Lot 398
Passport Issued by the Government of Palestine – With Inked Stamps Documenting Return Trip to Poland at Time of Conquest by Nazi Germany – 1939-40
Passport Issued by the British Mandatory authorities in Palestine. Isued to a Jewish woman who used it for her journey to Poland and back, from August 1939 to March 1940.
The passport photograph, personal details, and signature of the bearer – Faiga Przygoda – appear on the first pages of the passport. According to the details given, Przygoda was born in Plonsk, Poland, in 1918, and resided in Tel Aviv; her occupation is listed as "milliner." Appearing on the following pages are inked stamps and permits documenting her journey: Przygoda is certified to have departed via the Port of Tel Aviv in August of 1939, and entered Romania via the Port of Constanța (on the shores of the Black Sea); from there, she reached Poland on August 26, 1939, five days before the outbreak of the Second World War.
The following inked stamps were applied after the map of Europe was fundamentally altered. These include a stamp of the Nazi German authorities then occupying Warsaw, with a notation dated January 16, 1940; a stamp of the German border police from February, 1940; a Nazi German exit permit issued in the city of Lublin; a permit from the Fascist regime in Italy allowing entry into that country; an exit stamp from Germany via the border crossing at Arnoldstein (Austria); and an exit stamp from the Port of Trieste dated March 1, 1940. The last stamp on the passport, dated March 7, 1940, is an entry stamp into British Mandatory Palestine, issued at the Port of Haifa.
32 pp., 15 cm. Good condition. Stains. Few blemishes. Binding slightly worn.
