[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Passports & Naturalization Papers

[Rachael Patterson]

My Grandparents & mother & her siblings immigrated to Canada in 1927
(stating they left because of the pogroms - which pogroms I have never been
able to find out), (I have obtained their Canadian Landing Records), and
they did not become Naturalized until 1939, and it was my mother, who was
age 15 who atually helped my grandfather with the English language details,
as she was the most literate at the time. My grandmother did not go with
them for this, only the children were listed under my grandfather's name.
She was never Naturalized & I wondered if she would've been merely covered
under my Grandfather's name, like the children, but her name did not appear
on the document. I also wondered what types of papers they needed for this
Naturalization process, as all their papers were lost in a house fire in
Canada in 1933. I also asked my mother why they waited so long to have their
Naturalization papers done, and her reply was that there was talk of a war
looming in Europe, and Grandfather did not want a problem with deportation.

There was the "Night of Broken Glass"...during that time, in Berlin.

I applied to the Polish Government to see if I could obtain the passport of
my family, but was denied access; their reasoning, that this belongs only to
those who acquired their passports, and is not accessible to the public. And
since my grandparents lost all their papers in a house fire in Canada in
1933, we have no early photographs. I would love to have seen their photos &
esp of my mother as a child from the passport.

Gilda Patterson
Calgary, AB
CANADA