Chapter 2 · Leaving Poland · Passports
For a family that emigrated between the two world wars, the Polish passport application file is often the first time they see the face of the person they are researching: a photograph, a physical description, a signature and the name of the relative in America who sent the papers.
Before 1914: passports under the partitions
A subject of the Russian Empire needed a foreign passport issued by the provincial governor. It was expensive, slow and refused to men of military age, so most emigrants from the Russian partition left without one. Austrian subjects in Galicia applied to the district office for a travel passport. Prussian subjects needed no passport to leave after 1867, only a military release if they were of service age.
1919 to 1939: the interwar passport files
Independent Poland issued passports through its district offices, and the application files kept by those offices survive in many regional state archives. A typical file contains:
- A photograph of the applicant, and sometimes of the children travelling with them
- Date and place of birth, parents’ names and a physical description
- The destination and the purpose of the journey
- Letters or affidavits from the relative in America who paid for the trip
- For emigrants, the special emigration passport and its conditions
Why these files are underused
They are not indexed by name in any national database, and they are filed by district and year. Finding one means knowing the district the family lived in, which is why village identification comes first. Once the district is known, the files are among the most rewarding records in Polish archives.
Interwar emigrants were far fewer than those before 1914, but they are exactly the generation whose grandchildren are now researching: parents and grandparents of living Americans.
How we can help
Interwar passport files are searched within Immigration & Passenger Records, and a known file can be obtained through Single Document Retrieval with every page imaged and translated.