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?

Thanks for any information.

Patrick Atlas
Paris, France

From: Pamela Weisberger

You might have luck with the Holland-American Line collection of outbound
passenger record, since that was the line sailing >from Rotterdam.

This will not work because Holland-America Line (Nederlandsche Amerikaansche
Stoomvaart Maatschappij) was a North Atlantic steamship company. They were
founded in 1873 (a predecessor dates to 1871) and continued to offer trans-
Atlantic service between Holland and North America into the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1888 they tried to expand to run to Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina but that
only lasted >from 1888 to 1890. At that point they became strictly a North
Atlantic carrier. I do not believe they ever maintained any regular service
to Venezuela except for cruises >from New York.

There were several other shipping firms that provided service to South America
although Venezuela is mostly in the shipping parlance linked with the Central
America service. Shipping firms most often refer to South American service
when they are thinking of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

from 1906 to 1936 there was a firm called Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd (Royal

Holland Lloyd) but they also stopped service too early for this question.

If it was a Dutch ship that this person sailed on the most likely candidates
would be ships >from Rotterdam-Zuid Amerika Lijn (Rotterdam South American Line).
They had two cargo ships that carried 24 passengers each in the 1939-1940 time
frame. The ships were the Alphacca and the Alpherat and they also had a few
smaller cargo ships that carried 12 passengers each. I think the ones in
service at this time would have been the Alcyone and the Aldabi plus maybe
ships called Alchiba, Gemma, Algorab, Alhena, Aldura, Zosmar, and Alwaki. They
were all small freighters carrying only a few passengers.

I have no idea if any records survive >from this shipping company. The firm was
still in business into the 1980s but only operating cargo ships.

Pamela mentioned the Rotterdam City Archives which has some information and
might be worth contacting.

Also Rotterdam has a large maritime museum which also has an extensive research
library/collection. You might try contacting them for more information. They
might also be able to put you in touch with a Dutch maritime historian who
might have more details on what ships were sailing in this period.

That would be your best bets, I think.

Allan Jordan

PS -- In addition to the genealogy I am a maritime historian

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

Hi Patrick, 

I know we have discussed elsewhere that our "Atlas-family" are most likely not connected.
However seeing this message made me reconsider - my ATLAS married into the ADEST-family and they also fled to Venezuela and resided in Caracas until most of the family went to the US. Maybe it is worth looking into?

Best, 
Rebecca

Speaking from experience I can say it is not likely you will find a ship sailing from Rotterdam to Caracas unless it was part of the Shell fleet of tankers. You should look for a ship from Netherlands to US where the person would most likely have caught a plane to Caracas...maybe not in 1939 but certainly from late 1940s onward, but travel to Venezuela would likely have been from a US city.
FamilySearch holds aircraft manifests for travel from Venezuela in this period.

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