# Using visas to escape Nazi murder camps. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 29, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901 "2014-11-29T18:32:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2014, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/21 "2014-11-30T01:59:08Z")
Some further research. It looks like the Nazis did require exit visas to leave Germany, but from [this article](http://holocaustroad.org/2010-11readings/Heilbronner.pdf), it looks like a Jewish person could get an exit visa for the right amount of money well into 1939 at least. I’m not sure how much longer that lasted. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2014, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/22 "2014-11-30T02:11:29Z")
Up until the war the Nazis were perfectly willing to allow Jews to emigrate (in fact they “encouraged” it). The hard part was finding a country willing to allow Jewish immigration, a problem exacerbated by the Nazis reluctance to allow Jews take any money or assets with them. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2014, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/23 "2014-11-30T02:40:50Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > For that matter, what standard of proof did the Nazis use? Was just a rumor you were a Jew enough? Did they have any method of appeals or did the SS goons just drag off to the camps anyone they thought was a Jew and kill them? Almost immediately after taking power, the Nazi government ordered a detailed census of all German residents, especially including their ancestry & racial heritage. They had big files of all this data (using early IBM punched-card equipment) and so had all the Jews and part-Jews identified beforehand, so that rounding them up when the time came was easy to do. During the war, as soon as each territory had been conquered, a similar census was ordered, to gather the same information on residents of that area. That information followed the victims to the concentration camps, each of which had their own data processing building with punched card machines. See the book [IBM and the Holocaust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust) by Edwin Black, which has many details of this identification process. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2014, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/24 "2014-11-30T10:02:54Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > That information followed the victims to the concentration camps, each of which had their own data processing building with punched card machines. I had absolutely no clue. First time I hear about that. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2014, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/25 "2014-11-30T12:06:10Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > The difference is that, for the Nazis, Jews were inferior not because of their religious beliefs, but because of their race. Jewish blood was naturally inferior. You couldn’t stop being a Jew because you couldn’t change your genetic heritage. > [@Habeed](#): > > That seems kind of…arbitrary. Even if you look like the poster child for the “aryan master race”, you’re still a Jew, eh. Even in their ignorance the Nazis had a vague idea of inheritance and genetics. > > **If the Nazis really believed this, did they haul off people for “looking Jewish” even without the grandparents?** A bit off the topic re the bureaucracy of the whole business: but I understand that a certain amount of (as “my bolding” above ) happened during World War II in German-occupied countries, in circumstances where hunting-out of Jews had to be done in a somewhat haphazard fashion. Those carrying out that process were often rather unsophisticated folk, and “mistakes happened”. I have read that it was risky for non-Jewish men or boys who had been circumcised for medical reasons: more than a tiny number of those were seized and sent to their deaths, because for the rounders-up, “circumcised = Jew” – any attempt at showing documentation to the contrary, was disregarded. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2014, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/26 "2014-11-30T20:21:22Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Even if you look like the poster child for the “aryan master race”, you’re still a Jew, eh. [Well, a _Mischling_, anyway, which meant the Nazis considered you part-Jewish but still German/Aryan enough to be the literal poster boy for the Aryan Superman.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Goldberg) (Super-_duper_-superman!) Werner Goldberg also saved his father from the camps by advising him to just… blow off the Gestapo. This worked. His father survived the war. His father was the only other member of Goldberg’s family to survive the war. You could make a movie out of this, but people would [claim it was one big plot hole.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=645923) ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/27 "2014-11-30T23:18:20Z")
There were early ‘legal’ methods tried by the Church to move Jews out of Germany, though mostly converts. Some of these groups were able to become underground groups later, but by that time it had gotten too late. They did try, but were hindered by being extremely visible to the Nazis. Precisely because they were an explicit organization, they were easily targeted. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2014, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/28 "2014-12-01T01:20:59Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > For that matter, what standard of proof did the Nazis use? Was just a rumor you were a Jew enough? Did they have any method of appeals or did the SS goons just drag off to the camps anyone they thought was a Jew and kill them? > [@hajario](#): > > They didn’t care if you converted. They only cared about your ancestry. The Nazis didn’t care, but some of their allies in other countries had their own take on antisemitism, and in those countries conversion _might_ give you some protection. Wallenberg, remember, was operating in Hungary, not Germany. Hungary joined the Axis in 1940, and was happy enough to take territory from Czechosovakia, Poland, etc as these countries were defeated and occupied, but at least at first, they were less enthusiastic about antisemitism. Their anti-Jewish laws were introduced under pressure from the Germans and, at least initially, defined Jewishness by religion, not heredity. The Hungarians generally resisted Nazi pressure to deport Jews. It wasn’t until the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944 that Hungarian Jews faced the full horror of the Holocaust, but that period did not last long enough for the Nazis to do the thorough job they did in other countries. Something like 30% of Hungary’s prewar Jewish population (of 860,000) survived the war. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/29 "2018-10-16T12:53:31Z")
