Theresienstadt (Concentration camp)

This collection contains the records of the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews, an organization founded in 1961, in New York City, by members of the Joseph Popper unit of B’nai B’rith, to foster and disseminate knowledge about the history and culture of Jews in the Czech and Slovak lands. Along with the Joseph Popper unit and, later, the Holocaust Survivors of Slovakia, the society sponsored an annual memorial service held in New York City to honor Czechoslovak Jews who perished in the Holocaust. A majority of the records are from the tenure of Rabbi Norman Patz as president (1994-2008). The materials primarily comprise correspondence, and items related to the annual memorial service, including texts of addresses, and yizkor memorial booklets. Also included are meeting minutes, letters to the membership, financial reports, writings, speeches, obituaries, clippings, photographs, and printed ephemera. The society's correspondence reflects its participation in cultural events related to Czech and Slovak Jewish history, as well as its relationship to the Jewish communities in the Czech Republic and, to a lesser extent, Slovakia; some correspondence with members contains genealogical information.

The Beigel Family Collection holds materials about the Beigel family members from Berlin. The collection consists of post-war personal correspondence between the various family members and documents on restitution claims. It includes original handwritten letters and papers from the time Liane Beigel (née Bick) was in Sweden, as well as official correspondence with the United Restitution Organization after she immigrated to the United States. Also included are her husband Horst Beigel’s restitution claims against Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG.

This collection holds the papers of Bernhard Kolb, the business manager of the Jewish Community of Nuremberg. Among the material here are personal papers with some information on the Kolb family as well as a small amount of papers of Hans and Käte Bruck and some material on Jewish communities, especially that of Nuremberg. However, the collection is largely comprised of records from Theresienstadt and the offices of Der Stürmer, the Nazi newspaper. The collection includes official records such as lists, reports and announcements; correspondence; unpublished manuscripts; notes; and some photographs and drawings.

The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence to Bertha Badt-Strauss from various writers and friends between 1940 and 1969. The letters deal with topics related to emigration/immigration, Judaism, Zionism and publishing opportunities in the United States and Mexico. Included are manuscripts, poems, photographs and clippings of Badt-Strauss's correspondents, as well as some of her own writings.

The Buchheim Jonas Family Collection holds documentation of various branches of the Jonas family of Waldbreitbach, Germany, especially the descendants of Louis Jonas and Ella Buchheim, and tells of their emigration from Germany. In addition, it documents aspects of the life of Meier Buchheim of Dauborn, Germany, especially his attempt to emigrate and later death. The collection includes many family photographs, family trees, correspondence, official documents, material on the village of Waldbreitbach, and other documentation.

This collection pertains to the life of Doris Rauch (née Perlhefter), her uncle Norbert Troller, and fellow Holocaust survivors Oscar Bittner and Oscar Jellinek. It encompasses government documents and Rauch’s identification forms issued by the United States and Czechoslovakia, as well as her correspondence relating to family and Holocaust history in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Included are photographs of friends and family engaged in recreation or as posed portraits, the great majority in black and white. Authored by Norbert Troller himself are a memoir manuscript and family tree denoting those members killed during the Holocaust.

This collection holds papers of the physician and author Edmund Hadra. Much of the collection is composed of unpublished manuscripts of his writing, a significant part of which is autobiographical in nature and describe some of the most notable events of his life. In addition to these works are other writings on themes such as literature and art. The collection additionally contains official, educational and professional documentation, some correspondence and a few research notes.

Elsa Oestreicher, née Herz, born in Berlin in 1878 and married to the physician D. Jacques Oestreicher, was a successful cooking instructor and author of cookbooks. In 1942 she was deported to Theresienstadt where she also worked as a cook, cooking instructor and as head of the soup-kitchen until her liberation in 1945. The collection contains Elsa Oestreicher’s notes on Theresienstadt, concentration-camp insignia, correspondence, poems and memoirs by her as well as official documents such as certificates related to her profession.

The Flora Morstadt Collection documents the life of Flora Morstadt and her family mainly through the years 1938-1944. The bulk of the collection is comprised of letters from Flora Morstadt to her family during World War II. Other materials include documents relating to emigration, post-war identification cards, and Flora Morstadt’s recipe book.

The collection consists of material pertaining to Rabbi Leo Baeck. The material, mostly secondary, was collected by the Leo Baeck Institute’s staff and in some cases bear markings and notes by the Institute’s staff.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Joseph (Joe) Quittner, mostly correspondence and notebook entries but also including photographs, pictures and newspaper clippings, family papers, personal and professional writings, and other personal documents. These materials reflect Joe Quittner’s childhood experiences in Vienna (Austria) during the Nazi regime, his escape via Kindertransport to England in 1938, and his work as a radio engineer in England as well as a radio technician in Canada. The collection also provides information about the rest of his family, especially his parents Egon and Amalie Quittner (Weltmann), who died in the Holocaust.

This collection contains the personal papers of members of the Leiter and Berliner families of Hamburg and Berlin. Some members of these families immigrated to the United States in the late 1930s while others survived World War II in Amsterdam, as forced laborers in Berlin, or in Theresienstadt. Materials include vital documents, official papers, personal correspondence, poems, clippings, official announcements and orders, banking records, restitution materials, and a few photographs.

