Jewish refugees

The records of the National Council of Jewish Women, New York Section document the organization's community service, advocacy, and supportive administrative, fundraising, membership, and public relations activities from the Section's early years to the present. Included is a large amount of material from the National Organization in relation to the New York Section. This material is dated from 1896 to 1999 and consists of administrative, events, and advocacy matters. The New York Section's community services files include its work on aging, child care, consumer telephone referrals, counseling support, crime prevention, the disabled, domestic violence, early child education, feminism, homelessness, hunger, immigrants, Israel, Jewish education and promotion, literacy, probation, the sick, summer recreation for children and the elderly, and war relief. The Section's advocacy files consist of lobbying efforts for the rights of children, the disabled, the elderly, families, the homeless, immigrants, Israel, and women. The collection is primarily in English, with some Hebrew, Yiddish, German, Greek, Spanish, Chinese, and Italian. Among the types of material are audio tapes, blueprints, correspondence, minutes, photographs, publications, scrapbooks, and scripts.

This collection contains correspondence, records, and publications of the United Service for New Americans (USNA), the major immigration and resettlement organization in the United States for Jewish displaced persons immigrating in the late 1940s and early 1950s. These records document USNA’s interaction and coordination with the United States government’s Displaced Persons Commission, associated Jewish agencies, particularly the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), and representatives of Jewish settlement groups in cities and towns across the country. The organization helped obtain housing and job assurances for Jewish refugees without family in the United States and provided assurances that they would not become public charges. The correspondence and records in this collection document the entire process of immigration and resettlement, including obtaining the necessary assurances required for displaced persons to immigrate to the United States, relief services provided immediately upon the refugees’ arrival, their designation to and arrival in communities across the country, and the services provided to the new immigrants by their local Jewish communities thereafter.

This collection contains correspondence regarding the emigration efforts and living expenses of Regina Stein, who had fled from Berlin, Germany to Basel, Switzerland in 1943. She lived in Switzerland in deteriorating health and partially by the support of the Swiss government until she was able to immigrate to the United States in 1947. The collection consists mainly of photocopies.

Name files with biographical data of approximately 25,000 individual refugees from Nazi Germany, including alphabetical index and index by categories

Robert Raphael Geis (1906-1972) was a rabbi, educator, and Jewish theologian. He identified strongly with German liberal Judaism, but his keen interest in Jewish studies brought him close to leaders of conservative Judaism as well. Before the Second World War Robert Raphael Geis worked as a rabbi for the youth and Religion teacher in Munich and Mannheim, and as a rabbi in Kassel, Germany. After the war he served as a rabbi in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany. In the early 1960s, Raphael Robert Geis became engaged in the dialog of Protestant and Jewish theologians. The Robert Raphael Geis collection consists mainly of correspondence and writings. There are only a few personal documents. The writings consist of newspaper articles, reviews of books on Jewish topics and sermons for major Jewish holidays. The correspondence has two main foci: the periods before and after the Second World War. The first period is characterized by letters written by various leading figures of Jewish communities in Germany and is concerned with employment opportunities for young rabbis, as well as insights into inner workings of congregations. A large amount of letters from this period also come from Robert Raphael Geis' students. The correspondence written after the war centers on theological matters and the workings of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der "Juden und Christen" (Working Group of "Jews and Christians").

The collection focuses on the wartime experiences of Rosa Traub and some of her extended family members. Included are Rosa Traub’s diary from Camp de Gurs, a photocopy of her identity card, her handwritten last will and testament, and other items, such as documents pertaining to her nephew Max Liebmann and photo negatives of Albert Einstein.

The bulk of the photographs show refugees at the Rothschild Transit Camp in Vienna, ca. 1945. Also included are photographs of the bomb-damaged streetscape, the Jewish section of Vienna’s main cemetery, elderly Austrians in a city park, and – for no obvious reason - photographs of Sigmund Freud and his daughter, Anna.

