Summary of Am I Being Too Subtle?

Emigrating to the United States

Sam Zell is the son of Polish Jews who escaped the Holocaust and emigrated to the United States. His devout, highly educated parents lived in Sosnowiec, Poland, near the German border. His father, Bernard Zielonka, sold grain throughout Eastern Europe. Anti-Semitism was on the rise in Poland by 1937. To finance the family’s escape, Zell’s mother Rochelle sewed jewelry into their clothes.

The Zells settled in Vilnius, Lithuania. They couldn’t leave Europe for most destinations without visas, but Dutch-owned Curaçao – an island 8,000 miles away off the coast of Venezuela – didn’t require them. Getting there required traveling through Russia and Japan.

A group of refugees, including Bernard Zell, appealed to Chiune Sugihara, the vice consul of Japan stationed in Vilnius. Tokyo denied their visa requests, but the consul ignored his superiors and saved 6,000 Jews – now referred to as the Sugihara Survivors – by issuing transit visas through Japan.  

The Zells journeyed across the Soviet Union and arrived in Yokohama, where they lived for almost four months. After 21 months of travel through four countries...