Jakob and Zofia Dymant papers
Extent and Medium
folders
3
Creator(s)
- Zofia Dymant
- Jakob Dymant
Biographical History
Jakob Dymant (Jan, 1914-1986) was born on May 15, 1914 in Brzeziny, Poland to Chana and Uryn Hersz Dymant. He completed his law studies in Warsaw shortly before the start of World War II and fled Warsaw on September 5, 1939. He arrived in Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) on October 23, 1939. He learned that visas were being issued in Kovno (Kaunas), and he obtained a Curaçao visa from the Dutch Consulate on August 1, 1940 and a Sugihara visa (number 884) on August 2, 1940. He traveled from there to Kobe, Japan, arriving on February 13, 1941. Though his Japanese permit was only valid until March 16, 1941, he stayed several months in Japan and received a visa for Burma with the help of Poland's ambassador Tadeusz Romer. He traveled to Shanghai, received inoculations against cholera, typhoid and smallpox, and then proceeded to Burma. He worked for six months for an English company making electrical appliances even though he knew no English. In early 1942 Japanese forces attacked Burma, and Jakob fled to Kolkata and Mumbai, India. He immigrated to the United States in 1946, sailing from Alexandria, Egypt, aboard the SS President Taft. He settled in New York, married Zofia Benet Dzialoszynska in 1948, and had two children.
Zofia Dymant (Sara Benet) was born in 1923 in Brzeziny, Poland. In 1940, the Gestapo interned her in the ghetto in Tomaszów, Poland. Zofia fled the ghetto with false identification papers in the name Zofia Sporzynska and went to Warsaw, Poland. During the Warsaw Uprising in October 1944, Germans captured and sent Zofia to camps in Wola, Poland, and later Namslau, Germany. The Soviet Army liberated the camp in 1945. Zofia emigrated to Sweden and later, in 1948, to the United States.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Zofia Dymant
Zofia Dymant donated the Jakob and Zofia Dymant papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1994 and 2001. Accessions formerly cataloged as 1994.A.0455 and 2001.283.1 have been incorporated into this collection.
Scope and Content
The Jakob and Zofia Dymant papers document Jakob Dymant’s escape from Poland during the Holocaust and survival in Japan, China, and India; Zofia Dymant’s wartime work for Walther C. Többens in Warsaw under her Christian alias; and the Christian aliases of some of Zofia’s relatives. Jakob Dymant records include identification papers, receipts, permits, immigration records, and an immunization certificate documenting his prewar life in Warsaw and escape to Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) and then, with a Chiune Sugihara visa, to Japan, China, and India. This folder also includes a postcard Dymant sent from Bombay (Mumbai) seeking information about his family. The postcard was returned to him with the indication that the Warsaw address had been destroyed by fire. Zofia Dymant’s document is a registration card under her alias Zofie Sporzynska, documenting her meat allocation as a worker at the Walther C. Többens factory. Dzialoszynski family records include a forged birth certificate, apartment claim document, Warsaw residential documents, and a medical certificate documenting Zofia’s aunt, uncle, and cousin (Fela, Ludwik, and Janino Dzialoszynski) under their aliases Helena, Feliks, and Janino Sporzynski.
System of Arrangement
The Jakob and Zofia Dymant papers are arranged as a single series.
People
- Dzialoszynska, Fela.
- Dzialoszynski, Janino.
- Sugihara, Chiune, 1900-1986.
- Dymant, Jakob (Jan), 1914-1986.
- Dymant, Zofia, 1923-2010.
- Dzialoszynski, Ludwik.
- Jakob Dymant
- Zofia Dymant
Subjects
- Jewish refugees--India--Mumbai.
- Kobe (Japan)
- Jewish refugees--Lithuania--Vilnius.
- Poland--History--Occupation, 1939-1945.
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
- Jewish refugees--Japan--Kobe.
- Jews--Poland--Warsaw.
- Mumbai (India)
- Jewish refugees--China--Shanghai.
- Shanghai (China)
- Jews--Poland--Brzeziny.
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
Genre
- Document