Stefan Jan Ryniewicz (26 December 1903 – 9 March 1988[1]) was a Polish diplomat and counselor of the Legation of Poland in Bern between 1940 and 1945.

Ryniewicz and his subordinates Konstanty Rokicki and Juliusz Kühl are supposed to have invented the Latin American passport scheme – a way to rescue Jews stranded in the ghettoes in German-occupied Poland.

They successfully convinced Jewish leaders from Switzerland – Abraham Silberschein and Chaim Eiss to finance the operation.

[4] According to journalists Zbigniew Parafianowicz and Michał Potocki, the German authorities did not investigate the operation until they had intercepted the last packet of forged passports following the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Although Rothmund underlined his strongly negative attitude to the operation in an interview with Ryniewicz ("I have very energetically explained to him the dangerousness and untenability of passport maneuvers.

[9] In early 1944, the Germans deported most of the holders of Paraguayan passports from the internment camp in Vittel to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were murdered.

After a long hesitation Salvador and Paraguay responded positively to this request, which was probably crucial for rescuing hundreds of passport holders who were still in the Bergen-Belsen internment camp.

The participation of Ryniewicz and Rokicki in the operation was only proven in August 2017 by the journalists of Dziennik Gazeta Prawna (Poland) and The Globe and Mail (Canada).

Ryniewicz died in Buenos Aires on 9 March 1988 and was buried in the cemetery in Boulogne Sur Mer.

[12] The decision sparked outrage and frustration among the family members of the two other late Polish diplomats, and among survivors.