permanent home. —USHMM, courtesy of Norbert Swislocki

The Swislockis arrived in Japan on February 13, 1941, and stayed in Kobe for eight months while Abraham tried to get visas to continue the trip. It was to be a brief respite.

A group of Jewish refugee writers meets in Kobe, Japan. Leon Ilutowicz and Abraham, Norbert, and Masza Swislocki are seated second, third, fourth, and fifth from the front left. —USHMM, courtesy of Rebeka Ilutovich

Abraham received a Palestine visa from the British Consulate on April 26. Before they could travel, the Swislockis were deported in the fall of 1941 with other Jewish refugees to Shanghai, China, which was then under Japanese occupation. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, prompting America to enter World War II, the Jewish refugees in Shanghai were trapped.

Despite difficult conditions, the Swislockis made do in their temporary home. Norbert attended an English-speaking school, and the family lived in the French quarter with another refugee. Abraham, Masza, and the roommate went into business, manufacturing and selling artificial honey. In early 1943, the Japanese authorities ordered “stateless” refugees from Germany and Austria — as well as Jews from Poland — to live within a “designated area.” Many of them lived in small apartments off alleyways. They often lacked modern toilets, and every morning buckets of human waste were carted away by Chinese workers.

Abraham and Masza continued manufacturing honey, which Masza sold outside of the designated area, and Norbert continued to go to school, primarily with German and Austrian refugee children. He was resilient, but beginning to understand the peril his family faced.

“I looked at most of the war as an adventure,” Norbert said in his 1999 testimony. “I knew that there were dangers. And as the war proceeded, I got older and I experienced these dangers directly.” For example, toward the end of the war, US forces bombarded Shanghai. “I could never understand why the Americans, who were on our side, were bombing us. But my father explained that this is the nature of war and sometimes the innocents are caught up [in it].” The Swislockis did not have an air raid shelter and would stay under the door frames during bombing raids. During one, the young woman who walked Norbert to school lost her mother.

In July 1943, the Shanghai police department issued Norbert Swislocki this Japanese resident identification card, which he was required to carry at all times. —USHMM, courtesy of Norbert Swislocki

The entry of US troops into Shanghai in August 1945 was met with jubilation that was quickly tempered by news of the Holocaust. Most refugees had heard nothing since the spring of 1941 from relatives left behind in Europe. It would take them many more months to learn the fate of individual family members and friends.

The change in control of the city allowed the Swislockis to finally continue their journey. They befriended a number of Jewish American servicemen who came to their home after synagogue services, when Masza would prepare a large meal. The soldiers were eager for her home-cooked food after surviving for so long on rations, Norbert said.

Several of the soldiers eventually assisted the family applying for immigration to the United States. The Swislockis came to America on tourist visas in 1947. With the assistance of the local Jewish community, they settled in the Los Angeles area.