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.

Deutches Reich Reisepass, a passport issued in Nazi Germany for a Jewish woman. Würzburg: August, 1939 (stamps dated to October-November, 1939).
First pages contain the personal details of the bearer of the passport, Karola Neumann of Würzburg; two identifying marks were added in order to mark out the bearer of the passport as a Jew: the letter J, stamped on the first page, and the name "Sara, " which was consistently added to her given name throughout the document.
The stamps in the passport document Karola's journey to Palestine, on which she embarked after the beginning of the war. The passport contains: two German exit visas (the earlier one with a cancellation stamp); entry visa to Italy, with mention of the "Galilea, " the ship on board which Karola was meant to cross the Mediterranean to Palestine; stamps from the border crossing between Germany and Italy, dated 14 November, 1939; British entry visa to Palestine (issued by the consulate in Rome), and an entry stamp from the Haifa Port, dated 21 November, 1939.
32 pp., 16.5 cm. Good-fair condition. Stains and creases. Marginal tears (some open), repaired. Missing cover (leaves re-bound with thread).
Provenance: The Rimon Family Collection.

Collection of letters and documents belonging to a Jewish-Lithuanian refugee. Lithuania, Switzerland and Palestine. 1937-1985 (most dating to the 1930s and 1940s). Lithuanian, French, German, English and Hebrew.
The collection tells the story of the refugee Tzvi Eilat (Cvi Girsas Chvackinas) – his long journey from his native Kaunas (Kovne), through Switzerland, where he found refuge during the war, and eventually to Palestine.
Among the documents:
• Eilat's official birth certificate (Kaunas, 1937; Lithuanian). • Confirmation of graduation of a public school (Kaunas, 1939; original in Lithuanian and a French translation). • Discharge certificate from as Swiss jail (Lenzburg, northern Switzerland, 1943; German), indicating a good behavior during the period of the arrest. • Swiss "Flüchtlingsausweis" – refugee identification card (Bern, September, 1943) – containing visas, and additional personal information. • Two photo student cards of the University of Lausanne, and university confirmation of registration (Lausanne, 1944-1945; French). • Two immigration certificates, issued by HeHalutz Geneva office (July-August, 1945; German). • Notification for "comrade Tzvi" (residing in Lausanne), informing him that he was put on the list for the "third Aliyah transport, " and an itinerary for the journey on board the "Lima, " sailing from Barcelona to Palestine. • Swiss photo identification card, used as Eilat's travelling document to Palestine (Bern, August, 1945). Containing an entry visa to Palestine (August, 1945), French border stamps (August, 1945), permit to remain permanently in Palestine as an immigrant (September, 1945), entry stamp from the Haifa port, and more. • Additional documents (some later).
Approx. 20 paper items. Size and condition vary.

