Eric W. Zielenziger Collection
Scope and Content Note
The Eric Zielenziger Collection includes materials dealing with members of the Zielenziger family.
The bulk of the collection consists of Ruth Zielenziger’s teaching materials.
Materials dealing with other members of the family include vital and school documents, certificates, financial documents, some family correspondence, and genealogical tables.
There is also a large number of Kurt Zielenziger’s manuscripts that include lectures, essays, and fragments of larger scale works. The bulk of the manuscripts are typed, with a fair amount of hand-written manuscripts also present in the collection.
There is a very unique item in the collection-Lilly Zielenziger’s dairy that she kept while at Westerbork camp.
Additionally, there is a hand-made children’s book Ein winziges Bilderbuch voor de lange Pim!, written in 1946 in Amsterdam. The book tells the story of Erick (Eric) Zielenziger and his parents. The author is unknown.
Other materials include a few photographs and clippings, mostly about Kurt Zielenziger.
Dates
- 1890-2010
Language of Materials
The collection is in German and English with some Hebrew.
Access Restrictions
Open to researchers.
Access Information
Collection is digitized. Follow the links in the Container List to access the digitized materials.
Readers may access the collection by visiting the Lillian Goldman Reading Room at the Center for Jewish History. We recommend reserving the collection in advance; please visit the LBI Online Catalog and click on the "Request" button.
Biographical Note
Eric Wolfgang Zielenziger was born on February 6th, 1920, in Berlin, Germany into an affluent Jewish family. His mother was Lilly Weyl Zielenziger and his father was Kurt Zielenziger, a well known economist and journalist.
In 1933, the family moved to France and the following year to Amsterdam, Holland. In Amsterdam, Kurt Zielenziger became the leader of the Jewish Central Information Office. While in Holland, Eric Zielenziger joined Maccabi Hatzair, a Jewish Youth Organization.
After graduating from high school in 1938 he got a job with an export/import company but lost it in 1941, after Germans fired all the Jews from the company.
Later that year he got a job with Joodseraad (Jewish Council). After Eric’s parents were sent to the camp Westerbork in 1943, he went into hiding and stayed underground until May 1945.
In 1944 Kurt and Lilly Zielenziger were transferred from Westerbork to Bergen-Belsen. Kurt Zielenziger died there in July 1944 and Lilly Zielenziger died of typhus in May 1945.
After the war ended, Eric worked for the Joint Distribution Committee in Amsterdam, before immigrating to the United States.
Eric Zielenziger was a trader with Felix Kramarsky Corp., and a sales executive with Accurate Ingredients of Syosset, NY. He also served as secretary-treasurer of the PEC Israel Economic Corporation.
Eric Zielenziger was married to Ruth Zielenziger, a a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York.
Eric Zielenziger died on November 20, 2010.
Extent
1.5 Linear Feet
Abstract
The Eric Zielenziger Collection includes materials dealing with various members of the Zielenziger family. The bulk of the collection consists of Ruth Zielenziger’s teaching materials. Materials dealing with other members of the family include vital and school documents, certificates, financial documents, some family correspondence, genealogical tables, and a large number of Kurt Zielenziger’s manuscripts.
Arrangement
The collection consists of two series:
- Berlin (Germany)
- Bible -- Study and teaching
- Clippings (information artifacts)
- Correspondence
- Diaries
- Financial records
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Netherlands
- Judaism -- Study and teaching
- Manuscripts (documents)
- Netherlands
- Official documents
- Photographs
- Printed materials
- United States
- Westerbork (Concentration camp)
- Zielenziger, Eric Wolfgang, 1920-2010
- Zielenziger, Kurt, 1890-
- Zielenziger, Ruth
- Title
- Guide to the Papers of Eric W. Zielenziger 1890-2010 AR 25390
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Processed by Yakov Illich Sklar
- Date
- © 2011
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Description is in English.
- Sponsor
- as part of the Leon Levy Archival Processing Initiative, made possible by the Leon Levy Foundation
Revision Statements
- August 24, 2012 : Links to digital objects added in Container List.
Repository Details
Part of the Leo Baeck Institute Repository
