“What is the point of having an important document buried in an archive for decades, invisible and out of reach to the public?”

That is the question at the centre of an emotional tug-of-war over a historic travel document between the National Archives of Australia and the descendants of a Jewish family who fled Nazi Europe.

The visa was unearthed in September after a decades-long search for the heirloom the family believed to be lost.

The archives did not even know it held the document, until Linda Royal paid it $127.20 to search previously unopened files it held on her family.