German Passport Haifa

The following lot, I found by chance and bought it instantly. The story here is about a Germans couple during the British Mandate in Palestine which includes not only a German passport issued at the consulate in Haifa but also a photo album with about 180 most interesting pictures mostly from Haifa and surroundings showing the country and its people, British policemen searching Arab men, harbor work, tanks, armed vehicles in front of a police station, prominent visitors, family outings, visits to Lebanon, Sabbath pacifists, Damascus, etc.

Included are also a certificate of the Advent Mission Society for the passport holder, Lina Piorr. A letter of 1957 confirming her stay in Haifa from 1933 to 1937 – The passport of Lina Piorr (issued by the German Consulate in Haifa in 1937) and Alfred Piorr’s German identity card (issued in 1980). German Passport Haifa

Dombrowsky and Piorr met at the Mission School Neandertal of the Seventh-day Adventists; then, they trained together as nurses at the Waldfriede Hospital in Berlin-Zehlendorf. They married and worked as nurses in Haifa in the 1930s, where they lived with their two children. German Passport Haifa

The British Mandate for Palestine (1918-1948) resulted from several factors: the British occupation of territories previously ruled by the Ottoman Empire, the peace treaties that brought the First World War to an end, and the principle of self-determination that emerged after the war. German Passport Haifa

By the time Britain conquered Palestine at the end of 1917, it had made several conflicting agreements to support various groups in the Middle East. These included: the Husayn-McMahon Correspondence (1915-1916), a series of letters exchanged during World War I in which the British government agreed to recognize Arab independence after the war in exchange for Husayn ibn Ali, King of Hejaz (c. 1853-1931), launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire; the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), which divided the Middle East into British and French spheres of influence; and the Balfour Declaration (1917), in which the British government committed itself to a “national home” for the Jewish people.

Before the British occupation, Palestine was part of Ottoman Syria. The British army ruled Palestine until a civil administration was established on 1 July 1920. Britain was granted a Mandate for Palestine on 25 April 1920 at the San Remo Conference, and, on 24 July 1922, this mandate was approved by the League of Nations.

Here are some more pictures (on readers’ requests) of the photo album (1933-1937). Unfortunately, there are rarely any descriptions of the photos.

German Passport Haifa