St. Louis – “Voyage of the Damned”

 

1939 exceptional J stamped passport.

 

One of the rarest of J stamped German passports issued by Nazi Germany to Jewish individuals is the example that will appear in the article below.

 

These passports began to be issued after October 5^th, 1938, following secret talks between Berlin and Bern on a way to limit Jewish refugees from entering Switzerland. These talks began the previous month and ended “successfully” with the October decree by the Reichs Ministry of Interior and the earliest example I have located to date is from the 11^th.

 

Researching & collecting J stamped German passports is important because we can learn a lot from the types that were issued, the visas and routes used to escape Nazi Germany and also see the faces of all those who managed to leave in time before the horrific end that awaited the unlucky ones who perished in the East.

 

Passports issued abroad, consular issues, are much rarer and the example I am writing about here falls under that category, a document that was issued abroad with additional markings and stamps inside that make it a museum piece indeed.

 

Travel document No. 1362 was issued at Amsterdam on March 14^th, 1939, to 18-year-old Hans Wolfgang Selmar Philippi. Top of the title page has an interesting annotation that explains why it was issued in the first place: ” Ausgefertigt aufgrund vorgelegter Ausreistratriere” which roughly translates to: “Issued on the basis of a submitted exit certificate”.

 

The document does not have many visas and entries, BUT those that do appear inside tell a fascinating story and journey that this young man took.

 

The rubber stamps on page 7 explain clearly to anyone who examines this document where he was: young Hans was on board the infamous MS St. Louis that left the German port city of Hamburg on May 13^th for Havana, Cuba. It docked at the French port of Cherbourg 2 days later, and this date appears on page 6, meaning that he left France on the ship (2 days earlier he entered the country via the border crossing of Feignies after leaving Holland).

 

On May 27^th the vessel reached Cuba and as history records it, they were denied entry and had to sail back to Europe after the US as well prevented its passengers from finding refuge there: US Secretary of State Cordell Hull even instructed the United States Coast Guard to shadow the ship and prevent anyone trying to get off it as it reached the coast of Florida.

 

The Ship docked at the port of Antwerp on June 17^th with 908 passengers. Some were lucky, some managed to find refuge in various countries: 288 reached the UK, 224 in France, 214 in Belgium and 181 reached the Netherlands, his point of origin. As we can see inside the document, he was able to obtain a visa for Chile issued by the Chilean consulate at Rotterdam on September 15^th after war broke out. Hans reached Arica, Chile, on November 30 the same year and from further research we can learn he reached the US.

 

 

Have added images of this unique and historically important document (images are from an online archive abroad).

 

 

 

Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.