During the Second World War, Polish diplomats in the Swiss capital of Bern cooperated with the Jewish community to carry out the so-called passport campaign aimed at saving Jews from the Holocaust. Aleksander Ładoś, Konstanty Rokicki, Abraham Silberschein, Chaim Eiss, Stefan Ryniewicz and Juliusz Kühl, also known as the Ładoś Group, issued false passports and citizenship certificates of Latin American countries to Jews threatened with extermination. These documents allowed their bearers to be interned and then exchanged for German prisoners of war and saved them by giving them a chance to avoid transport to death camps.
Timothy Snyder, in his book Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, writes “if Jews were to be removed from the planet, they first had to be separated from the state.” He also quotes Hannah Arendt: “One can only do what one likes with stateless people. […] The first, fundamental step on the way to total domination is to kill the legal entity of a person.”
The abolition of the Jewish nationality and the deprivation of their citizenship were an integral part of the Third Reich’s extermination plans. Jews who had German, French, Danish or Bulgarian citizenship before the outbreak of the war had a much better chance of survival than Polish Jews; these had the “worthless” citizenship of a country destroyed by Germany in 1939. One example is the situation of French Jews, around 75% of whom survived the Holocaust, while at the same time nearly 30,000 Polish Jews living in France during the war were murdered as stateless entities. Therefore, often the only way to save Jews was to have access to legal and official mechanisms that could prevent them from being deported to extermination camps.
In this situation, only diplomats with the appropriate documents and tools were able to help the Jewish population on a larger scale. They could grant citizenship to existing states, for example Sweden or Paraguay, in order to restore legal status to Jews residing in territories controlled by the Third Reich and save them from death. Even entering a name on a list of Palestinian citizens, a mandate territory of Great Britain, was enough to save the lives of entire families in Poland. This was the case of Henryk Schönker and his relatives, who left the ghetto in Tarnów with a miraculously-obtained confirmation of Palestinian citizenship, and survived to witness the end of the war in Bergen-Belsen (as described by Schönker in The Touch of an Angel). Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saved thousands of lives by issuing nearly 15,000 “protective passports”. The Spanish consul Eduardo Propper de Callejón and the Portuguese consul Aristides de Sousa Mendes issued thousands of transit documents to the Jews fleeing France, which allowed them to continue their journey, mainly to the United States. Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Kaunas made it possible for nearly 8,000 Jews to leave Europe with the aid of Polish intelligence officers.
The passport campaign conducted by the Polish diplomatic mission in Bern, in cooperation with Jewish organizations, had the financial and political backing of the Polish government-in-exile. The forgery of thousands of documents from Latin American countries (Paraguay, Honduras, Haiti and Peru) by Polish diplomats became a means to grant citizenship to Jews living in ghettos not only in Poland, but throughout occupied Europe. For several years now the Pilecki Institute, in cooperation with Polish and foreign partners, has been conducting archival research and scientific studies into the activities of the Ładoś Group. Passports for life gathers and presents the current knowledge about the actions of the Polish diplomats in Bern.
Hanna Radziejowska (Pilecki Institut)
Aleksander Ładoś (1891–1963), a Polish diplomat, publicist and politician. He was a member of the “Piast” Polish People’s Party from 1913 and joined the People’s Party following the unification of the agrarian people’s movement in 1931. He began his service as a diplomat in 1919. He was a secretary for the Polish delegation during peace talks with the Soviet Union in 1920–21. He then became the Polish envoy in Latvia (1923–26) and the general consul in Munich (1927–31). He was released from service at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1931 shortly after Józef Beck became Deputy Minister. He dedicated most of his time during the 1930s to writing political columns. Following the outbreak of the war, he was a minister without portfolio for the People’s Party in Władysław Sikorski’s government-in-exile between 3 October and 7 December 1939. He then became the Polish envoy to Switzerland as a chargé d’affaires ad interim from 1940–45. He aided refugees from Poland and the interned soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division. He was the leader of the group that issued illegal passports of Latin American countries to Jews being persecuted by the Germans. As the head of the Polish Legation in Bern, Ładoś provided diplomatic protection to the group. In 1943, after the Swiss authorities discovered the passport campaign, he intervened with the local foreign minister and helped to quieten the case. He also enabled Jewish organizations in Switzerland to use Polish diplomatic ciphers so that they could stay in contact with the United States. He remained in Switzerland after the war and moved to France in 1946. He returned to Poland in 1960. He died in Warsaw three years later.
The Ładoś Group, also known as the Bernese Group, was composed of Polish diplomats, employees of the Polish Legation in Bern, and representatives of Jewish organizations cooperating with them. It was headed by Aleksander Ładoś, the Polish Legation’s chargé d’affaires. Three other Polish diplomats were also members of the group: Stefan Ryniewicz, Konstanty Rokicki and Juliusz Kühl, as well as two activists of Jewish organizations in Switzerland: Abraham Silberschein and Chaim Eiss. At least from the beginning of 1941 to the end of 1943, members of the group handled the illegal purchase and preparation of passports and citizenship certificates of Latin American countries (primarily Paraguay). These documents were then sent to Jews residing in nations under German occupation where possessing them increased survival chances. Instead of going to extermination camps, the Jews who had the falsified passports would be taken to internment camps.
