Jan Zwartendijk

Jan Zwartendijk (29 July 1896 in Rotterdam – 1976, Eindhoven) was a Dutch businessman and diplomat who helped Jews escape Lithuania during World War II.

Zwartendijk directed the Philips plants in Lithuania. On 19 June 1940, he was also a part-time an acting consul of the Netherlands - or, to be exact, of the Dutch government-in-exile. His superior was the Dutch ambassador to Latvia, De Decker.

When the Soviet Union took over Lithuania in 1940, some Jewish Dutch residents in Lithuania approached Zwartendijk to get a visa to the Dutch Indies. With De Decker's permission, Zwartendijk agreed to help them. The word spread and Jews who had fled from German-occupied Poland also sought his assistance.

Ambassador de Dekker had been encouraged by a Jewish applicant to write a declaration on her visa stating that entering Curaçao in the West Indies did not require a visa, while omitting the part about the Governor's permission being required. Told of this, Zwartenijk followed suit and in a few days, with the help of aides, produced over 2,200 visas for Jews to Curaçao.

Then refugees approached Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese consul, who gave them a transit visa through Japan, also against official diplomatic rules. This gave many refugees an opportunity to leave Lithuania for the Far East via the Trans-Siberian railway.

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