Chapter 2 · Leaving Poland · Exit permits
In all three partitions a young man who had not yet served in the army could not legally emigrate without a release, and releases were rarely granted. Hundreds of thousands left anyway. Their families kept quiet about it for a generation, but the departures still left records.
How illegal emigration worked
Guides led groups across the Russian and Prussian border at night, often for a fee arranged by a steamship agent who sold the whole journey as a package: the crossing, the train to the port and the ticket. Others used borrowed or forged papers, or a short-term border pass meant for seasonal farm work in Germany.
The records it left behind
- Conscription lists marking a man as absent or “gone abroad”
- Fines imposed on the families of deserters, recorded by district authorities
- Police and court files on agents and border guides
- Registers of the German border control stations
The German border control stations
From 1894 Prussia routed emigrants from Russia and Austria through control stations on its eastern border and near Berlin, where they were examined, disinfected and registered before being allowed on to Hamburg or Bremen. Passengers without a valid ticket or enough money were turned back. A name struck from a ship manifest with the note “not on board” is sometimes explained by a refusal at one of these stations.
If your family story says an ancestor “escaped the Russian army”, take it seriously. It tells a researcher which partition to search and which records to expect.
How we can help
Conscription lists and district records are searched within Immigration & Passenger Records and larger projects when the date or manner of departure matters.
Keep reading
Military and conscription records