Flight & Rescue: From Eastern Europe to the Far East — A Remarkable Story of Survival

Chronicling the escape of more than 2,100 Jews from Poland to Japan and China and the extraordinary help they received from Dutch and Japanese diplomats

A past Special Exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, on display from May 4, 2000, to October 21, 2001.

Only a few short months before the Nazi campaign of genocide against Europe’s Jews began, approximately 2,100 Polish Jewish refugees living in Lithuania reached safety in the most unlikely of havens, Japan — an ally of Germany. Chiune Sugihara and Jan Zwartendijk, representing Japan and the Dutch government-in-exile, respectively, played vital roles in many of these refugees’ escapes. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s special exhibition Flight and Rescue examined the extraordinary circumstances and individual actions that made this unusual journey to safety possible.

Through historical artifacts, film, testimonies, maps, and photographs, Flight and Rescue documented the refugees’ 6,000-mile journey from Poland to Lithuania, across the Soviet Union to Japan and, for some, finally to Shanghai, China. The exhibition followed the refugees’ journey to their eastern havens and examined how they adjusted to life in these alien environments and how their hosts responded to them.

"Flight and Rescue chronicles the path of 2,100 mostly Polish Jewish refugees to safety and the humanitarian acts that made their escape possible — all set against a backdrop of the war and rapidly shifting diplomatic relations," stated exhibition curator, Susan Bachrach. "The exhibition illustrates the near impossibility, once the Second World War began, of rescuing Jews trapped in occupied territories. Only a tiny minority of Poland’s 3.3 million Jews survived the Holocaust. In this instance, it took the combination of fortuitous circumstances and the cooperation of many individuals and organizations to save a small number."

Flight and Rescue was generously supported by The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Inc.; Lupin Foundation; NYK Line (North America), Inc.; Genia Szpiro and Professor Anna Lincoln; Julie and Roger Baskes; and Rochelle Zell.

FOR MORE DETAILS ON FLIGHT AND RESCUE – THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND – CLICK HERE