This collection describes the professional life of the writer Salamon Dembitzer, who is best known as a Yiddish poet and the author of Visas for America, a novel on the situation of Jewish refugees during World War II. Included in these papers are manuscripts of his poetry, newspaper articles, and novels as well as reviews of his work, correspondence, and biographical information on him.

This collection contains a number of Kaiserslautern Rabbi Sally Baron's homiletic writings and notebooks, as well as a small number of his documents and papers.

The collection relates to the life of Jewish refugees, mostly of German and Austrian origin, in Shanghai primarily between the years 1939-1948. It covers many aspects of their experience, including political and cultural events, relief and charity activities, and self-help. The collection originated from the YIVO exhibition that was organized and displayed in 1947 in Shanghai and later in New York. The collection consists of manuscripts, minutes of meetings, correspondence, newspaper clippings, and printed materials.

Family correspondence from Poland, Germany and Western Europe. Letters from displaced persons camps in Germany, Cyprus and Israel, as well as some correspondence from Poland and Germany during the Holocaust period. Simon Chudhi's diary, 1915-1920. Family photographs.

This collection contains the papers of lawyer Saul Sperling related to the lawsuit brought by passengers of the S.S. Navemar against the owners of the ship in 1941-1942 for death, personal injury, and property damage that occurred during the difficult journey. Many passengers were Jewish refugees fleeing Europe. Materials include Saul Sperling’s notes, correspondence, legal documents, and bills.

The collection contains correspondence mostly authored by Stephanie and Franz Pisker, dispatched from Vienna, Austria and the Jewish ghetto in Opole, Poland to their daughter Susan (née Herta) in America, before Franz and Stefanie were killed in the extermination camp of Sobibor. Also included are official documents and letters pertaining to their unsuccessful attempt to immigrate to the United States and the questionnaires by the Austrian Heritage Collection of Susan and her husband John H. Graham.

This collection traces the descendents of Masele (Moses) and Hanne Schott of Randegg, many of whom settled in northern Italy in the 19th and early 20th century.

The Wiener Library in London is one of the world’s leading and most extensive archives on the Holocaust and Nazi era. Formed in 1933, the Library contains some of the earliest primary sources on National Socialism. The Library’s unique collection includes published and unpublished works, press cuttings, photographs and eyewitness testimony.

Organizational papers including original rules (1941) as well as minutes, contracts, receipts, and competition results for a bowling league founded by German-Jewish refugees in New York City.

The bulk of the collection consists of individual case files. A smaller fraction pertains to the activities of USNA departments and includes the following: Records of executive offices and of the administration. By-laws of USNA. Functional charts of the NRS, USNA, and proposed charts for merged organizations. Materials of the Policy Committee. Minutes of meetings of Department and Division heads. USNA conference materials. Reports to the USNA annual meetings. Executive correspondence including files from the offices of Clarence M. Weiner, Beatrice Behrman, Ann S. Petluck, Ann Rabinowitz, Arthur Greenleigh, Fred Fried, Clara Friedman, Ida S. Nameroff.

Published articles by the lawyer and Jewish community leader Walter Breslauer on matters of interest for German Jewish refugees after World War Two, including legal matters; international law; questions concerning restitution for German refugees; articles about Jewish personalities; and articles about the Jewish community in Berlin.

The collection contains documentation of the Welisch family of Graz, particularly Rudolf Welisch and Doris née Fleischmann and her parents Martin Fleischmann and Josefine née Borges. Included in the collection are vital records, identity cards, educational records, and photographs.

The collection documents Willy Nordwind’s efforts to bring as many German Jews as possible out of Germany before World War II. Included here is correspondence with those who had arrived or those whom Willy Nordwind was still trying to bring over.

The file contains various materials pertaining to the activity of the Central Relief Committee (Zentralausschuss der deutschen Juden für Hilfe und Aufbau) of the Reich Representation of German Jews (Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden), and comprises eight folders.