Latvia Internal Passport Database, 1919–1940

Issuance Books and passports handed in to the Riga Police · Latvia

Between 1919 and 1940 all residents of Latvia over the age of 16 were issued with Internal Passports, as a legal form of identity, in order to travel within the borders of the country. Internal Passports were issued in the place of residence. Initially the applicant filled out a detailed application form and handed it in to the local commissioner involved in issuing these documents; these application forms do not seem to have survived. At least two photographs were included with the application.

The Internal Passport, with photograph, was then issued to the applicant. Later, these forms were tabulated in Internal Passport Issuance Books, where varying amounts of information was included and the second photograph was affixed. The Issuance Books were maintained by the local authorities and often, but not always, updated when the subject changed their status in some way. Not only do these documents contain vital information relating to their subjects, but in many cases these are the only surviving photographs of these people, many of whom were victims of the Holocaust.

Dore SOLOVEI, aged 12, applied for an Internal Passport in Rezekne on 28 May 1924. Thus far she is the youngest applicant whom we have noted.

Passports for travel abroad were not used to any great extent before 1920. Many left Latvia without passports, or bought documents at the quayside before leaving. Although this collection refers only to Internal Passports, the documents do very occasionally contain visas from foreign countries, together with entry and exit stamps.

FamilySearch, in cooperation with the Latvian State Historical Archive, has filmed the surviving Internal Passport Issuance Books as well as a collection of Internal Passports handed in to the Riga Police. Arlene Beare and Mark Maymind have completed the Internal Passport databases listed below. Although some 700,000 records survive, it must be noted that this is only a fraction of the original passports issued between 1919 and 1940.

Issuance Books survive in varying numbers for the following towns and cities.

Each town or city maintained its own set of Issuance Books, and the data entered varies from book to book and place to place. Entries are chronological, but some books have date overlaps. Each book usually contains the handwriting of three or four different clerks and the legibility varies greatly. Generally the clerk appears comfortable with Latvian, although some struggle, often substituting Russian letters in places; spellings vary greatly as the Latvian language went through changes in codification, and in some areas the Latgalian language was also used. Within a family, often listed in sequence, there can be two or three different spellings of the same surname. Each entry in the database is linked to the original document on the FamilySearch website.

Individual entries often contain additional notifications entered when the status of the applicant changed — marriages, deaths, cancellation of Latvian citizenship, and cancellation of Internal Passports. Often, when a second passport was applied for, this is noted in the original entry and a second photograph is affixed to the page; in other cases multiple applications are given their own entry.

The Issuance Book records are extracted under the following headings.

Passport Issuance Book

Riga 31 March 1922. Sara GORDIN. It is noted that she married Mr. HAIKIN in 1923.

Riga 25 March 1922. Neuch GENDEROV. Died 17 May 1922.

Ludza 7 October 1921. Juda-Leiba WIDAN applied for a second Internal Passport on 21 November 1924. It is noted that in 1938 he was “deprived of Latvian Citizenship” as he had left the country illegally.

This unique collection of files contains original Internal Passports and related documents collected by the Riga Police during the interwar years. There are approximately 40,000 files extant referring to Jews. Each file usually contains an expired Internal Passport, which was carried by the holder wherever they went: each change of address is noted, as well as changes of civil status — marriage, birth of children, death. Military service and voting in local and general elections are also recorded. Again, valuable photographs of passport holders are preserved, though the quality varies given how regularly these documents were used.

The database includes Jewish Internal Passport holders who were born, registered or lived in the towns below for some period of time, but later made Riga their home.

The records are extracted under the following headings.

Several different passport formats are in this passport collection.

One Page Passport

Faivis Mowsha WIDAN born 3 Nov 1903 Ludza – issued Ludza 15 Nov 1920

Mother Leja KIL, born daughter Haja-Etel and son Leib 7 and 8 Nov 1924 Riga.

Zara REDALJE married Michail Josel STRUNIN 21 Aug 1925 Riga

Certificate or Identity Card with French Translation

Roche PREIL, daughter of Solem LINDAU – issued Riga 4 January 1922

Internal Passport Book

Roche PREIL born LINDAU

Born 9 Feb 1871 in Jekabpils, married.

Nansen Passport

These passports, known as stateless persons passports, were internationally recognized refugee travel documents from 1922 to 1938, first issued by the League of Nations’s Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. They became known as Nansen passports as the idea came from the Norwegian statesman and polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen.

At the end of the first World War Latvians returning to Latvia were stateless as Latvia was now an independent country. The Russian Empire was no longer in existence and the new Soviet Government revoked the citizenship of former Russians living abroad. The passports were in Latvian and French and included descriptions of physical characteristics such as hair and eye colour.

People were able to use these passports while waiting for the results of their application to the Government for citizenship and many were used for years.

Gerson son of Aron KISH, born 4 Apr 1889 Daugavpils apr., merchant.

Married. Includes descriptions of physical characteristics.

Foreign Passport (Ārzemes pase)

Foreign Passport for Shmuel DIMENTSTEIN

Born 11 Dec 1889 in Daugavpils.

Each time a person moved to a new place to live, this was noted with a stamp in the Internal Passport. Using these addresses, you might visit a relative’s home in person or with Google Street View, and you can also consult the surviving Riga Household Registers — in the process of being filmed and placed online — to see with whom your relatives were staying. The government used these records to keep a check on the population and to see where each person was at any given time.

Registration of new address – Fridrika iela No 3/5, Jurmala on 17 Jun 1929

Each vital civil event is recorded, with the stamp of the Rabbinate involved or of the city civil events registration department, together with the date and place of the event. These dates are often hard to trace using other records, and this may be the only reference we locate. The names of new spouses can lead to further documentation, and if available their Internal Passports should also be checked. Children under the age of 16 are most often listed in their mother’s passport, but in some cases in their father’s too; their names are occasionally crossed out because they had turned 16 and applied for their own passport.

Riga civil registry department stamp: Hana MENDELSON married Mendel NODELMAN 15 March 1930 in Riga.

Notation from Riga Rabbinate: Rahele PANC / PANTZ, died on 1 January 1940 in Riga.

Children younger than 16 years old: Erachmiel born 24 Nov 1921 Kaunas, Mozus 27 Dec 1925 Kaunas, Mirjam 4 Sep 1930 Riga

Four children of Leib MARKWITZ: daughters Haja, Sora-Riva and Mindel, and son Jankel recorded into mother’s passport.

“Place of Origin” was the place the person, or their father, was born and where they remained registered. This refers back to the system used by Czarist authorities to track families for taxation and military conscription: a family might have been registered in a town in the late 1700s and never changed that registration, although they had left the town many years before the passport was issued. As the passports were handed in to the Riga Police, it appears that the majority of people were living in Riga at the time they handed them in.

Each passport file contains many images — there may be up to 90, but usually the number is between four and 40. Where there are blanks in the database, there was no information in the available documents; where there is a “?”, the writing is illegible. Some photographs are in poor condition. There is a photograph on the single-sheet passport and also one in the new passport book; this may be the same photo, or the person may be older in the newer one. You might also refer back to the Passport Issuance Book to see whether there is a better-quality copy. Some of these records were poorly scanned, and the archive will be able to provide a clear scan of the original if this is the case.

The notes contain extra information taken from pages in the passport book and other documents in the file. Researchers are urged to look at all the images: there are documents in the new passport book that contain additional information not in the notes column and which may be important. They need translating, as they are either in Latvian or Russian, and there are some documents in French that are copies of other documents in the passport.

This database can be searched via the JewishGen Latvia Database or the JewishGen Unified Search.