Figure 1.-- The Holocaust is full of incrediblke stories. Edward's story is one of them. We know that Edward was a Polish refugee. We think he is a Jewish boy, although the name does not sound Jewish or Polish, more German I think. Germany had a substantial Polish minority, which may explain the name. We know that he was separated from his parents. We do not know how. Nor do we know where they were living at the time of the war. His mother made it to America, probably before the war. Edward was in Poland when Hitler and stalin launched the War. He may have been in the Soviet-occupied zone of eastern Poland or escaped thee from the German-occupied zone. Somehow he managed to cross the Soviet Union by train and reach Japanese occupied Manchukuo and eventually Tokyo. Here he is San Francisco asfter being reunited with his mother.

The Holocaust is full of incrediblke stories. Edward's story is one of them. We know that Edward was a Polish refugee. We think he is a Jewish boy, although the name does not sound Jewish or Polish, more German I think. Germany had a substantial Polish minority, which may explain the name. We know that he was separated from his parents. We do not know how. Nor do we know where they were living at the time of the war. His mother made it to America, probably before the war. Edward was in Poland when Hitler and stalin launched the War (1939). He may have been in the Soviet-occupied zone of eastern Poland or escaped thee from the German-occupied zone. The Germans occiupied the rest of Polznd (1941). Somehow he managed to cross the Soviet Union by train and reach Japanese occupied Manchukuo and eventually Tokyo. However he managd it, it saved his life. Very few Polish Jewish boys survived the War and German occupation. We do not know know how he did it. Perhaps he got some kind of visa like those issued by Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara in Lithuania. And the Japanese Foreign Ministry allowed American Jews toaid Jewish refugees who made it to Japan. We have some details about this in our Japanese Holocaust page. This of course ended when the Jpanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Or perhaps because he was a boy, Soviet and Japanese officials just did not give some attention to him. Unforttunately we do not have all these details--just how he got to San Francisco. All we know for sure about Edward is the caption with this press photo, "Japan ato the U.S. by Bike and Boat: When Edward Finder, a 12year-old refuge who fled across Russia from Poland, started out from Japan to join his mother in san Francisco, he rode his bicycle to a Kobe dock and clambered board the 'SS. Presiudent Taft'. He didn't bother about such formalities as a visa. Now he's joined his mother and she has appealed to Washington to halt deportation action against the boy." The photograph is dated April 24, 1941. Americans readinf bout Edward at the time had not deagat was happening in occpied Poland or what would have been Edward's fate had he not escaped.

Created: 12:37 AM 10/30/2015
Last updated: 12:37 AM 10/30/2015