Posted 8 years ago
huddyhuddy
(112 items)
Passport issued to a Jewish young women from the Island of Rhodes in 1938 (It was issued by the head of the Central Office of the Special Police of Rhodes Reali, Lt. Col. Ferdinand Mittino). She immigrated in 1939 to Cape Town and thus avoided the German occupation that came later during the war, an occupation that decimated the Jewish community of the island.
Extremely interesting life saving route for young housekeeper. Did she enter Belgian Congo and South Africa ? I suppose she had to choose the closest location to South Africa (being fully sovereign from the United Kingdom at the time).How did she get to Congo ? By boat from Italy ? It would be interesting to reconstruct her voyage to safety.
The endorsements inside are for arriving to Italy proper and from there passport is endorsed for entering Cape Town January 1939, no entry markings for the Congo. I can only assume that she had the visa issued in order to proceed with exiting Italy. Interesting that there is no British visa for South Africa, unless it was issued in a separate document that we don't have.
Right, I thought she could travel directly to South Africa with British visa and maritime connections were much better than via Congo. But South Africa was already independent from UK at the time, for a couple of years, though. I doubt they had consular network, so, UK was probably still authorized to issue visas for SA. Or she just took a boat somewhere in Italy and headed to SA where she was admitted having had exit visa from Italy with SA destination, or SA authorities were liberal. Extremely interesting. I always admired those people who foresaw the holocaust and left Europe in time.
Actually I have seen Union of South Africa issued visas from the very early 1950's and earlier issued by UK consular offices abroad. I thought SA got independence around 1960 but already around 1950 SA issued passports indicated that the holder was a South African citizen and passports prior to that year still indicated the holder as a British subject.