Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1630

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

.025 linear feet (1 box)

Language:

English, Japanese, Chinese, and Polish

Preferred Citation:

Abraham Moshe Trompler papers, 1941-1949, Ms. Coll. 1630, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1941-1949 (inclusive)

Creator:

Trompoler, Abraham Moshe

Form:

Correspondence

Abstract:

Abraham Moshe Trompoler was a Jewish Holocaust survivor who traveled from Europe to Japan and then China in order to escape the war. The Abraham Moshe Trompoler papers contains legal and immigration papers from Trompoler's journey to Japan and China from Europe, dating from 1941 to 1949.

Abraham Moshe Trompoler, also known as Abraham Mojsiej, was born in Warsaw, Poland on September 16, 1910. According to Kestenbaum & Company's description, Trompoler made his way to Kobe, Japan to escape the Holocaust. The Japanese government issued Trompoler a permit to stay in the country on March 3, 1941. On February 2, 1943, the Polish Residents Association in China issued Trompoler a certificate of registration, while, in 1945, China issued him a travel permit. According to documents at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Trompoler joined the Mizrachi Organization of Polish War Refugees on November 4, 1941 and stayed a member until at least 1945. From at least 1946, Abraham Trompoler worked for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration as an electrician. His death date is unknown, though there is someone with a similar timeline on Yad Vashem and Ancestry whose death date is January 20, 1992 in Israel.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), from late 1940 until early 1941 thousands of Polish Jews fled to Soviet-occupied Lithuania. In the Lithuanian city of Kaunas, the Dutch and Japanese diplomats, Jan Zwartendijk and Chiune Sugihara respectively, provided over 2,100 visas for Polish Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. Through the Trans-Siberian railroad, Polish Jews who successfully received what is now known as a Sugihara visa traveled from Kaunas, Lithuania to Vladivostock, Russia. Once in Vladivostock, most of the refugees made their way to the Japanese consulates of Kobe, Yokohama and Tokyo where they hoped to get safe passage to friendlier countries. On the USHMM's Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, there is an entry for an Abram Mojsiej Trompoler with a transit visa issued for August 1, 1940 and an arrival date, seemingly in Japan, of February 3, 1941. Although definitive documentation that Trompoler was a Polish Jew who made it to Lithuania and then across Russia to Japan with a visa from diplomat Chiune Sugihara was not found, the limited data from the USHMM and documents in this collection suggest that Trompoler might have been. According to the USHMM, "From mid-August to late October 1941, they deported the rest of the refugees to Shanghai in Japanese-occupied China." In Shanghai, the Polish Jews found a community of many thousands of Jews who had fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and those who moved to the city decades prior. Once the Nazis took away the rights of Jews in the occupied territories of Europe, the Japanese government considered the refugees stateless and moved them into a restricted section of the city which was later called the "Shanghai Ghetto." Documents from this collection include letters to Trompoler ordering that he relocate to the "Shanghai Ghetto." After Japan surrendered in August 1945, the Jewish refugees in Shanghai were able to return to their home countries, stay in China, or immigrate to other countries such as the United States or Mandatory Palestine.

Works consulted:

Abraham-M Trompoler, Members of the "Mizrachi Organization," United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.

"Abraham Moshe Trompoler." Ancestry Library, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/family-tree/person/tree/181230580/person/162354694792/facts?_phsrc=uyr1281&_phstart=successSource. Accessed 29 January 2025.

Abram Mojsiej Trompoler, Flight and Rescue, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. "Avraham Moshe Trompoler." Yad Vashem the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/10482809. Accessed 31 January 2025.

"Group of twelve documents and certificates issued in China to the Polish Jew Mojsiej Abraham (Moshe Avraham) Trompler." Kestenbaum & Company. https://www.kestenbaum.net/auction/lot/Auction-85/085-101/. Accessed 29 January 2025.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Polish Jews in Lithuania: Escape to Japan." Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/polish-jews-in-lithuania-escape-to-japan. Accessed on 31 January 2025.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Polish Jewish Refugees in the Shanghai Ghetto, 1941–1945." Holocaust Encyclopedia https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/polish-jewish-refugees-in-the-shanghai-ghetto-19411945. Accessed on 31 January 2025.

The Avraham Moshe Trompoler papers contains legal and immigration papers from Trompoler's journey to Japan and China from Europe, dating from 1941 to 1949. These documents include an identity certificate, travel permits, notices of movement to the so-called "Shanghai Ghetto," and letters of recommendation from aid groups such as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. The majority of these documents are in Chinese, though some are in Japanese, Polish and English.

The Avraham Moshe Trompoler papers are arranged into three series: I. Identification papers, II. "Shanghai Ghetto" papers, and II. Letters of Recommendation.