Page Nine

Undercover Address – Rua Alexandre Herculano, 41, Lisbon

Rua Alexandre Herculano, 41, Lisbon, Portugal, was the undercover address for the Polish Red Cross headquarters in London.

Pictured Above and Below: This December 2, 1943, envelope from Warsaw to the Rua Alexandre Herculano, 41, undercover address was scrutinized by the German censors at Munich, who searched for secret writing in invisible ink before passing it. A Lisbon transit marking is dated December 14. When the envelope reached London, four different files – records of the Red Cross, the Postal Section, the Department for Families of Army Personnel, and the Section for Social Welfare of the Air Force Inspectorate – were searched for the recipient’s location before it was finally delivered to Polish Naval Headquarters, a successful clandestine communication that slipped past the Nazis in spite of their attention to detail.

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