Henry B. Sachs Family Collection

The Henry B. Sachs Family Collection holds the papers of Henry Sachs and his family with a focus on their immigration experiences. Most prominent in the collection are the papers of Henry, his wife Kate and daughter Dorothea (Thea Sachs, later Dot Sparer). Most folders contain notes from the latter with identification or further details of folder contents. Basic family dates will be found in the folder of family trees, which display the dates of several generations of the Sachs, Berlowitz and related families. The collection includes photographs and a photo album, a diary, correspondence, family trees, military papers, and various other family papers.

The immigration experiences of family members is located in several places in the collection. The first folder holds the emigration diary of Henry Sachs's mother-in-law Elly Berlowitz. This diary records her second emigration from May through July 1944 as well as describes a vacation to Italy in 1935 and a trip to visit her brother in Brooklyn in 1936. Descriptions of her trips primarily mention her tourist activities but also individuals she visited and give brief impressions of notable experiences. The pages of Kate Sach's journal detail the dates of the immigration of herself, her husband and her daughter from Königsberg to England to New York. Dot Sparer's talk to students at Clarke Central High School provide even more specifics of the family's immigration, including the arrest of Henry Sachs on Kristallnacht and her experiences during the evacuation of London children to the English countryside.

Henry Sachs's experiences in World War I and his professional life are documented as well. Material on World War I, found in folder 7, include his medals for military service along with certificates regarding their awarding or his permission to wear them during later years as a former front combatant. The preceding folder includes documentation of his professional life, including a photograph of Henry Sachs with other medical students, a number of his medical articles in the field of obstetrics and gynecology and a parking permit for his medical calls while a physician in New York City. His obituary from the newspaper Aufbau is also with these papers.

Two folders hold copies of loose family photographs (folder 3) and a photograph album (folder 11). Loose photographs show many members of the extended Sachs, Berlowitz and Marcus families, but especially focus on Henry Sachs's immediate family. Included is a group photograph from Hermann and Elly Berlowitz's apartment in New York City in 1948 that shows three generations of the family and a photograph of the Berlowitz quilt factory in Elbing. The photograph album focuses on Thea Sachs's early years but likewise shows many of the extended family as well.

One folder consists of the correspondence of Kate Sachs. Nearly all of it is restitution correspondence with lawyers regarding the possibility of a widow's pension, but there is also a lengthy letter to her from Ernest Rosenthal, a relative of Henry Sachs's, that imparts updated news of his family.