Affidavit in lieu of a passport issued to Gerd Zwienicki by the Commissioner of the Superior Court for the District of Montreal, attesting that he had arrived from Germany in 1939 on a stateless passport.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 89995

Overview

Caption: Affidavit in lieu of a passport issued to Gerd Zwienicki by the Commissioner of the Superior Court for the District of Montreal, attesting that he had arrived from Germany in 1939 on a stateless passport.

This document allowed Gerd to proceed to the United States for the purpose of studying at the Ner Israel rabbinical college in Baltimore.
Date: 1939 August 23
Locale: Montreal, Quebec Canada
Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jacob G. Wiener

Photo Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Provenance: Jacob G. Wiener

Keyword: DOCUMENTS EMIGRES/EMIGRATION/AID (PREWAR/WARTIME) IDENTIFICATION PAPERS IMMIGRATION IMMIGRATION (TO CANADA) IMMIGRATION (TO USA) JEWS (GERMAN) REFUGEES (JEWISH) VISAS/APPLICATIONS
Photo Designation: JEWISH REFUGEES: SEARCH FOR SAFE HAVENS (1933-1945) -- Emigration/Refugee Assistance -- In Canada

Biography: Jacob Wiener (born Gerd Zwienicki) is the son of Selma Stiefel and Josef Zwienicki. He was born in 1917 in Bremen, where his family owned a bicycle shop. Gerd had three siblings: a brother Benno (b. 1918), a sister Liesel (b. 1921), and a brother Alfred (b. 1925). Gerd left home in 1936 to study at the Breuer yeshiva in Frankfurt. A year later he began his studies at the Wuerzburg Jewish teachers seminary. On the night of Kristallnacht the students of the rabbinical seminary, including Gerd, were arrested and placed in protective custody, where they remained for eight days. Meanwhile, Gerd's family was facing tragedy in Bremen. His father was sufficiently aware of the threat posed by the Nazis that he fled from his home during the pogrom. However, he did not anticipate what they might do to his family in his absence. That night when members of the SA came looking for him at his home and failed to find him, they shot and killed his wife and arrested his son, Benno, who was then sent to Sachsenhausen. Following Benno's release, the family departed for Canada, leaving Germany on May 31, 1939.