1940 Slovakian refugee passport

Important 1940 Slovakian temporary passport issued to a Jewish family who fled Poland in 1939 and arrived at Bratislava (refugee transit center at the beginning of the war). The document was issued for the sole purpose of immigrating out of the country, possibly to British Palestine. The boat S/S "Pentchu" was shipwrecked off the Island of Samos in May 1940 and survivors interned at the Italian occupied Island of Rhodes at the St. Giovanni camp. In early 1942 they were transferred to Bari, in Italy, and interned, once again, at the Ferramonti di Tarsia camp, later to be liberated in 1943 by the British and leaving for Haifa, a year later.