Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden (Germany)

Bernhard Kahn dedicated 50 years of his life to welfare activities in order to help distressed Jews. Among others he worked for the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Comittee and the American Joint Reconstruction Foundation .The collection contains personal as well as professional correspondence, articles on Bernhard Kahn’s work and biography, lectures and speeches by him and a number of official documents such as letters of consignment, citizenship papers and educational and professional certificates.

This collection consists primarily of economist Carl Landauer's correspondence (incoming and outgoing) concerning assistance for refugee scholars during the 1930s and 1940s. It also includes correspondence with Jewish communal organizations in San Francisco and Oakland, and some offprints of Landauer's articles.

Emigration 1864-1952: This collection - encompassing about 90 years - contains papers about the situation and persecution of Jews in Eastern European countries (Russia, Poland, Roumania, Bulgaria, Lithuania). Papers describe the activities of various relief organizations. There are more than 170 papers (ca.900 pages), about half of them written in German, about 30 each in French or English, over 20 in Yiddish and some in Polish. A printed appeal of the Reichsausschuss fuer Russisch-Juedische Fluechtlingshilfe, Berlin (1929) carries among others the signatures of Leo Baeck and ALbert Einstein. (VI, 16).

The file contains various documents pertaining to the situation of the Jews in Nazi Germany, mostly regarding migration, and comprises eight folders.

Series I of the collection pertains to Rabbi Leopold Rosenak's work as a field chaplain during World War I in Kaunas (Kowno) in Lithuania. It contains manuscripts by Rosenak including a report on his work as field chaplain in 1915, private and official correspondence (letters, cables) with individuals and institutions such as "Ausschuss fuer fahrbare Kriegsbuechereien an der Front", Leo Baeck, "Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden", "Kriegsministerium" (Prussian War Office), "Kaiserlich Tuerkisches Generalkonsulat zu Bremen" (Turkish Consulate in Bremen), and Erich Ludendorff. The correspondence documents in particular his activities for the native Jewish population in Lithuania in particular regarding food supplies and education, his service as a field chaplain, and his efforts to support and supply libraries for Prussian soldiers. The series contains, furthermore, various certificates of L. Rosenak, a typescript by L. Hoppe, Protestant field chaplain, titled "Ein Ostermorgen im Grossen Hauptquartier" (typescript, 3 pp.), and flyers in German and Yiddish inviting to services of L. Rosenak in Lida.

Lucien Wolf (1857-1930) was a diplomat, foreign affairs expert, journalist, and historian. As the secretary of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association (earlier the Conjoint Foreign Committee), Lucien Wolf took a leading role in the efforts of Western Jewry to aid persecuted Jews in Eastern Europe. He was also a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference (1919), where he helped to draft the minorities treaties guaranteeing the rights of Jews and other ethnic and religious minority groups. David Mowshowitch (1887-1957) was Lucien Wolf's secretary and aide at the Joint Foreign Committee for many years and continued to work for the Joint Foreign Committee until the 1950s. The collection consists of the papers of Lucien Wolf and David Mowshowitch, as well as fragmentary records of the Joint Foreign Committee. The material includes personal papers, correspondence, reports, memoranda, minutes of meetings, copies of articles, and press clippings. The documents pertain to the situation of persecuted Jews throughout the world, most notably the efforts of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association to aid the Jews of Eastern Europe, and to the Peace Conference at Paris in 1919 and the minorities treaties. There is also material on Lucien Wolf's and David Mowshowitch's other activities, most importantly Lucien Wolf's career as a journalist and as a historian of the Jewish community in Britain.

The Rachel Wischnitzer Collection contains correspondence, lecture notes, photographs, lantern slides, and negatives documenting Rachel Wischnitzer’s career as an art historian, curator, professor, consultant, and author. Also included are correspondence, records, and photographs pertaining to her husband Mark Wischnitzer’s work as a historian, editor, and Secretary General of the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden.

This collection contains the records of the Union of Jewish Student Associations in Germany (Yiddish: Farband fun di Yidishe Studentn Fareynen in Daytshland; German: Verband Jüdischer Studentenvereine in Deutschland), an umbrella organization of associations of East European Jewish students who were pursuing their education in cities throughout Germany in the 1920s. Along with the Union's records are the records of two of its affiliate associations, the Jewish Student Association in Berlin and the Jewish Student Association in Jena. The student associations and the umbrella organization that they founded aimed to further Jewish cultural life among members; to provide material assistance to members in need; and to advocate for the interests of members vis-à-vis state and academic authorities. Included are administrative records such as bylaws, minutes, and announcements; materials documenting membership meetings of the Berlin association and conferences of the umbrella organization; petitions and correspondence from members concerning financial aid; materials documenting libraries maintained by the students, and other activities; and general correspondence. Among the correspondents are Jewish charitable and social-welfare organizations that contributed to the support of East European Jewish students through the student associations, including the Yidishe Velt-Hilfs-Konferents (Conférence Universelle Juive de Secours, Paris), the Verband der Russischen Juden, the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, and the Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Deutschen Juden, as well as the Jewish Community of Berlin, and Jewish communities in other cities in Germany. The collection also includes a relatively small amount of materials of mixed provenance documenting the activities of other associations and umbrella organizations of East European Jewish students, both in Eastern Europe and the West, the greatest portion related to interwar Poland, especially Vilna.

The Galveston immigration records document the attempt of the Jewish Immigrant Information Bureau, working in cooperation with several other Jewish organizations, to receive Jewish immgrants through the port of Galveston, Texas rather than New York City. The papers further describe the JIIB's efforts to resettle the immigrants in communities throughout the United States. Papers include ship passenger lists, correspondence, and statistical reports, as well as papers dealing with individual immigration cases.

The first folder contains a two part typescript by Salomon Samuel, a reflection on the period of Jewish emancipation (5600-5700, i.e. circa 1840 to 1938) titled "5600-5700. Rueckblick auf ein Jahrhundert juedischer Weltenaera". In the first part (27 pp.) Samuel describes the historical events from the so called "Damascus affair" (1840) to the Évian Conference (1938), in the second part titled "Religioese und geistesgeschichtliche Entwicklung" (179 pp.) the Jewish religious and intellectual developments in the Era of emancipation.

The second folder contains a photocopied typescript titled "Einfuehrung", the introduction to Samuel's "Ein Lehrbuch juedischer Religion" (published in 1930) and a biographical article by Samuel's son Jochanan Samuel (1901-1976) titled "Rabbiner Dr. Salomon Samuel" published in: Muenster am Hellweg. 6/9 (June, 1978). pp. 81-88.

This collection contains records of the Guggenheim family, including family tree, family history, vital records, obituaries, papers of family members who emigrated to Chile, and other papers of family members.