Stefan Jan Ryniewicz
(1903–1988), Aleksander Ładoś’ deputy and head of the consular section. Ryniewicz worked in diplomacy from 1928, and in Bern from 1938. He is considered one of the initiators of the passport operation. His job in the Ładoś Group included maintaining contact with Jewish organizations and providing diplomatic protection. He settled in Argentina after the war.
(1899–1958), deputy consul, soldier of the Polish-Bolshevik war, in Polish diplomacy since the early 1930s. He personally filled in at least one thousand Paraguayan passports. After the war, he remained in Switzerland, where he died in poverty. He was named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 2019, the only member of the Ładoś Group to receive the title.
(1913–1985), attaché of the Polish Legation. He studied in Bern from 1929. He was employed by Ładoś in 1940. His task was to maintain contact with Jewish organizations and to obtain passport forms in blanco from Latin American diplomats. After the war, he emigrated to Canada, and then to the USA.
(1882–1951), a member of the World Jewish Congress and of the Polish parliament in 1922–27. He arrived in Switzerland three weeks before the outbreak of the war. He founded the Relief Committee for the Warstricken Jewish Population (RELICO). He provided the personal data and photographs of people for whom passports were issued and was also responsible for securing financial support for the operation. He remained in Switzerland after the war.
(1876–1943), an orthodox Jew who emigrated from the Austrian partition of Poland in 1900. One of the founders and the main Swiss representative of the Agudat Yisrael movement. Eiss organized the passport smuggling network, obtained personal data and financial resources for the group. He died suddenly of a heart attack in Zurich in November 1943.
All of the listed group members were awarded the Virtus et Fraternitas medal by the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda in June 2019.
The legation in Switzerland was one of the few Polish diplomatic missions operating continuously throughout the war. In addition to Bern, only two embassies (in London and the Vatican) and three legations (in Lisbon, Madrid and Stockholm) operated in Europe at that time. The role of the Swiss legation was unique, because unlike the other diplomatic institutions, it was the only one in the central part of Europe that was also in a neutral state. As a result, extremely significant ciphertexts emerged from Bern containing intelligence about the current situation in occupied Poland and the Holocaust. It was also an important transit point for couriers to and from the Polish government-in-exile. The location of the legation turned out to be crucial for the group carrying out the passport campaign. There were many other diplomatic missions in neutral Switzerland, including those of Latin American countries, which, unlike their counterparts from countries collaborating with the Third Reich, did not experience direct pressure from the Germans. Switzerland was also home to the headquarters or representative offices of numerous international organizations—including Jewish ones—which facilitated the collection of personal data and the creation of a network.
From at least from the beginning of 1941 to the end of 1943, the Ładoś Group handled the illegal purchase and preparation of passports and citizenship certificates of four Southern and Central American countries: Paraguay, Honduras, Haiti and Peru. The documents were a false confirmation of citizenship and were used to help save Jewish lives during the war.
The effectiveness of the campaign depended primarily on the acquisition of original passport forms which required a vast amount of funds. Stefan Ryniewicz was primarily responsible for establishing initial contact with the relevant diplomats. Chaim Eiss and Abraham Silberschein were involved in collecting funds, mainly from Jewish groups, and Juliusz Kühl also assisted them. After purchasing the documents (i.e. usually by bribing the relevant diplomats), Kühl transported them to the Polish Legation. There, Konstanty Rokicki, and perhaps also Ryniewicz, filled in the personal data on the blank documents and attached photographs of the people to whom documents were to be sent. This information was provided through Silberschein and Eiss thanks to their respected position and extensive contacts in the Jewish diaspora. Completed and certified by Latin American diplomats, photocopies of the documents (the originals were to remain in Switzerland) were sent to the countries under German occupation thanks to far-reaching smuggling network organized mainly by Eiss. The most difficult task was to convince the countries which “issued” the passports to officially recognize their holders as rightful citizens. This task belonged to a large extent to Alexander Ładoś. Thanks to his diplomatic efforts, the Paraguayan authorities temporarily recognized forged passports in 1943.
Initially, the documents were sent only to occupied Poland, but with time the action was extended to Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Slovakia and Italy, and also covered Jews from Germany and Austria who were deprived of German citizenship, as well as individual citizens of other countries. Being in possession of a passport increased the chances of surviving the war. Their owners were deemed to be “foreigners” and as such were included on lists of prisoners for exchange. As a result, they were sent to transit camps instead of extermination camps. It is estimated that the group issued passports for up to 10,000 people.
I’d like to have Uruguayan passport
oh, what a beautiful land it is
how nice it must feel to be the subject
of land called: Uruguay
I’d like to have Paraguayan passport,
of gold and freedom is this land,
oh, how nice it must feel to be the subject
of land called: Paraguay
I’d like to have Costa Rican passport,
celadon sky… eternal May
oh, how nice it must feel to tell
that Costa Rica is my land
I’d like to have Bolivian passport
like couple friends of mine…
Bolivian air – resin fragrant
oh, what a beautiful land…
I’d like to have Honduran passport,
(Honduras sounds like Eastern paradise…),
It’s nice to remark from time to time
Honduras, actually, is my land…
I’d like to have Uruguayan passport,
have Costa Rican, Paraguayan,
just so one can live peacefully in Warsaw,
after all, it is the most beautiful of lands.
Translated from Polish by Halina Birenbaum