Death certificates

This collection contains the files of the restitution cases handled by the lawyer Hans-Heinz Altmann. It consists primarily of legal correspondence; medical opinions, attestations, insurance records or income statements are frequently enclosed. Although the focus is clearly on the legal bearings of the individual cases, the material also gives insight into the difficulties displacement and emigration inflicted upon the refugees. This becomes especially obvious in regard to the clients’ trouble procuring documentation and affidavits or finding attesters substantiating their restitution.

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.

This collection contains the institutional records of the Source of Life Benevolent Society, a fraternal organization founded in New York in 1911. These records primarily relate to mortuary benefits.

The Wassermann Family Collection contains information on the entire Wassermann family. Prominent topics include the family history and life and death of individual family members. The collection consist of birth certificates, death certificates, and books of condolence, identification papers, academic documentations, emigration papers, photographs, family history documents, memoirs, and a family tree.