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 The collection includes official records such as lists, reports and announcements; correspondence; unpublished manuscripts; notes; and some photographs and drawings.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.