Last train out of Prague – 1939
Escaping in the last minute. March 15th 1939 was another nail in the coffin for pre-war Europe. This was another event, warn...
February 16, 2020
Passport & Wehrpass
Much has been written and said about the infamous German passports specially issued for Jews, marked with a large J...
SS officer who never stood on trial
1948 post-war issued passport to a former SS Standartenführer. Today it has become a known fact that many former SS and Nazi party members avoided trial and imprisonment after the war. Majority of them lived in relatively safe and calm conditions around the world: Canada,...
1940 life-saving Italian visa
Issued for Lodz Ghetto resident. Much has been written about the courageous diplomats that during World War Two saved thousands of Jewish lives by issuing them life-saving visas. The list of these fantastic individuals is getting longer and longer and we are discovering more and...
J stamped German passport from Poland
1938 Krakau issue for a young Jewish teenager. 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...
1950 Superb AMG Stateless passport
Allied Military Government travel document.Towards the end of World War Two the allied forces liberated areas that were originally under Axis rule, starting with northern Africa, moving on to Sicily, Italy France and ending with Germany (on the European continent). ...
Romania and the Holocaust
1944 special travel-permit for a Jew. When one tries to learn about the Holocaust in Europe, there is a clear distinction that has to be made between Axis satellites and states that were entirely dependent on the support from Germany, the occupied territories under the...
1944 Swiss refugee ID
Late war issue for a Jewish woman. When we think of Switzerland the images of good chocolate or cheese comes to mind. The country is well known for its delicacies and amazingly breathtaking scenery. These days when I go into the supermarket or the local...
WWII Polish emergency passports
The issuing of passports during the first two months of the war in 1939. One of my passions in collecting passports & travel documents is to the period of the outbreak of the Second World War. But to understand clearly what is the difference between...
Two German stenotypists in war-time Shanghai
One was Jewish and the other an Aryan. When collecting old passports, one makes a point to check every letter and annotation inside the document. Trying to learn more abou...