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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 | Photograph Number: 89995
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.

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 Designation
JEWISH REFUGEES: SEARCH FOR SAFE HAVENS (1933-1945) -- Emigration/Refugee Assistance -- In Canada
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jacob G. Wiener

About This Photograph

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.

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Jacob G. Wiener
 
Record last modified: 2003-10-07 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1097115