Arbeits-pass issued to Marta Saulitis (nee Zeltins), 4 August 1949

Maker Office of Labour

Date1949

Object number00029691

NameWork exemption certificate

MediumInk on paper

DimensionsOverall: 147 x 103 mm, 0.005 kg

ClassificationsEphemera

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionThis 'arbeits-pass' (work exemption certificate) was issued to Marta Saulitis, a Latvian citizen, by the Office of Labour in Wolfsburg in occupied Germany after World War II. The certificate is dated 4 August 1949. Marta Saulitis was one of many Latvians who migrated with her family to Australia after World War II. Saulitis arrived in 1951 and settled in Melbourne.HistoryDuring World War II much of Western Europe was invaded by Nazi Germany, forcing millions of people to flee their oppressed homelands to Displaced Persons camps. The Soviet Union annexed Latvia in 1940 under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Germany. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union during World War II Latvia was invaded and occupied. The Soviet Union recaptured Latvia from Germany in 1944. In the decade after the end of World War II, more than two million people migrated to Australia as part of a government campaign to increase Australia’s population. More than 170,000 were European displaced people resettled in Australia through the Displaced Persons’ Resettlement Scheme, established through an agreement between the Commonwealth Government and the International Refugee Organisation (IRO). The IRO was formed in 1946 to transport Displaced Persons to countries in Europe, North America and Australia. The organisation chartered individuals and families from various European countries including Germany, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Lithuania. Latvians were one of the first Displaced Persons groups to be accepted by Australia, with some 19,421 Latvians living in the country by 1951.SignificanceThis work exemption certificate is significant in documenting the displacement experienced by many Europeans as a result of World War II.