Leon Zettel wore this jumper as he hid from the Nazis in a secret apartment to escape death in a concentration camp before sailing to freedom in Australia. Picture: Sydney Jewish Museum.

For 38 families who escaped Hitler’s death camps, it was the documents crafted by an obscure and disobedient Japanese diplomat that allowed them to escape Nazi occupied Europe for freedom.

The owner of the tea set did not escape and died with her parents in a concentration camp, but her sister survived and made it to Sydney after the war’s end.

These items and others which tell the incredible stories of survival by Jewish people who ended up in Australia are part of a new exhibition at the Sydney Jewish Museum.

Mr Zettel, the boy with the jumper, wore it from August 1939 while he hid in the Warsaw apartment of family friends, Maria and Adam Twardowski.

Leon Zettel wore this jumper as he hid from the Nazis in a secret apartment to escape death in a concentration camp before sailing to freedom in Australia. Picture: Sydney Jewish Museum.Source:Supplied

In Australia Leon Zettel married, had children and lived until 2012.Source:Supplied

Leon Zettel aboard Ville D’Amiens en route to Australia in 1947. Picture: Sydney Jewish MuseumSource:Supplied

In mid-1942, the Nazis had embarked on a secret operation for the mass extermination of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto, where they were terrorised in daily roundups, marched to the train station and sent to their death in Treblinka camp.

The Twardowskis arranged for a friend to hide Leon on a farm outside Warsaw, where he remained until he was liberated by the Russian Army in 1945.

In 1947, a teenage Mr Zettel boarded the ship Ville D’Amiens in Marseilles and set sail for Sydney.

He married and had two children, Rosanna and Harry, and did aged in his 80s, in 2012.

The museum has put the jumper cherished by Mr Zettel as a reminder of the people who saved him on show in “I Am My Brother’s Keeper Honouring the Righteous Among the Nations”.

The exhibition, which celebrates ordinary heroes who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust, is also showcasing the role played by Chiune “Sempo” Sugihara.

Transit visa issued by Sempo Sugihara to Jakob and Tola Sapir and their four-year-old son Piotr, in lieu of passports, allowing the family to travel safely through Japan. Picture: Sydney Jewish MuseumSource:Supplied

Risking his career and his family’s lives, Sempo Sugihara disobeyed his superiors to issue the documents for Jewish families.Source:Supplied

The transit visas enabled those who could not get passports to escape Nazi-occupied Europe to travel to Japanese territory, from where they could make it to a free country.Source:Supplied

An obscure Japanese diplomat who served as a Vice-Consul in Lithuania, Sugihara saved the lives of thousands of Jewish families and dozens who made it to Australia.

In direct opposition to his superiors, and risking his career and his family’s lives, Sugihara issued 6000 transit visas to Jewish men and women.

It enabled those who could not get passports to escape Nazi-occupied Europe to travel to Japanese territory, from where they could make it to a free country.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has estimated that around 40,000 descendants of Jewish refugees are alive today because of Sugihara’s actions.

The van As are another family profiled in the exhibition.

The Willow Pattern tea set played with by Vera Matteman in Holland, who later died in the Holocaust with her parents. Picture: Sydney Jewish MuseumSource:Supplied

Rosanna Zettel, daughter of Holocaust survivor Leon Zettel, at the Sydney Jewish Museum.Source:Supplied

Adrianus van As, served as the director of distribution office of the Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands.

He was able to save hundreds of his Jewish workers and their families by erasing their names from the camp deportation lists.

On April 8, 1945, van As contacted the approaching Canadian forces and advised them not to attack the camp as its prisoners were Jews.

In 1953, he and his family moved to Australia and settled in Sydney. Today, his son, the Reverend Adrian van As lives in Sydney.

A classic blue Willow Pattern tea set played with by a little Jewish girl Vera Matteman in Holland, who later died in the Holocaust is part of the exhibition.

Vera and her parents were being sheltered by one family who were betrayed, and the three were deported to the east and murdered.

Her little sister, Greta, stayed with two families, and in 1947 was sent to live with her only surviving relative, her mother’s brother, in Australia.

I Am My Brother’s Keeper Honouring the Righteous Among the Nations is on exhibition at the Sydney Jewish Museum, 148 Darlinghurst Rd, Darlinghurst NSW 2010.

candace.sutton@news.com.au