Posted 5 years ago
huddyhuddy
(111 items)
One reads about attempts during WW2 to save Jewish civilians from deportation and certain death. Such attempts were made via issuing of life-saving-visas, fake ID's, hiding or smuggling of individuals or whole families. The document here could be considered as an attempt, that most likely did not succeed.
The passport here was prepared for a couple in December of 1939 and was signed by a Polish consul who was posted inside an area that was in the previous year part of Czechoslovakia but since then had been ceded to Hungary.
The passport holder seems to have married a Christian woman a year earlier and both were attempting possibly to flee by trying to obtain a passport were the consul indicated inside the religion of the holder as being Catholic! Polish passports are NEVER issued with the holders religion being written inside (we can find some Hungarian passports with the religion being added inside). This clearly seems to be an attempt to save the holders life, by making it obvious that he is not Jewish and thus avoid persecution.
Sadly, I do not believe the passport was issued at the end because it lacks the Polish consular stamps inside and the holders signatures as well.
On-line records indicate that during the same period the passport was being prepared, the winter of 1939-40 was the deadliest for the Jewish non-Hungarian population in that area: they were deported to occupied Poland.
A reminder of the actions of some that tried to make a difference...
