Can anyone help me know more about this old Austrian passport?

by Zykatious

Hi guys, a friend of mine had sent me these photos from an old passport his father in law found doing a house clearance.

Here's a gallery of them

His father in law asked neighbours of the guy who used to live there (the owner of the passport) and apparently he became a soldier fighting for Britain during World War 2.

What I think we know about the passport is that he was Jewish due to the large red J stamped into the passport, but other than that I'm not really sure.

If anyone has any information about this passport and it's history that would be really great!

Thanks!

RevAndroid

What exactly are you looking to find out? What I can gather from the pictures you provided:

  • The holder of this passport, Siegfried Markowitz, was in fact Jewish (hence the last name and the red "J" stamp). On Austrian and German passports, Jews were required to be identified through these stamps beginning in late 1938. If they were not surrendered to be stamped, they would become invalid. As you can see, Mr. Markowitz surrendered his passport and it was stamped on August 4th, 1938.

  • On August 4th, 1938, not only was the passport stamped but the administrative fee of 67 Rpf (Rpf = Reichspfennig) was paid, allowing a "one-time departure to all European countries". The handwriting adds the USA, Mexico, and Australia to this list. The rest of the stamp is faded so I can't tell if it says that "further travel through the German Reich is [allowed, forbidden, or something else]".

  • Days later, by August 16th, 1938, Mr. Markowitz left to Yugoslavia. The stamp in the seventh photo is from the "General Consulate of Yugoslavia" and is written in (I believe) Serbian. I read Cyrillic but don't speak Serbian so I'm not sure if the stamps marked "TRANSIT SANS ARRÊT" ("travel without stop") are translated correctly into French, but I assume that this means he wasn't permitted to settle there? Yugoslavia was invaded partitioned by the Axis powers by 1941, and by the end of the war, about 66,000 of Yugoslavia's 80,000 Jews had been killed in the Holocaust, so it would not have been a fortunate place for him to settle. Presumably, he found a way through Yugoslavia and to Britain, as you have been told.

I hope that helps! Edit: phrasing for clarity