A cosmetician’s travels around the world

 

1938 passport used for Shanghai.

 

What makes a passport rare and unique at times is the location & period it was issued at.    During times of conflict the issuing of a visa or passport is extremely difficult so the chance of locating such a travel document is very difficult. I do believe that the item here, which some of the visas issued inside make it a unique and odd bird indeed. First, its holder was living at the time in Hawaii and second, his choice of travel locations where uncommon at the time, the late 1930’s and awfully close to the outbreak of WWII.

 

This document is extra special because of the visas inside:

 

French visa issued in Hawaii.

Japanese visa from Honolulu.

Chinese visa also issued in Honolulu.

German transit visa from China, Shanghai.

Belgium visa from Shanghai.

Czechoslovakian visa from China as well.

 

We find here a unique Polish passport issued to a “cosmetician”, something that I personally find unlikely due to the fact that all his passports that would follow this one here, issued in 1945 & 1950 were used to travel to nearly every corner of the world. A cosmetician or barber is not a profession that would enable an individual to afford such travel and spend months abroad. After years of collecting & researching old passports, my gut feeling clearly tells me here that this is not the case, this is surely not a common person travelling just for leisure. I am convinced, and still researching this, that he was an undercover agent, first, for the Polish intelligence then later for the US, maybe OSS or CIA, using his American passports later during the Cold War.

 

Polish passport number 136/4/38 issued at Chicago on July 21^st, 1938 to Henryk Banaszak aged 35, place or residence is Honolulu, on the Island of Hawaii. The passport was extended at the same Polish consulate 3 years later.

 

Henryk obtained several transit visas from his place of residence, Honolulu, in 1939, for his prepared journey east, to China and the port city of Shanghai. During the month of December, he received visas from the French, Japanese & Chinese consulates. These endorsements from such a location alone make the document here a rarity.

 

Online research indicated that Henryk boarded the “Empress of Canada” on January 13^th for the Far East. His passport Shanghai issued visas date for the beginning of February of that year, transit visas for Europe on his journey back home, the US.

 

His date of entry into Japan is not that legible, but one can see the month of January, so he entered at Kanagawa (神奈川県), using his original visa issued to him by Japanese consul general in Honolulu (ホノルル) Mizusawa Ko-sakuand (水澤孝策), from there moved to Shanghai, also via sea. In the city he received his German visa from the consular secretary Werner Meyer, who served in Shanghai between December 1937 and August 1943. The Belgium visa is also intriguing, still research on this diplomat, and the one from the Czechoslovakian consulate is even more rare, not common at all, issued on February 22^nd by Jaroslav Štěpán.

 

An important note: His passport is endorsed by the Polish chargé d’affaires in the city Andrzej Bohomolec who was only active for less than a year in the Far East, returning back to Europe and joining the Polish Armed Forces in France the following year.

 

Once leaving China, via boat, going through the ports of Hong Kong (February 25^th), Colombo (March 6^th) and Bombay 3 days later, reaching Italy on the 17^th, crossing the Brenner border six days later int Germany and from there into his home country of Poland the same day. He remained for close to 2 months, meeting family we can presume and maybe his operatives, and crossing again into Nazi Germany on May 25^th via the border crossing point of Zbąszyń, and once reaching the western border, entered Belgium via the following day visa the crossings at Herbesthal and from there into France. From the continent he traveled via boat to the UK in September, and leaving to Newhaven from Southampton on the 8^th, reaching New York 8 days later.

 

Further research is needed to learn more about this individual.

 

Hope you enjoy the images.

 

 

Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.