Avoided execution in 1941
Soviet commissar evacuated in time. History is full of deceits, ploys and back-stabbing, and in my opinion, the one that Hitler committed on to his ally, Stalin, wou...
Pre-war Polish service passport
Issued in 1936 for official consular service in Nazi Germany. Warsaw issued to a consulate official named Alfred Matuszewski – who was stationed at the Polish consulate at Schneidemuhl (Polish named Piła) close to the German-Polish border. Before 1945 the town was in German territory. The passport was ...
Former Russian land issued passport
New Second Republic issued document. One of the major outcomes of the First World War was the transformation it had on the old world order and the changes it brought: The world that entered into that war back in 1914 was not the same one when it ended in 1918. Most si...
Important short-lived WWII related visa
1939 visa issued at the city of Vilnius....
1934 Soviet passport
Issued for immigration to British Palestine. Among the rare passports are those that were issued by the Soviet Union during the 1920's and 1930's, especially those issued for Jewish immigration to Palestine: The Communist authorities did not see kindly to the Zionist movement which they deemed as "counter revolutionary". ...
1936 Bulgarian service passport
Two interesting visas issued inside. Another passport that surfaced recently, and at first glance seemed to be a simple and innocent looking sample, concealed inside at the end valuable information when it comes to visas and their usage inside a passport. These subtle and little crumbs that are laced inside each document, at times, can lead to a surprising find and enrich our understanding not only of the document, but to profound events in history, and in this case to the i...
The Spiegel family saga
Internment at Mauritius Island during the war. This is the story of a Jewish family that was caught in Austria of 1938, following Hitler's ...
British Mandate internment camps permit
WW2 civilian internment camp. Even though the items in this article cannot be classified as travel documents, they are important and interesting enough to add images of them and explore the story behind them. During the war, each side, be it allied or axis, established c...
Straits Settlements
An exceptionally rare colonial passport from 1940....
Returning back to Harbin
French passport used for Manchuria. The Japanese occupation of North-Eastern China (1931 to 1945), a territory know in the mainland as Dong Bei (东北), has always interested me ...