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.

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.

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.

The collection consists of private correspondence, personal documents and writings of Eva Heilberg Schäffer, her parents, her husband Hans Schäffer, her daughters and other relatives and friends.

This collection documents the history of the Weiss family with a focus on Gerald Weiss’ parents Jacob and Selma Weiss née Falk and their siblings. Jacob (alternatively Köbes) Weiss (1883-1965) was born the second of nine children to the cattle dealer Albert Weiss and his wife Mathilde Amalie née Michel. As a young man, he lived in Cologne and started a bed linen manufacturing business, S & J Weiss, with his brother Siegmund. As the situation for Jews in Germany worsened in the 1930s, he and Siegmund smuggled money from the business to banks in Holland to aid in the Weiss family’s emigration. Jacob Weiss emigrated with his wife and children in 1939 and settled in New York. This collection contains family trees, family correspondence, translations of family correspondence, vital records, immigration and naturalization records, correspondence and legal documents concerning restitution claims, correspondence and legal documents concerning the estate of Hermann and Carolina Michel née Frank, and correspondence and photographs concerning family gravesites and the restoration of a Jewish cemetery.

Extensive autobiographical manuscript by Troller, with illustrations and other supporting material, discussing his family and community, his early life, and his experiences during and after the Holocaust.

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.

The Paul Egon Cahn Collection holds personal and official papers of Paul Egon and Senta Ilse Cahn and their families, as well as about one thousand personal and family photographs.

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.

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.