Project

As part of the project, enquiries were carried out in archives located in Poland, the United States, Argentina, Switzerland, Great Britain and Israel in an attempt to find as many passports or citizenship certificates of Paraguay, Haiti, Honduras and Peru as possible. Research also included a detailed analysis of the private archives of the individuals who cooperated with the Polish Legation in Bern, in which handwritten notes and correspondence confirming the production of illegal identity cards were found. One valuable discovery included lists of people from individual internment camps who had proof of Latin American citizenship, drawn up by the German administration in 1943–45.

The archival material mentioned above became the basis for a list of individuals who were issued Latin and Central American passports from Bern during the Second World War. This list is not only a source of scientific knowledge, but also a testimony to the struggle for survival, as it bears witness to the fate of thousands of Europe’s Jews. The list would be impossible to compile without cooperation from the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and the Jewish Historical Institute.

The research results appeared in the monograph Lista Ładosia. Spis osób, na których nazwiska w okresie II wojny światowej zostały wystawione paszporty latynoamerykańskie przez Poselstwo RP i organizacje żydowskie w Szwajcarii, published by the Pilecki Institute in December 2019. This publication is both a list of persons who came into possession of the illegally issued passports, as well as the history of the painstaking work which accompanied the reconstruction of the said list.

Thanks to the publication of Lista Ładosia, we have come into contact with families who were in possession of false Latin American passports and discovered new sources, which made it possible to update some data in the English edition that was published in February 2020 under the patronage of the World Jewish Congress – The Ładoś List: An index of people to whom the Polish Legation and Jewish organizations in Switzerland issued Latin American passports during the Second World War, (transl. by J. Niedzielko, I. Stephenson).

The activities of the Ładoś Group have met with immense interest. It is our great pleasure that since 2018, we have been promoting knowledge about a campaign to rescue people of Jewish origin from across Europe that was organized by the Polish diplomats. The “Passports” exhibition prepared by the Pilecki Institute has already been displayed in Switzerland, Israel, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. The accompanying meetings with representatives of the families of those saved thanks to the passports have provided an opportunity to understand their personal experiences. The promotion of The Ładoś List was an occasion to present the campaign undertaken by the Polish diplomats and Swiss activists in such places as London, New York, Connecticut and Berlin, as well as to exchange knowledge and information with journalists, scholars and descendants of passport holders. We continue to hold debates, conferences, seminars and meetings devoted to the operation carried out by the Ładoś Group. We kindly invite you to familiarize yourself with reports on the events, interviews and speeches.

The website’s partner is the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, which has held the Chaim Eiss collection – an archive which represents one of the fundamental sources of knowledge on the passport campaign – since August 2018.