Prussia, West (Poland)

The collection comprises two groups of photographs, the first being family photographs and the second photographs from Erich Simon's time spent on the Eastern front in World War I.

Records of several Jewish communities assembled by Jacob Jacobson.

Folder 1 and 2 mostly contain documents (invitations, songs, poems, speeches, wills) pertaining to occasions such as weddings, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, golden weddings, and birthdays of various family members, but also official documents such as school certificates, identity cards, police clearances etc. from the years 1833 to 1955 (including undated materials), and family correspondence (1865-1931).

Folder 3 contains materials pertaining to Selma Wittenberg née Landshut (1878-1960). It includes manuscripts by Selma Wittenberg, a notebook titled "Lehrgut Wittgenstein und die Seinen" (handwritten, 41 pp., also exists as typescript (carbon copy)) and a second notebook (handwritten, 46 pp., also exists as typescript (carbon copy)) with several short stories ("Schabbeslichter","Was ein alter Familientisch zu erzaehlen weiss", "Idill [sic] in der Kleinstadt", "Omchen, erzaehl uns ein Maerchen!", "Glauben", "Vom Birnbaum", "Tante Erna – das Sternchen", "Der Wagen", and "Ein Urteil"). The texts are written in a concentration camp on Rhode (Rodi) under Italian occupation in the summer of 1941 after the ship, which was supposed to bring Wittenberg from Triest to Palestine, was wrecked. The latter notebook consists of various memoirs including descriptions from the situation in the camp.

The file also contains correspondence of Wittenberg (1938-1941), partly drafts of letters, in which she refers to life in the camp.

Folder 4 contains a family history by Siegfried Landshut (bound print, 44+1 pp.) including a genealogical table from 1962, family photographs, and materials pertaining to the Landshut family collection by the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Wąbrzeźno, known in German as Briesen. The records date from 1871 to 1921, concentrated in the era when the town of Briesen was part of the province of West Prussia, in the German Empire; only a handful of items date from the years 1920-1921, when the town was part of Poland. The collection comprises administrative and financial records kept by the Briesen Jewish Community Council, except for one volume of records kept by the Jüdischer Lese-Verein (Jewish Reading Society) of Briesen, in the years 1901 to 1908. Approximately 40% of the collection comprises financial records, 1882-1921, including official budgets and tax lists; 20% concerns the community's religious institutions; and another 20% comprises records related to community employees, especially rabbis and cantors. The remainder of the collection includes correspondence, communal meeting minutes and decisions, circulars announcing meetings, and a variety of administrative records. Included are records pertaining to communal council elections; synagogue seat rentals; burials and the care of graves; the construction and maintenance of the mikveh (ritual bath house); the expansion of the cemetery; synagogue rules and the renovation of the synagogue; charitable activities, often in cooperation with regional and national Jewish organizations; and the religious school and Jewish elementary school.

The collection holds a list of Jewish citizens in West Prussia, circa 1812. Also included are two published articles about the history of Jews in West Prussia.