The Leo Baeck Collection documents the life and work of Rabbi Leo Baeck, well-known as a leader, scholar, and spokesman for German Jewry. Although the most prominent items in this collection are articles, clippings, and biographical material on Leo Baeck, the collection also holds original manuscripts of his writing, as well as personal documents, correspondence, and a small amount of photographs and artwork.

The Leo Baeck Family Collection documents the lives and influential events of members of the Baeck and Berlak families, specifically Leo Baeck, Ruth and Hermann Berlak, and Marianne and A. Stanley Dreyfus. Most prominent is the documentation on Leo Baeck's life; other salient themes include the World War I experience of Hermann Berlak and the Dreyfuses' involvement in preserving the memory of Leo Baeck's life and teachings. The collection includes extensive correspondence; a large accumulation of articles, especially those focused on Leo Baeck; a smaller amount of personal papers, manuscripts, drafts and notes; and a few photographs and slides.

The Max Markreich collection documents the life of Max Markreich and his family, especially their emigration from Bremen, Germany. The collection also centers on the history of the Jewish communities of Bremen and East Frisia (Ostfriesland). Included among the papers are manuscripts, correspondence, vital and government documents, clippings, and notes.

This collection contains correspondence and family papers from the Mittler, Herzog, and Picard families, mostly from or concerning the time and events of the Holocaust.

This collection consists of documents of the Nothmann family, including personal correspondence and official documents, such as passports and certificates. A lot of the material is about or from the time of the Nazi persecution.

This collection contains official certificates documenting the lives of four family members of the Ogutsch-Katz family. Also included are report cards, clippings, correspondence, and obituaries, as well as many photographs.

Documents refer to the Ostwald, Tendlau and Cohen families. One focus is on the life of Alice Witte née Cohn. Of special significance is a letter that Karl Siche wrote to Alice Witte. Together with Alice Witte's former husband Max Witte, Karl Siche was detained in a concentration camp. Here Max Witte passed away. There is also a remarkable letter from Hedwig Ostwald, which she wrote in Theresienstadt in 1944, prior to her deportation to Auschwitz where she died. Her husband Max Ostwald, a lawyer and the head of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (district Westphalia) had already died in 1942 in Theresienstadt from disease.

This collection contains drawings and poems by Theresienstadt inmates, Jewish newspapers from the period of the Nazi dictatorship, and newsletters of the Maccabi Hazair youth organization.

This collection contains various material about the Pretzfelder Family and the Kristallglasfabrik Spiegelau. The emphasis of the collection lies on the loss, restitution and postwar development of the glass factory in Bavaria and the rise of Fritz Pretzfelder (later Frederick Preston) as a successful industrial businessman. The collection also documents the family's immigration to Great Britain in 1938 and other family events. The collection includes many family photographs.

This collection contains the papers of Resi Weglein and reflects various periods of her life, especially the time period 1942 to 1945. Resi Weglein and her husband Siegmund Weglein were deported to Theresienstadt in August 1942, where she helped to provide health services to the detainees. The bulk of the documents in the collection consist of personal correspondence, restitution materials, emigration and immigration papers, and photographs. The collection also includes two handwritten notebooks of Resi Weglein and associated manuscripts which reflect her experiences as a nurse in Theresienstadt. The collection also provides information about the rest of her family, especially her husband Siegmund Weglein, who served in World War I, and her son Walter Weglein (later Weglyn), who was rescued via Kindertransport. Also included are clippings, book reviews, reports and correspondence from the War Refugee Board, and an assortment of materials pertaining to the Theresienstadt period.

The core of this collection contains published as well as unpublished manuscripts by Richard A. Ehrlich, centering on his life in the Prussian town of Rogasen and his internment in Thersienstadt. Also included are his correspondence with Albert Einstein, Bertha Badt-Strauss and others, as well as documents pertaining to the extended Alexander-Ehrlich family.

This collection consists mainly of correspondence between family members of Rose Wegner, predominantly of her mother Gertrud Leon's letters from Berlin to Rose in New York in the years 1938-1942. The recent correspondence between Peter Leon and Beate Niemann deals with the past of Beate's Nazi parents and their connection to the Leons.

This collection contains documentation on the lives of members of the Sternheim, Isenberg and Osterberg families. Prominent topics include family members' experiences in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, genealogy and the writing of Max Osterberg and Hans Sternheim. The collection includes correspondence, clippings, manuscripts, family trees, notebooks, financial papers and some photographs.

This is a constructed collection that contains clippings and other non-original materials about Theresienstadt created after 1945. Materials include clippings, posters, newsletters and annual reports of the Theresienstadt Martyrs Remembrance Association and the Terezín Memorial, exhibition brochures, and programs of lectures, concerts, and performances memorializing Theresienstadt.

This is a constructed collection that contains traces of life in Theresienstadt as well as remembrances of it created after World War II. Materials include correspondence, official decrees and notices, money, poems, a map, military reports, lists of prisoners, clippings, accounts of personal experiences, and materials related to a reproduction of the Theresienstadt children's opera Brundibar.

The Walter Zvi Bacharach Collection consists of various personal and professional documents, testimonials, certificates, newspaper clippings, notes and correspondence from the life of Walter Zvi Bacharach and his family. They mostly concern his life in Germany and the Netherlands, his captivity during the Holocaust as well as his liberation. Furthermore, the collection contains correspondence, testimonials and documents regarding his life and academic career in Israel. Additional family documents as well as family correspondence are included in the collection.