Approx. 120 documents: official letters, certificates, and reports, concerned with various financial matters; extensive correspondence between branches of the Nazi tax authority (Finanzamt) in different districts of Vienna, as well as in other locales, and other official organizations: the "State Food Society" (Reichsnährstand), the "Reich Flight Tax Office" (Reichsfluchtsteuerstelle), which was in charged with looting the financial assets of Jewish emigrants, the "German Labour Front" (Die Deutsche Arbeitsfront), office of the Higher Regional Court in Vienna (Oberlandesgerichtpräsident in Wien), Vienna State Opera, National Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna, and more. Nazi Austria and Germany, 1930s to mid-1940s. German.
Letters typewritten on official stationery with letterheads of various Nazi organizations, bearing many handwritten remarks, inked stamps and signatures of Nazi officials and clerks.
The items in the present collection provide a fascinating insight into the workings of Nazi bureaucracy in Germany and Austria: the Aryanization of Jewish property, the collection of the "Reich Flight Tax, " which particularly targeted Jews seeking to escape Nazi Germany, writs of execution against several Jews (in accordance with the law, given names of Jewish men and women appearing on official documents are supplemented with the names "Israel" and "Sara", respectively) – All testify to the bureaucratized robbery of Jewish assets, concealed under a legal guise.
The majority of the collection comprises annual tax statements, payslips detailing salaries and deductions, pensions and stipends, paid to Austrian and German clerks, soldiers, disabled veterans, musicians, and others; employment certificates issued by various Nazi institutions; correspondence relating to industrial production for the war effort; various administrative requests exchanged between different governmental bodies, many of which by the "German Labour Front, " and more.
Included:
• Document sent by the Brigittenau district tax office in Vienna, to the Mariahilf district tax office, regarding a writ of execution against the Jewish woman Elisabeth Sara Steiner (29.5.1941).
• Document sent from Gänserndorf in Gau Niederdonau, to the tax office in Mistelbach – approval of submission of a tax statement by three Jewish individuals: Malvine, Siegfried and Julie Peschkes (18.11.1938).
• Form sent from the Neubau district authority in Vienna to the Lemberg (Lviv) tax office, requesting administrative assistance in collecting a debt from the Jews Irma (Sara) and Erwin Hopmeier (21.11.1941).
• Request for payment issued by the Mariahilf district tax office to the Jew Gustav Israel Holzer; payment required for the purpose of cancellation of a standing foreclosure order (1.12.1941).
• Document sent by the Vermögensverkehrsstelle in Vienna – the authority overseeing the Aryanization of Jewish property – to the tax office in Mariahilf, confirming the Aryanization of the company B. Wolkenstein (28.1.1941).
• Letter sent by the authority overseeing the Aryanization of Jewish property in the Ministry for Economy and Labour (Vermögungsverkehrsstelle im Ministerium für Wirtschaft und Arbeit), sent to the Neubau tax office, with regards to the Jewish woman Bortcza Herzl (this name appears in a list of victims of Aryanization published in the book "Das Dreieck meiner Kindheit", Vienna, 2008. p. 216.)
• Document issued by the Air Force command (Flugplatzkommando A 21/XVI) in Brünn (Brno) detailing annual salary payments made to colonel Rudolf Prochaska. Prochaska is believed to have been one of the Nazi assailants who assassinated Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, during the "July Putsch" in 1934 (7.3.1944).
• Letters and documents exchanged between engineers and administrators of the "German Labour Front, " regarding the development of alternative methods for manufacturing fibers required by the arms industry (1940-1941).
• Many additional documents, issued by various governmental organizations: tax offices in different districts of Vienna, Berlin, Düsseldorf, and other cities; The Viennese police (Der Polizeipräsident in Wien, ) the Reich's administration in Vienna, and more; several financial periodicals, and other official documents.
Approx. 120 items. Size varies. Good overall condition.

"Schutzbrief" ("Protective Letter") issued by the Swiss Embassy in Budapest, Hungary, on behalf of a Jewish woman by the name of János Jaffe, and dated October 23, 1944. German and Hungarian.
This letter was printed in German and Hungarian on the official stationery of the "Schweizerische Gesandtschaft, Abteilung für fremde Interessen" (Swiss Legation, Department of Foreign Interests) managed by the diplomat Carl Lutz. It certifies that the bearer is included in a collective Swiss passport.
Carl Lutz (1895-1975), Swiss diplomat. Appointed in 1942 to serve as vice consul in charge of the "Department of Foreign Interests" in the Swiss Embassy in Hungary. Worked to expedite the emigration of Jews from Hungary, whose borders were still open at the time. Just before the occupation of Hungary by the Germans, Lutz began exercising his authority to issue "Schutzbriefe" ("Protective Letters"), thus resorting to an idea originally conceived by Moshe (Miklos) Krausz, director of the Palestine Office in Budapest. The letters granted diplomatic protection to Jews with emigration permits. Eventually, this idea of "protective letters" was adopted by other ambassadors, and enabled the rescue of large numbers of Jews. Lutz displayed extraordinary dedication in his efforts to save Jews, and refused to leave Budapest even after the siege encircling the city was tightened. He remained there, steadfast in his mission, until the conquest of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army in 1945; only then did he return to Switzerland. For all his noble efforts and achievements in rescuing Jews during the Holocaust, Israel's Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center bestowed upon him the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" in 1965.
1 f., 22.5 cm. Good-fair condition. Stains and fold lines. Minor tears to edges. Small hole at intersection of fold lines. Punch holes, mended with adhesive tape on verso.