Transit pass used prewar by a Jewish refugee

Erwin Tepper was born on November 14, 1931, to Juda Ber and Schifra Heller Tepper in Vienna, Austria. His parents were originally from Galicia, his father from Stryj (now in Ukraine), and his mother from Dolina. His parents moved to Vienna so Juda could pursue a university education. Juda began working in a women's lingerie store, eventually becoming a manager. In March 1938, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany. Anti-Jewish legislation was enacted and Jew lost most civil rights. Juda had several siblings in Argentina and the United States, and the family decided to leave Austria. In 1939, they learned that an American couple, Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, were planning to bring 50 Jewish children from Austria to the United States. Erwin’s parents applied and Erwin was accepted as one of this group. In the spring, Juda left for Great Britain. Erwin left from Germany in May 1939 aboard the S.S. President Harding. When the ship stopped in Southampton, England, he briefly met with his father. Erwin and the other children arrived in New York in June 1939, and spent the summer at the Brith Sholom children's camp near Philadelphia. At the end of the summer, Erwin went to live with the family of his father's sister, Blima Eigenmacht, in the Bronx, New York. In late 1939, Schifra joined her husband in England and by early 1941, they arrived in New York, reuniting with Erwin. By summer 1941 the family moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where Juda obtained a job in a women's coat factory. Erwin graduated from Yale University in 1953 with a bachelor's in zoology. He then obtained a medical degree from the University of Basel in 1959. He met his future wife, Silvia, while in Basel. They married in New Haven in 1960, and raised three children. Erwin served in the U.S. Army in the early 1960s, then pursued a career as a radiation oncologist, retiring from Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, New Jersey, in 1994. He was elected a fellow of the American College of Radiology in 1989.

The transit pass was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2015 by Erwin Tepper, the son of Juda Ber Tepper.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Erwin Tepper

Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.