Pinkhas Berliner, a student from England, was learning at the Mir Yeshiva in the late 1930s, as war broke out in Europe. He, along with most of the teachers and students from Mir and other yeshivas in eastern Poland (now Belarus) escaped to Lithuania. From there, some British Yeshiva students, teachers and family members traveled via Siberia and Hong Kong, to Australia. See the article From Kelme to Melbourne for one story.

Shown here is the British passport that saved a life. Below the passport are two letters of recommendation that Pinkhas Berliner carried with him on his travels. One is from Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, who was head of the Mir Yeshiva which, in 1940, was located in Kaidan, Lithuania. The other letter is written by Avraham Yitskhak Bloch, chief Rabbi of the Yeshiva in Telšiai, Lithuania.

Chaim Freedman, sent these documents belonging to his father-in-law, Pinkhas Berliner. You can read details of Rabbi Berliner's experiences on Chaim Freedman's blog.