Italy

This collection mostly consists of personal correspondence, including communications from relatives and friends interned in concentration camps in France, Lublin, and Theresienstadt, and letters regarding the establishment of an agrarian training camp for Jews in Italy.

The Records of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites (1859-1878) documents the life cycle of the Board of Delegates, a Jewish civil rights organization located in New York City. The Board served in a two-fold function: acting as a central organization for American Jews and working on behalf of Jews abroad. To the latter end, the Delegates collaborated with the Committee of Deputies of British Jews and the French Alliance Israélite Universelle to provide for the relief and aid, civil, and religious rights of Jews throughout the Americas, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, particularly Romania, Ottoman Palestine including Jerusalem, and Morocco.

In the U.S., the Delegates were partially responsible for the appointment of the first Jewish Military Chaplain and surveyed member synagogues concerning the history and size of their congregation, the first organization to systematically record this type of information in the States. The Delegates merged with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) in 1878 and dissolved in 1925. Correspondents include Adolph Crémieux, Sir Moses Montefiore, Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, Isaacs S. Myer, the Rev. Dr. Arnold Fischel, and Maj. General Benjamin Butler. Documents include correspondence, minutes, committee reports, memorials, announcements, surveys, some printed material including clippings, and a 1932 Rabbinical thesis on the Delegates by Allan Tarshish.

This collection contains the records of Ira H. Jolles’ activities with the Cahnman Foundation, a philanthropic organization which funded projects dedicated to the preservation and care of Jewish archives, architecture, and culture. It consists primarily of correspondence relating to funded projects, including their planning and scope. Also included are several years worth of Board of Director meeting minutes and select legal documents from the Estate of Gisella Levi Cahnman.

This collection holds letters exchanged between the Austrian émigré Cecilia Ruberl in Rome and Stefan Taussig in upstate New York, to whom she loaned funds in order to establish a farm. Although most of the correspondence concerns their financial association, letters sent during and after World War II document his aid of her and her family members. In addition to correspondence, the collection holds a few receipts for stock transactions and documentation of a restitution claims decision on behalf of Cecilia Ruberl's family.

The collection is comprised of photographs of various provenances related to the lives of Jewish displaced persons (DPs) in the period immediately following the Second World War, from 1945 to 1952. The photographs pertain to DP camps and communities in the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Austria, and Italy, primarily those established by the American and British military, and administered by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and, later, the International Refugee Organization. Diverse aspects of daily life among the DPs are depicted, such as school, work, recreation, and vocational training, including many activities sponsored by Jewish voluntary organizations, especially World ORT and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Also depicted are cultural activities such as theater, children’s performances, Jewish holiday celebrations and parades, and commemorative events honoring those who died in the Holocaust. The photographs capture leaders of the Jewish DP zonal and camp committees, DP police, and Zionist living collectives (kibbutzim), as well as notable military, political, and cultural personalities of the period, such as Lucius D. Clay, Fiorello LaGuardia, David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Gruenbaum, and H. Leivick. The photographs also reflect political and historical developments, including the major congresses of the DP leaderships in Germany, Austria, and Italy; protest demonstrations concerning British policies regulating immigration to Palestine; and events held upon the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.

This collection of posters includes approximately 1,000 rare or unique items pertaining to over 100 displaced persons (DP) camps and centers in Germany, Austria, and Italy, dating primarily from 1946 to 1952. Comprised of approximately 60% handpainted and 40% printed items, it includes posters produced by diverse Jewish groups within individual camps, such as administrative and cultural committees, sports clubs, Zionist and religious groups, and landsmanshaftn; as well as organizations active throughout the camps, including the Jewish central committees in the respective countries, the World ORT Union, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish National Fund, and the Jewish Agency. A small number of items also document activities of the revived Jewish communities in the city centers of Munich and Vienna. Many of the posters use not only language but also color, graphic design, and pictorial and figurative elements to engage their audience with calls to entertainment, lectures, protests, and commemorations.

Sephardic House was established in 1978 as a correction to the often-overlooked contributions of the Sephardic community to American-Jewish culture. The Records of Sephardic House documents the administrative, programming, and publishing activities of Sephardic House since its founding. Such documents include financial records, meeting minutes, correspondence, artist portfolios, press releases, photographs, slides, and much more.

