Immigration Identification Card

David Feldman’s identification card stamped by Canadian Immigration upon his arrival to Canada as a garment worker.

A pink card printed with a message in English, French, Czech, Russian, Ukrainian, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Swedish, Polish, Italian, and Hebrew. The message reads, “This card should be kept carefully. It should be shown to government officials whenever required.”

Instructions in 12 different languages.

David Feldman was one of 40,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors who was allowed to immigrate to Canada in 1948. He came as part of the Tailor Project. This was a government program that brought garment workers to Canada. These workers were needed to provide skilled labour during Canada's post-war economic boom. David settled in Vancouver with help from the local Jewish community.

Donated to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre by David and Regina Feldman. 94.02.0104

Transcript

[Transcribed from the original English.]

(TOURIST THIRD CLASS)

IMMIGRATION IDENTIFICATION CARD
THIS CARD MUST BE SHOWN TO THE EXAMINING OFFICER AT THE PORT OF ARRIVAL
Name of passenger FELDMAN, DAWID
Name of ship SCYTHIA
Name appears on Return, sheet 7 line 10

Medical Examination Stamp | Civil Examination Stamp
[GARMENT WORKER] [ CANADA IMMIGRATION / OCTOBER 10, 1948 / QUEBEC, P.Q]

Family Artefacts in the Museum

Transcript

[Text: Sam Heller visited the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre when his grandfather’s immigration identification card was on display. He discusses seeing the card in person and the connection he felt to his grandfather through this experience.]

Sam Heller: It's interesting coming into a place and everything's very sort of sanitized and its placed very organized, but somehow, you're connected to it in a very real way, very different than any other sort of museum experience that I've ever had. Going in somewhere and, you know, reading, it's very fascinating and interesting and you can kind of try to put yourself in the shoes but I really felt like I could put myself, I felt very connected to it. Yeah, that, you know, he handed this off to someone, this card right here, right. This was given by him to somebody here to put on display. He carried that with him for however many years before he ended up donating it. And then that's just this item, not including the other photographs and things like that, so. Its, I don't know the right word to use, sort of humbling, I guess that, you know, and also there's also a sense of I'm happy that things are here being preserved in a way that I probably would not be able to do if I just had them on my own. So, you know, it's like the story lives on in that sense after me, and yeah.

Sam Heller is the grandson of survivor David Feldman. David's immigration identification card was on display at the museum. Sam describes his experience seeing the card in person. (1 minute 40 seconds)

Immigration Identification Card

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Transcript

Related

The Tailor Project

David's ID Tag

David's Temporary Travel Document

Letter of Reference for David