Russian passport of B. D. F. Strashunskii
Passport issued by the Russian imperial state to Beniamin David Fishelev Strashunskii (Беніаминъ Довидъ Фишелевъ Страшунскій) on the 15 May 1913. It had originally 18 pages, but only the 6 pages with text are scanned. The passport belonged to Harvey Sohnen’s grandfather, Benjamin Strashunski. It also mentions his wife Henja and son Fishel but they didn’t emigrate to America until 1921.
The passport has a stamp from Вержболово (Wirballen in German, now Virbalis, Lithuania) on the border between Russia and Prussia, dated 14 August 1913. A few weeks after reaching Wirballen, he departed by ship for the US from Antwerp, most probably with a different passport as this one doesn’t have any US stamp.
- Emigration
- Heritage
- Identity
- Memory
- Migration
Harvey: "I was astonished to see the passport, because it is the relics of my family's immigration to the United States. It's just stunning to see something like that. In 1913 my grandfather left the Russian Empire. I believe that it was very difficult for my grandmother to get her passport. Because my grandfather left Oshmani earlier than my grandmother. It's very typical for immigrants that the man goes first to try to get a job set up and make things ready for the family to follow. But it was 8 years from when my grandfather left until my grandmother left, and that's a very long time. I believe that it must have been very difficult. Part of that reason was World War I. After World War I it was difficult for people to emigrate. But my grandmother finally arrived in 1921 to the USA with 4 children, including my mother. There were 5 family members, that was a passport for 2 of them. Also transatlantic travel was very dangerous. But after World War I, there were other problems. And so it was a very difficult thing. Apparently, the difficulties were on the Polish side. In other words, you know. Americans didn't have a problem. Um, although they were ultimately restrictions in immigration”.
