1940 escaping Europe passport - Sugihara issued visa

**huddyhuddy** · 03-02-2013, 03:03 PM

Nice info! seems books can always be written on this historic subject!
Thanks!

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 03-02-2013 03:03 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**huddyhuddy** · 03-02-2013, 03:09 PM

Any way to locate information on one of the Polish embassy's staff members who was deported to Shanghai at the end of 1941?
I attached an image of a document with his name on it...

**StefanM** · 03-02-2013, 03:23 PM

by huddyhuddy

Any way to locate information on one of the Polish embassy's staff members who was deported to Shanghai at the end of 1941?
I attached an image of a document with his name on it...

Contact:
Dr. Andrzej Suchcitz
Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum
20 Prince's Gate, London, SW7 1PT, United Kingdom
020 7589 9249

They should be able to help as they hold all of the Polish government archives from WWII. They do not use email so you will have to write and because the Institute is run by volunteer staff it will take some time but they will reply.

**huddyhuddy** · 03-02-2013, 03:26 PM

Thanks for the info and update.
Hope you enjoy your weekend and happy Easter!

**StefanM** · 03-02-2013, 08:06 PM

To continue with the theme.

A rare postcard/letter (not in my collection) dated 24 June 1941 from the Warsaw Ghetto sent to HICEM in Shanghai requesting assistance to be sent to a list of 15 Polish Jews living in the ghetto. It lists the persons' names and their addresses in the "Jewish Residential District" and the cover is overstamped with "Judenrat Warschau" mark and was to be sent to Shanghai via Soviet Siberia.

1940 escaping Europe passport - Sugihara issued visa

HICEM

HICEM was created in 1927 through the merger of three organizations: HIAS (United States Hebrew Sheltering & Immigrant Aid Society; ICA (Jewish Colonisation Association), which was based in Paris and registered as a British charitable society; and EMIG-Direct, a migration organisation based in Berlin. Its primary purpose was to act as an information and assistance center for Jews emigrating from Europe. EMIG-Direct was forced to withdraw in 1934 after the Nazi takeover. After the war began, ICA was restricted by the British government from using its funds outside of Britain. Accordingly, HIAS became the principal support for the organization.

HICEM's European headquarters was in Paris, but after the Germany's occupation of France, the offices were moved to Lisbon. Between June, 1940, and the end of 1941, about 25,000 persons were assisted by HICEM in leaving Europe through Lisbon, Casablanca, and Marseilles. In 1945, HICEM was dissolved and its operations transferred to HIAS.

HIA/HICEM functioned in Shanghai until 1950, helping refugees who had escaped eastward from Nazi-occupied Europe to immigrate to Australia, the Americas, and Europe.

Shanghai became a seemingly welcome refuge for Jews fleeing Europe because no entry visas were required to live in the city unlike the restrictions on Jewish immigration to the US which was sharply curtailed to prevent a mass influx of European Jews fleeing the Nazis from entering the US. Similar restrictions were imposed by the British government both in Great Britain itself and the British protectorate of Palestine. Although Shanghai became a safe haven at first the establishment of the "Shanghai Ghetto" in 1942 or as it formally became known as the "Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees" in 1943 by the occupying Japanese forces, conditions for the Jews rapidly deteriorated as the Nazis stepped up pressure on Japan to hand over the Shanghai Jews... for extermination.

**huddyhuddy** · 03-02-2013, 08:20 PM

It's fascinating reading such interesting material though the time and subject is sad and tragic.
I added sample images of a passport used to escape Germany, arriving in Shanghai...