Lados Group Members and Collaborators

Prepared by Eric Saul

Dr. Julius Kuhl (Juliusz Kühl), Polish Consul in Bern, Switzerland, 1938-45

Consul Dr. Julius Kuhl was born to a prominent Jewish family in Sanok, Poland. Kuhl issued thousands of protective visas and passports to Jews from the Polish embassy in Bern, Switzerland, 1938-45. Kuhl worked with help and encouragement from Polish ambassador Alexander Lados. Both Kuhl and Lados gave visas to a number of Jewish relief and rescue agencies working out of Europe. These precious papers enabled Jews to remain in Switzerland or emigrate to the United States, Canada, South America, Africa, Palestine and other countries.

[Friedenson, Joseph, and David Kranzler, forward by Julius Kuhl. Heroine of Rescue: The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1984), pp. 22, 55, 59-76, 83, 93, 101, 109, 116-123, 139, 140, 150. Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1987), pp. 195, 200-203. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust. (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 66-68, 78, 190, 249, 263, 265n.7, 368n.46.]

Pilecki Institute biography:

Juliusz Kühl (1913–1985), attaché of the Polish Legation. He studied in Bern from 1929. He was employed by Ładoś in 1940. His task was to maintain contact with Jewish organizations and to obtain passport forms in blank from Latin American diplomats. After the war, he emigrated to Canada, and then to the USA. (Courtesy of the Pilecki Institute)

Alexander Lados (Aleksander Ładoś), Polish Ambassador to Switzerland, 1938-45

Ambassador Lados approved the issuing of thousands of protective Polish passports and visas to Jews stranded in Switzerland, 1938-45. He specifically approved the work of Dr. Julius Kuhl to issue passports and fake citizenship paper to Latin American countries through the Polish embassy in Bern, Switzerland. In addition, Lados persuaded the London-based Polish government-in-exile to provide money and relief to Polish Jews interned in Swiss camps. These documents also allowed Jews who were interned to be exchanged for German prisoners of war, preventing their deportation to the Nazi death camps. Lados and his staff worked with various Jewish rescue and relief agencies in Switzerland, particularly in support of Recha Sternbuch. Lados worked with Konstanty Rokicki, Abraham Silberschein, Chaim Eiss, Stefan Ryniewicz and Juliusz Kühl, who became known as the Lados Group.

[Friedenson, Joseph, and David Kranzler, forward by Julius Kuhl. Heroine of Rescue: The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1984), pp. 22, 54, 57-68, 82, 104, 117, 209. Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1987). Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1987), pp. 190, 201-203. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust. (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 78, 249.]

Pilecki Institute biography:

Aleksander Ładoś (1891–1963), a Polish diplomat, publicist and politician. He was a member of the “Piast” Polish People’s Party from 1913 and joined the People’s Party following the unification of the agrarian people’s movement in 1931. He began his service as a diplomat in 1919. He was a secretary for the Polish delegation during peace talks with the Soviet Union in 1920–21. He then became the Polish envoy in Latvia (1923–26) and the general consul in Munich (1927–31). He was released from service at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1931 shortly after Józef Beck became Deputy Minister. He dedicated most of his time during the 1930s to writing political columns. Following the outbreak of the war, he was a minister without portfolio for the People’s Party in Władysław Sikorski’s government-in-exile between 3 October and 7 December 1939. He then became the Polish envoy to Switzerland as a chargé d’affaires ad interim from 1940–45. He aided refugees from Poland and the interned soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division. He was the leader of the group that issued illegal passports of Latin American countries to Jews being persecuted by the Germans. As the head of the Polish Legation in Bern, Ładoś provided diplomatic protection to the group. In 1943, after the Swiss authorities discovered the passport campaign, he intervened with the local foreign minister and helped to quieten the case. He also enabled Jewish organizations in Switzerland to use Polish diplomatic ciphers so that they could stay in contact with the United States. He remained in Switzerland after the war and moved to France in 1946. He returned to Poland in 1960. He died in Warsaw three years later. (Courtesy of the Pilecki Institute)

Konstanty Rokicki (1899–1958), deputy consul, soldier of the Polish-Bolshevik war, in Polish diplomacy since the early 1930s. He personally filled in at least one thousand Paraguayan passports. After the war, he remained in Switzerland, where he died in poverty. He was named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 2019, the only member of the Ładoś Group to receive the title. (Courtesy of the Pilecki Institute)

Stefan Jan Ryniewicz (1903–1988), Aleksander Ładoś’ deputy and head of the consular section. Ryniewicz worked in diplomacy from 1928, and in Bern from 1938. He is considered one of the initiators of the passport operation. His job in the Ładoś Group included maintaining contact with Jewish organizations and providing diplomatic protection. He settled in Argentina after the war. (Courtesy of the Pilecki Institute)

Jewish Collaborators:

Chaim Yisroel Eiss (1876–1943), Swiss representative of the Agudat Yisrael movement.

Pilecki Institute biography:

Chaim Eiss (1876–1943), an orthodox Jew who emigrated from the Austrian partition of Poland in 1900. One of the founders and the main Swiss representative of the Agudat Yisrael movement. Eiss organized the passport smuggling network, obtained personal data and financial resources for the group. He died suddenly of a heart attack in Zurich in November 1943. (Courtesy of the Pilecki Institute)

Dr. Abraham Silberschein (Alfred), Relief Committee for Jewish War Victims

Dr. Abraham Silberschein (Alfred) was with the Relief Committee for Jewish War Victims, a Jewish rescue effort headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. He was successful in obtaining “rescue papers” from the consulates of various Latin American countries, including Bolivia, Chile, Haiti, Honduras and Peru, for Jewish refugees in Poland, Holland, Germany and other countries. Silberschein dispatched documents, including “promesas,” which were documents that would guarantee entry into Latin American countries. He sent these to various personal acquaintances and others involved in relief efforts. Among the Jewish agencies with which he cooperated were the Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency, the Ichud Poalei-Zion Hitachdut, the World Jewish Congress and the Jewish Workers’ Councils in the USA.

[Eck, Nathan. “The Rescue of Jews With the Aid of Passports and Citizenship Papers of Latin American States.” Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance, 1 (1957), pp. 125-152. Friedenson, Joseph, and David Kranzler, forward by Julius Kuhl. Heroine of Rescue: The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1984), pp. 65, 68, 101. Rothkirchen, Livia (Ed.). “Rescue efforts with the assistance of international organization: Documents from the archives of Dr. A. Silberschein.” Yad Vashem Studies, 8 (1970), 69-80. Feingold, Henry. The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1944. (New Brunswick, NJ: (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1970), p. 226. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 97, 328, 351-352, 373-374.]

Pilecki Institute biography:

Abraham Silberschein (1882–1951), a member of the World Jewish Congress and of the Polish parliament in 1922–27. He arrived in Switzerland three weeks before the outbreak of the war. He founded the Relief Committee for the War stricken Jewish Population (RELICO). He provided the personal data and photographs of people for whom passports were issued and was also responsible for securing financial support for the operation. He remained in Switzerland after the war. (Courtesy of the Pilecki Institute)