Escaping via Spain

 

J stamped German passport from 1941.

 

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 earliest sample that I have seen bearing the large J in a passport dates from October 11^th 1938, 6 days after the above mentioned request, when the passport was issued on September 21^st). 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 (from studying passports with such markings, in some cases, rare, the holder was exempt from the additional “private” name, this could have been the case when the holders had some influence or position in the community or, putting it bluntly, they “bought” such exemption from the authorities: one such example is a 1939 German passport that though has the added large J at front, it did not have the additional ISRAEL added to the name, another sample is that of a December 1938 passport that was used in 1939 and has NO name and No large J as well!). 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.

 

Another important aspect of such issued passports is the examination of the routes that the holders took, or chose, for their escape: mainly due to location and means, their routes where restricted and very limited. Many German J stamped passports where used to escape via sea, from Hamburg, and sail to British Palestine, the UK, US, South America and the Far East. Other examples used to escape include the option of transiting via western European countries on their route to the United Kingdom: transiting through Holland & France. Passports where also used for transiting through Italy, by train, entering via the Brenner pass up north, exiting via Arnoldstein, on the German side and boarding a boat at Genoa or Trieste once in Italy.

 

The passport here is interesting because of the period it was used at and the specific route chosen, mainly because after June 10^th of 1940, many escape options where limited: this was the date that Italy declared war on both France & Britain. The passport was used to escape via occupied France and neighboring Spain, not a common route at all, but during the time was one of the few that still remained possible, for those lucky ones that had the means and visas to travel out of Nazi occupied Europe (between 1939 to 1942 approximately 35,000 German & Austrian Jews fled via Spain; 15,000 done so illegally without the proper visas or documentation).

 

Passport number II/2600/40/Z was issued to Dr. Louis Mottek on January 23^rd 1941 at Berlin. On-line information can reveal to us that Dr. Mottek had a pharmacy that was founded in 1903 and liquidated in 1938 (located at Rathenower Strasse 26 (Tiergarten)).

 

The passport has two German exit visas, one from April 30^th with destination for the US via Switzerland, cancelled and another visa issued on June 3^rd the same year, without final destination but only an exit point, marked as Hargarten-Falck (French border town, close to Belgium). Exiting out of Germany was possible once a destination visa was applied in the passport in advance, in Louis’s case, a US immigration quota visa (4206) issued at the Berlin consular section of the American embassy a day after his passport was issued. On the same date that he received his second exit visa, we can see on page 4 that his passport was permitted to leave the country for Spain.

 

Spanish transit visa number 3201 was issued at Berlin on June 4 by Spanish consul David Carreño González-Pumariega (1888-1978), some brief points about this diplomat:

 

• First posting to Berlin from 1930 to 1937;
• Second posting from 1937 (after his activities were suspended due to the civil war, and after extensive internal investigation, he was permitted to resume his services at the foreign ministry) lasting to 1941 (1940 became consul at Berlin);
• Married to a German local and had 4 children.

 

The issuing of Spanish transit visas were done under strict conditions and exhausting verifications and procedures that the holders had to undertake in order to obtain them and having stamped inside their passports. As mentioned earlier, the issuing of such visas lasted until October of 1941, the period where the Germans prevented the exiting of Jews from their areas of control.

 

 

The desired visas were issued under strict and tight conditions:

 

 

• Direct visas without delay or stopping where issued;
• Traveling through Vichy France required a French transit visa as well;
• Compulsory route across Spain from the entry point to the exit point;
• Spanish exchange regulations were imposed as well, where amounts owned where needed to be declared and deposited prior to leaving Germany;
• Final destination tickets where needed to be obtained prior to the application of the Spanish visa, without such a final-destination ticket or proof, no transit visa was issued;

 

 

Each visa applicant was thoroughly checked and verified by the authorities in the Spanish capital.

 

 

Arriving into Spain could have been done via two options:

 

 

1. Travelling through Vichy France – French transit visas were a must – entering Spain at Banyuls sur Mer or Cerbere Portbou;
2. Travelling through German controlled French areas and thus exiting through the ONLY possible French (German) Spanish border crossing at Hendaye;

 

 

Louis exited Germany proper on June 12^th or the 13^th 1940 via the German-French train border-crossing of Hargarten-Falck, and from there, he continued via German controlled France to the north-western Spanish border point of Irún, exiting from Hendaye (this was also the famed location for where Franco met Hitler on October 23^rd 1940, known as Meeting at Hendaye).

 

 

He declared the sum of USD$4 at the customs upon entry and the amount was deposited the following day at the Spanish Central Bank.

 

 

Since his final destination in Spain was the port city of Barcelona, where he was suppose to sail to the US not later than June 21^st, he had to take the long and compulsory pre-designated route west-to-east:   Irún-San Sebastián-Zaragoza-Barcelona. On June 16th Louis was in Barcelona where he got the confirmation of his journey from the maritime agent from Barcelona to New York (inside back cover stamp). On June 20th Police checked his passport (p. 13) and finally he departed for the US the next day on board the Villa de Madrid cruise ship (p. 14). The original trip was set up from Barcelona to Lisbon via Gibraltar and then to New York.

 

Not all were lucky enough to escape even after war broke out. Those remaining under German control later on where horrifically murdered at various locations on the continent in what would later be known as the Holocaust and the implantation of the German diabolical plan termed “Final Solution“.

 

I personally would like to thank my friend collector from Spain, Félix Álvarez, who contributed to this article with his vast experience.

 

 

Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.