A piece of paper with some personal information and a foreign signature could have meant freedom and life for the people who were trying to escape the Holocaust. While getting access to these passports was not without challenges, especially considering that the requirements to emigrate to foreign countries were fairly extensive at the time, it was not impossible. For a considerable sum of money, Jewish people could get their hands on passports to Paraguay, Costa Rica, Uruguay, among other countries. While in the 1930s many of these Jewish emigrants arrived in Paraguay with passports issued in Poland, when Germany invaded it on September 1^st, 1939, the situation changed and applying for these passports became more accessible in other places in Europe.

One of the locations where these transactions were taking place was Berna, Switzerland, a neutral country. There, the Polish Legation devised a plan to help Jews who were seeking to emigrate to South America. They found in the Paraguayan Honorary Consul, Rudolf Hügli, a key ally in issuing these passports for Jewish people.[1] Hügli was not Paraguayan himself but had connections to the country. And while he might have had his own personal motives to participate in this plan, such as charging CHF 500 per passport,[2] he still played a major role in signing the documents with his name. On the Polish side, Aleksander Lados, Stefan Ryniewicz, Konstanty Rokicki, Juliusz Kühl, Abraham Silberschein, and Chaim Eiss were the main architects behind this project.[3] While this risky collaborative project could have jeopardized international relations between Switzerland and foreign countries, as well as Paraguayan relations with other countries, it is estimated that more than 400 Jewish people were saved thanks to this secret scheme.

While in 1944 the Paraguayan government had approved and validated these passports, in the late 1930s just having these documents turned out to not be enough. It might have been true that at the moment of boarding the ships, these passports gave a sense of security and hope to the Jews who were trying to relocate to Paraguay. However, changes in immigration policy at the moment of their arrival would become another obstacle to overcome; one that would have direct consequences on where they would end up settling and starting a new life.