L. P. J. de Decker

Dutch Ambassador to the Baltic States, 1940

Ambassador L. P. J. de Decker resided in Riga, Latvia. De Decker authorized honorary Dutch consul in Kovno, Lithuania Jan Zwartendijk to issue end visas to stranded Polish refugees in Lithuania. The end visa was for the Dutch islands of Surinam and Curacao in the Caribbean. This was a ruse to allow Jews to escape from Soviet occupied Lithuania, because an entry visa was not necessary to land in the Dutch possessions. Thousands of Jews thus escaped the Nazi Holocaust.