US stateless travel document

 

Manila issue from 1941.

 

 

The document in this article is another remarkable testimony to the events that took place close to 80 years ago, during World War II.

 

What makes the set of papers here unique and important to the study of the past is the connection they can make between places separated by thousands of miles away from each other. A connection made starting from Europe, continuing with the Pacific, and ending up in the United States, the safe haven for the user of the documents here.

 

It seems that the holder of the travel document here started her journey much earlier, being issued most likely a different set of papers at the start of her travels, a German passport that maybe have been issued with the large red J on its title page.

 

Much has been written and said about the infamous German passports specially issued for Jews, marked with a large J at the top-left corner of the first page that came out following a Swiss request from October 5^th. The issuing of such passports lasted until the second half of 1941, October, when the German authorities stopped issuing Jews with passports as a means of encouraging and enforcing immigration. Towards the end of that year the decision to annihilate Europe’s Jews was taken.

 

Besides adding the large J at the top of each title page to a passport that was issued to a Jew, the addition of the name Israel was added to a male and Sara to a female. This began to appear around January of 1939. All these means were done in order to enable other countries to recognize when a Jews was trying to enter the country or apply for a visa at a consulate.

 

Adele Bertha Levey aged 55 was originally a German Jewish woman, now a widow, who may have found refuge, at first, in the Philippines, arriving there earlier with a passport issued at her home town of Hannover, probably around 1938, but this is only guessing and by assuming that the exit from her home country was done at the height of the persecution (only by locating official papers we could determine the actual date of travel). She may have arrived much earlier, with a passport without the red J or even later, the last-minute escape around 1940 or later.

 

But one thing for sure was that she was again determine to continue her journey and find a better place for living safely, and when we read carefully her papers we can assume that she decided to go to the US, she may have had family there as well, this would have better then easier for her to apply for the desired entry visa, since by then the US was having strict immigration policies that practically sealed the fate of many other by closing shut her gates.

 

Adele here was trying to reach her loved children in California.

 

United States “Affidavit in leu of a national passport” was issued to her on October 27^th, 1941 by passport agent E.C. Ross in Manila, who as assistant chief clerk and passport agent since 1938.

 

The desired US visa, No.1150, was issued by Erich W.A. Hoffmann, vice-consul on the Island, on November 10th, under section 6 (a) (1), seems to be related to immigrant quotas issued to refugees and family members.

 

Adele was able to leave Manila on November 25^th via boat, the S.S. President Coolidge – a troopship from December 1941-October 1942, sunk by mines in Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides. She has a brief stop in Hawaii on December 17^th, reaching the US on the 30^th.

 

 

Have added images of this set.

 

 

 

Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.