When did we start using passports? - Kristin Surak

0:06 – 1:41

A booklet that could save your life

The story opens in German occupied Poland, where a piece of paper could become a shield against extermination. In 1941, as Nazis abducted Jews and sent them to extermination camps, one loophole remained: foreign passport holders were sometimes kept in detention camps so they could later be traded for Germans held abroad. Aleksander Ładoś, a Polish diplomat in Switzerland, saw the opening and began producing forged Latin American passports, then smuggling them to Polish Jews. These were not glamorous symbols of international travel. They were simple paper booklets, and for thousands, they meant the difference between life and death. That dramatic example sets up the video's central surprise: passports feel ancient, but they are actually a relatively new invention. People did carry earlier travel documents. Ancient Egyptian travelers used letters of safe conduct from rulers. In Han China and Tudor England, foreigners could be issued travel passes. In the 19th century, poorer migrants often needed health certificates to enter the United States. But for much of history, borders were much more fluid, and travel usually did not require the kind of routine bureaucracy we now take for granted. The real turning point came with World War I. Once war broke out in 1914, neighboring states and their colonies suddenly became enemy territories. Governments wanted to stop spies from slipping through and soldiers from deserting, so many European countries built checkpoints at ports of entry to verify travelers' nationalities. Officials began inspecting early passports, but these were far from standardized. Depending on the country, they came in different formats and included different kinds of information. In other words, the passport did not begin as a timeless symbol of citizenship. It hardened into importance during a crisis, when governments became obsessed with sorting friend from foe.