Each time, the answer was no.
In July 1940, Jewish refugees from Poland began gathering at the gate of the Japanese consulate in Kaunas. About 15,000 Polish Jews had fled into Lithuania, and now the Soviet Union was taking the country over.
They had found one way out. The Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao required no entry visa. To get there, they had to cross the Soviet Union and pass through Japan, and for that they needed a Japanese transit visa.
Tokyo's rule was clear: no transit visa without a visa for the final destination and proof of money, without exception. Many of the people at the gate had neither.