Not a passport - ID document - IRO
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  • UNRRA ID document
  • IRO ID document WW2
  • IRO ID document WW2
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August 9, 2019
in Articles, Holocaust, WWII
by Neil
0 Comments

UNRRA ID document

 

International Refugee Organization issue.

 

This is not a passport or an official travel document but it was used together with an issued passport or travel papers when moving in liberated Europe.

 

After the end of World War Two, United Nations personnel or affiliated members of related organizations, working in relief and rescue efforts, spread out throughout the various countries, be it in the west or eastern part of Europe. The war ended with thousands and even millions of dispersed people, refugees from all religions and origins, who were in need of assistance: their homes were destroyed and they had no means of income. The newly founded UN took the task of aiding all those who were now desperate.

 

One such organization was the IRO, International Refugee Organization, which ran camps all over the continent, even reaching the Far East: refugee and DP (Displaced) camps where located in Shanghai, the Philippines and even occupied Japan.

 

The document here is rather interesting, not only because it was an official IRO identity document, but because of the holders PROFESSION: Stefanie Kirschbaum was an Immigration Officer working at the IRO refugee camps in liberated Austria, Austrian Mission connected to the UNRRA HQ and a member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine (JAFP): the un-official Jewish head of “government” for the Jewish people of British Palestine, this body would change its name after May 14th 1948 to the Government of Israel. At her capacity she was in charge of all cases related to the issuing of travel certificates and permits for those requesting to immigrate to the Mandate, of course without exceeding the limited immigration quota that the British put in force every year (the British, in order to prevent ‘instability’ in their Middle Eastern Levant colony, not to upset the Arab population, limited the amount of Jewish immigrants who were permitted to enter the country, this quota was put in force already in the late 1930’s, a move that also sealed the fate of European Jews, who perished in the German death camps because they were denied immigration rights, a move that could have saved many).

 

A lovely document with strong connections to WWII and its aftermath.

Enjoy the images.

 

 

Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.

 

 

Neil Kaplan
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