Abraham Kaufman

Abraham Josevich Kaufman (Абрам Иосифович Кауфман, b. November 22, 1885 – d. March 25, 1971) was a Russian-born medical doctor, community organizer and Zionist who helped protect some tens of thousands of Jews seeking safe-haven in East Asia from Nazi atrocities during World War II.

[7] By 1942, a great number of Jews had sought refuge in Japan from Eastern Europe, settling in Kobe before being moved to the Shanghai Ghetto in China.

As early as 1941, the local Gestapo chief Josef Meisinger (The Butcher of Warsaw) visited the ghetto, and proposed plans to exterminate its Jewish population.

[8] Ultimately, Kaufman succeeded and Meisinger's schemes were rejected by Tokyo, but not before the doctor along with seven other Jewish community leaders were arrested, imprisoned, and maltreated by the Kempeitai (Japanese military police) as traitors for accusing Japan of plotting genocide.

To celebrate the end of the war a short time later on August 21, the Soviets held a formal reception to which they invited the many minority leaders of the city, including Dr. Kaufman.

The Soviets then kidnapped him along with two of his colleagues, Anatoly Grigorievich Orlovsky (Анатолий Григорьевич Орловский), and Moses Gdalievich Zimin (Моисей Гдальевич Зимин)).

Kaufman's former college roommate had been another notable Zionist, Chaim Weizmann, and a passport to Palestine was immediately issued for the doctor, but the Soviets refused to release him.