Rare Late-Issue "Nansen" Passport with Visa Signed by Aristides de Sousa Mendes for Woman Fleeing France for Safety
‘FRANCE PASSEPORT NANSEN’ on cover; orange with green stripes at top left and lower right of cover; photograph on page 3; pages 16-17 blank; accordion fold Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Valentine Kurow was a 34-year-old Jewish woman originally from the seaport town of Odessa in Russia....
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Digital Kenyon: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Exchange
1939
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| Online Access: | https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1918 https://digital.kenyon.edu/context/bulmash/article/2919/viewcontent/2023_1_10.pdf |
| Summary: | ‘FRANCE PASSEPORT NANSEN’ on cover; orange with green stripes at top left and lower right of cover; photograph on page 3; pages 16-17 blank; accordion fold Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Valentine Kurow was a 34-year-old Jewish woman originally from the seaport town of Odessa in Russia. She had fled Russia with her mother just after the Revolution in 1917 and the ensuing civil war. She was apparently an opera singer from information obtained on a Brussels, Belgium work permit she had completed in 1939. She cited impresario Jean van Glabbeke of the Théatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels where in 1939 she may have sung in the opera Carmen. In any case, she found herself in Bordeaux, France just ahead of the German invasion on May 10, 1940, a stateless immigrant along with thousands of Jews fleeing south attempting to escape the advancing Nazi juggernaut. On June 5, 1940, diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Consul General in the Portuguese Legation in France, signed a Portuguese visa for her, and Valentine was able to cross into Portugal and sail from Lisbon to the United States on the Exeter on July 18, 1940. This story is all the more remarkable because de Sousa Mendes himself was at this time undergoing a crisis of conscience. Rabbi Chaim Kruger, a Belgian refugee, had prevailed upon de Sousa Mendes, a devout Catholic, to issue visas for all Jewish refugees. After an initial demurral, and a firm refusal on the part of the Rabbi to accept visas for his own family unless all Jews were served, de Sousa Mendes capitulated and, “standing with God against man,” defied Salazar and the notorious “Circular 14” and began issuing lifesaving visas to all refugees. For his sustained defiance of his orders and his actions on behalf of the beleaguered Jews, de Sousa Mendes would be dismissed from service by Salazar and denied retirement benefits for his large family. (See 2022.1.19ab) The passport itself is a French “Nansen” passport, issued to Ms. Kurow in Paris, France on August 22, 1939, and numbered ... |
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