Transit Visa for passage through the Belgian Congo en route to Great Britain issued to David Ben-Gurion (then Executive President of the Jewish Agency for Palestine) by the Belgian Consulate in Jerusalem

(BEN-GURION, DAVID).

25th July,

Jerusalem

1941

Typed document with manuscript additions in French. With portrait photograph of Ben-Gurion affixed. Signed by Ben-Gurion and the Belgian Consulor General

Ben-Gurion was mired in political negotiations with the British concerning the anti-Zionist policy entrenched in the British Government’s White Paper of 1939 and the implementation of the Land Transfer Regulations in February 1940. The onset of World War II, and particularly Italy’s entry into the war which opened a second front against the British in the Mediterranean, slowed Ben-Gurion’s negotiations for the opening of Palestine to Jewish immigration and settlement. The turmoil in Continental Europe no doubt necessitated Ben-Gurion’s extraordinarily circuitous journey to England via the Belgian Congo in Central Africa