Jenny Pelz Collection

The bulk of this collection consists of correspondence sent from Jenny Pelz in Berlin to her children and grandchildren in the United States during the second World War.

The majority of the correspondence was sent by Jenny Pelz to her daughter Erna Summerfeld and grandchildren in the United States, letters to a few other recipients are also present. Most of the correspondence was sent from her residence in Berlin, with the exception of a postcard sent from Theresienstadt to a friend. Folder four contains letters sent after the war to members of Pelz's surviving family by family friends and acquaintances in Germany. Some of these letters contain accounts of Jenny Pelz's final days before deportation, of Pelz's time in Theresienstadt, and of conditions in Berlin after the war.

Two additional folders contain a small amount of handwritten poetry and some documents. The poetry was for the most part written by Erna Meier-Pelz (Erna Summerfeld), Jenny Pelz's daughter, during the 1910s. There is also a poem written by Erich Meier Pelz. The final folder contains photocopied documents related to Pelz's deportation in 1943, as well as postwar documents relating to restitution claims. Also included in this folder is a transcription of a letter, likely from 1943, in which Pelz lists her possessions and the friends with whom she left them before deportation.