These records detail the history of the Displaced Person camps in Italy. They include the records of the individual camps as well as political and cultural groups that operated within the camps. The collection primarily consists of administrative records such as reports, correspondence, and lists as well as cultural materials from political, theatrical, and literary groups. There are also a large number of records of court proceedings, centering on accounting for actions taken during the Holocaust as well as the formation of new families in the DP camps.

Correspondence of Ismar Elbogen with individuals, including Elias Auerbach, Julius Bab, Leo Baeck, Salo Baron, Markus Brann, Martin Buber, Umberto Cassuto, Ludwig Feuchtwanger, Ludwig Geiger, Robert Raphael Geis, Louis Ginzburg, Ignaz Goldziher, Max Gruenewald, Moritz Güdemann, Julius Guttmann, Bernhard Kahn, Mordechai Kaplan, Adolf Leschnitzer, Lily Montagu, Claude Montefiore, Adolph Oko, Paula Ollendorf, Bertha Pappenheim, Felix Perles, Koppel Pinson, Peter Reinhold, Julius Rosenwald, Cecil Roth, Caesar Seligmann, Selma Stern-Taeubler, Henrietta Szold, Hermann Vogelstein, and Stephen Wise.

Correspondence with individuals and organizations, including Clifford Case, Max Eastman, the Emergency Rescue Committee, Bruno Frank, Manfred George, Hermann Kesten, H.R. Knickerbocker, Alfred Knopf, Emil Ludwig, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann, James G. McDonald, Maxwell Perkins, Victor Polzer, Curt Riess, Ernst Rowohlt, Friedrich Sternthal, Max Warburg, Franz Werfel, and Carl Zuckmayer.

Manuscripts of articles, speeches, and radio broadcasts by Schwarzschild; manuscripts and reviews of his books, including World in Trance and The Red Prussian.

This collection contains the papers of Morris "Moe" Berg, who was a professional baseball player, linguist, lawyer, and international spy during WWII. Berg's papers are in the form of correspondence, contracts, telegrams, newspaper and magazine clippings.

Extensive autobiographical manuscript by Troller, with illustrations and other supporting material, discussing his family and community, his early life, and his experiences during and after the Holocaust.

This collection consists of restitution claims submitted to OMGUS, the Office of the Military Government for Germany (United States), which administered the United States occupation zone and the U.S. Berlin sector during the Allied occupation of Germany after World War II. Restitution claims routinely originated with the Military Mission that represented the county from which property was looted, stolen or destroyed under German occupation during World War II. These cases were forwarded to OMGUS for investigation and resolution.

This collection consists of photographs and negatives of World ORT conferences and congresses, various individuals connected with ORT, and ORT vocational programs and activities, including in Displaced Person’s camps, in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Cuba, and North and South America.

This collection consists of the writings of Gunter Hirschberg and Hedwig Burchard (Ruth Hirschberg's mother). The bulk of the collection is Hedwig Burchard's writings. In addition, Ruth Hirschberg's Poesiealbum (1929) can be found in the collection, along with a family tree of the Burchard family.

The Rahn Family Collection centers on the lives of Alfred and Lilli (née Bechmann) Rahn, but also contains many documents of their parents, siblings, and even more distant family members. It also documents the family members' attempts to receive restitution for their losses. The collection includes a large amount of correspondence, official, personal, and legal documents, photographs and photo albums, financial documentation, manuscripts and fragments of creative and academic writing, family trees and genealogical notes, newspaper clippings, poetry, educational certificates and diplomas, texts of lectures, teaching materials, a few recipes, and other papers.

The collection consists predominantly of correspondence between Sigmund A. Cohn and his parents, his letters to various public and private agencies in an unsuccesful attempt to get his parents out of Germany as well as correspondence related to obtain restitution. Included in the collection are genealogical papers, autobiographies of various family members, and documents related to Sigmund A. Cohn's studies and work.

The William Werner Bloch Collection documents chapters in the life of William Werner Bloch, especially his involvement as an American soldier in World War II, as well as the history of his family and the claim for compensation against Germany after World War II.