Patrick Atlas writes:

"My great-uncle, Edward Atlas, born in Lemberg, Galicia, in 1891, was
living in Vienna, Austria >from 1892 to 1939, with his family. He
underwent the JudenAktion in 1938 and was interned in Dachau then
Buchenwald, like thousand of Jewish people. He was released in 1939.
He fled to Venezuela, probably around 1939-1940, with his wife
Charlotte Atlas (a 1st cousin). I have found that Charlotte was a
passenger of the famous ship MS-Louis, she came back in the
Netherlands.I have found a ship travel for Charlotte, >from Rotterdam
to Caracas, departure May 9, 1940. Then they were living in Caracas,
Venezuela, possibly >from 1940 to at least 1951, when they emigrated to
Denver, USA. He was a furrier.

My questions are:

-how can I find a manifest of passengers of the travel >from Rotterdam
to Caracas?
-how can I get information about their stay in Venezuela?"

You might have luck with the Holland-American Line collection of
outbound passenger record, since that was the line sailing from
Rotterdam. The Family History Library has a microfilm or microfiche
collection, but it is also available at the Rotterdam City Archives.

This collection consists of passenger lists which transported numerous
refugees >from war-torn Europe to the United States prior to 1941. The
passenger lists show the name of the ship, its destination, and the
date it left port. The passenger's name is included, along with
various details of passage arrangements, fees, etc. Passenger lists
are available >from 3 May 1900 through 14 October 1974.

Original records are available through the Rotterdam City Archive
(Gemeentearchief te Rotterdam), Netherlands. The text is handwritten
in Dutch in a ledger type register. Passengers are listed by passage
contract number. The names of the vessels were: Potsdam, Rotterdam,
Nieuw Amsterdam, Statendam, Ryndam, Veendam, and Volendam.

Here are some links to the Rotterdam collections, but most of the
information is in Dutch:

http://collecties.stadsarchief.rotterdam.nl/publiek/sub_navigeren.aspx?rootxml=180000549&openxml=180004046
[MOD. NOTE: shortened URL - http://goo.gl/oFU8Ef ]

JewishGen has an infofile on the LDS fiche collection:
http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/hollam.txt

(The Los Angeles Family History Library has a copy of the fiche, but
not sure how many other Libraries or Centers will have it, but you can
usually order it.)

Another group based in Indiana, the Gjenvick-Gjønvik Archives, has
been indexing many Holland America outbound manifests, but none I
think that went to South America. Still, their collections of
photographs and cruise brochures may be interesting >from a historical
standpoint:

http://www.gjenvick.com/PassengerLists/Holland-AmericaLine/#axzz3WP6tMW2b
(the Holland America Page)

Home page with some interesting images: http://www.gjenvick.com/#axzz3WP6tMW2b

Finally, an unofficial Holland America Line historical page details
the history of where the line's ships were during the wartime years:

http://www.halpostcards.com/unofficial/line6.html

By May of 1940, the headquarters of the Line were transferred to
Curacao in the Dutch West Indies, off Venezuela. After the German
invasion the surviving Holland-America ships formed a very valuable
reinforcement for cooperating with the British, and saw service all
over the world.

By reaching out to all these groups I'm sure you'll have success in
locating the passenger record you seek.

Pamela Weisberger
pweisberger@...
Santa Monica, CA