Bumped. A _NYT_ essay on the Japanese diplomat, Sugihara, who has long been a hero of mine: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/opinion/sugihara-moral-heroism-refugees.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/opinion/sugihara-moral-heroism-refugees.html) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/30 "2018-10-16T13:33:18Z")
As far as Nazi inconsistency, remember that the leading figure of the tall, fit, blond “master race” was short, dumpy, and dark-haired. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/31 "2018-10-16T14:09:22Z")
Old joke: Once the Nazis built their master race, all Germans would be as blond as Hitler, as tall as Goebbels and as thin as Goering. ---
**Author:** ![JB99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@JB99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JB99)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/32 "2018-10-16T15:39:47Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Up until the war the Nazis were perfectly willing to allow Jews to emigrate (in fact they “encouraged” it). The hard part was finding a country willing to allow Jewish immigration, a problem exacerbated by the Nazis reluctance to allow Jews take any money or assets with them. This is something a lot of people forget. The tendency is to think of the Holocaust and immediately refer to places like Auschwitz. The truth is that the progression from deportation to concentration to extermination came in steps, and the extermination camps didn’t open until late 1941. The Germans actively encouraged Jews to emigrate out of Germany. Even high-ranking Nazis like Goering would give permission to Jews to leave the country (at the insistence of his brother Albert). It is kind of a bizarre thing to modern people, because we are accustomed to a free and increasingly globalized world. Most places we would want to visit have either no visa requirement or visas are a mere formality. The very notion of not being “allowed” to travel or live where we want is often alien to modern Americans. But nonetheless, for most of human history that was very much the case. ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/33 "2018-10-16T17:07:55Z")
Back to the OP: Wallenberg issued “protective passports”. Which aren’t really passports, but were documents stating the bearer was a Swedish citizen and that Sweden was working on bringing them back to Sweden. They looked official enough to keep many of the bearers from being deported, which was exactly their purpose. They were not necessarily designed to get the bearer out, though no doubt people tried to use them as such. The visas issued by some of the others technically allowed entry into the issuing country. While early in the Holocaust that was their exact purpose (and having them probably helped getting German exit visa as well), by late ‘42 I suspect their main value was again as deterrent to deportation/murder. As to why they worked, in part it was the effect of the German official on the spot not wanting to possibly create trouble between the Reich and the issuing ally or neutral, in part because of some respect for “papers” of any kind, and I suspect it made it easier to accept bribes - “I had to let them go, sir, they had papers!” ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/34 "2018-10-16T19:53:54Z")
> [@Isosleepy](#): > > Back to the OP: Wallenberg issued “protective passports”. Which aren’t really passports, but were documents stating the bearer was a Swedish citizen and that Sweden was working on bringing them back to Sweden. They looked official enough to keep many of the bearers from being deported, which was exactly their purpose. They were not necessarily designed to get the bearer out, though no doubt people tried to use them as such. > > The visas issued by some of the others technically allowed entry into the issuing country. While early in the Holocaust that was their exact purpose (and having them probably helped getting German exit visa as well), by late ‘42 I suspect their main value was again as deterrent to deportation/murder. > > As to why they worked, in part it was the effect of the German official on the spot not wanting to possibly create trouble between the Reich and the issuing ally or neutral, in part because of some respect for “papers” of any kind, and I suspect it made it easier to accept bribes - “I had to let them go, sir, they had papers!” In the days before computers, pre-printed forms (with handwritten or typewritten details filled in, assorted rubber stamps) probably carried a lot more weight. An official paper with the country crest or seal was not trivial to fake. Some of the more skilled participants in “The Great Escape” were the prisoners who could forge official looking documents with the tools at hand, including faking typewritten information by hand. ---
**Author:** ![Sloe\_Moe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Sloe\_Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sloe_Moe)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901/35 "2018-10-17T03:07:56Z")
Visas are for locals. For aliens, it’s the passport you’re holding. 1,200 German Jews were admitted into the US. I’m guessing it was a symbolic move by Roosevelt because he didn’t settle them in CONUS. He sent them to the Philippines which was then a US territory. Then the Japanese invaded the Philippines. From nearly all accounts, the German Jews fared a lot better than American or British civilians trapped in the Philippines for one simple reason: They held German passports. :smack: So let’s recapitulate: The US didn’t really allow the German Jews into continental US. The German Jews don’t really owe the Philippines that much. They were dumped onto their laps. Most of them moved to Israel after the war. The Japanese were dumb. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-visas-to-escape-nazi-murder-camps/705901.md?page=1)