The Soviet Union

 The Soviet Union had just taken over Lithuania, and fear spread quickly among the thousands of Jewish refugees who had fled from Poland the year before. They were terrified. Not only were they in danger because they were Jewish, but many of them were young men who might be forced to join the Soviet army. Desperate to escape, they soon found help from someone they never expected.

Jan Zwartendijk was a Dutch manager for Philips Electronics, running the office in Kaunas. Just two months earlier, he had also been made the temporary consul for the Dutch government, replacing a man who supported the Nazis. Zwartendijk had lived in Germany in the 1930s and knew how dangerous it was for Jews. He discovered that no official papers were needed to enter the Dutch island of Curaçao in the Caribbean. So, he started writing “visas” that said people could travel there without needing extra documents. He handed out over 2,000 of these notes, which were copied and reused to help 6,000 to 10,000 people escape. Most of the refugees didn’t even know his name — they just called him “Mr. Philips Radio.”

With those papers in hand, the refugees went to Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, who created an unexpected route out of Lithuania — through Japan and beyond. For less than two weeks, Zwartendijk and Sugihara worked non-stop to hand out the life-saving visas.

Both men were very brave. Zwartendijk had a happy life — he was married with three kids and expected his new role as consul would be simple, maybe helping a few Dutch travelers. Sugihara also had a peaceful life with his family. But they both risked everything. Their offices were only a few blocks apart, and though they never met in person, they stayed in contact.

One day, Soviet police noticed long lines forming outside Zwartendijk’s Philips office, where he worked as consul. One Russian officer warned him that he was causing problems. Zwartendijk quickly offered the officer a Philishave — a new electric razor made by Philips. After a quick demonstration, the officer was impressed and called it a “miracle,” letting Zwartendijk continue his work.

Today, Sugihara is more widely known for his heroic actions, but Zwartendijk’s story is still mostly hidden. When he returned to Nazi-occupied Netherlands later in 1940, he had to keep quiet about what he had done. Even years after the war, when the horrors of the Holocaust were widely known, Zwartendijk was never celebrated. In fact, in 1964, the Dutch government scolded him when a newspaper mentioned the mysterious “Angel of Curaçao.”

The saddest part? Zwartendijk never knew that he had actually saved lives. He feared that most of the people he helped had died. “He must have believed he had sent them to their deaths,” his son said. But in 1976, researchers found that 95% of the Jewish refugees who had his papers survived the war. That news reached the Zwartendijk family the day after Jan’s funeral.

Neither Zwartendijk nor Sugihara ever received the level of fame or praise that Oskar Schindler did — even though Schindler saved fewer people. When director Steven Spielberg learned about Zwartendijk in 2018, he said if he had known this story sooner, he would have made that movie instead of Schindler’s List.