Amsterdam (Netherlands)

This collection contains account books for the money lending business of Abraham Hirsch Emrich (1814-1899) of Merchingen (today part of Ravenstein in Baden, Germany). It also contains account books of the general goods business of the Emmerich family.

The collection contains Dutch and Portuguese documents pertaining to the Jewish community and dealing especially with Congregation Mikve Israel and Neve Salom, the David Aboab controversy, and the communal reorganizations of 1750-51. Four rolls of microfilmed documentary and printed materials are present in the collection

The collection includes the correspondence 1937-1946 between members of the Westheim family, who lived in Amsterdam, and their two sons, Alfred and Benno Bodo Westheim, who lived in New York City.

The bulk of the collection consists of letters to Esriel Hildesheimer\ and others from various individuals, mostly rabbis in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Palestine, Eastern Europe, and the United States, and institutions, including Akiba Lehren, David Neimann, Simcha Bunem Sofer, Yeshiva Etz-Hayyim, Adolf Jellinek, and the Oesterreichisch- Ungarisch- Israelitische Gemeinde, Jerusalem. Approximately one-half of the correspondence is transcribed.

This collection documents the history of the Weiss family with a focus on Gerald Weiss’ parents Jacob and Selma Weiss née Falk and their siblings. Jacob (alternatively Köbes) Weiss (1883-1965) was born the second of nine children to the cattle dealer Albert Weiss and his wife Mathilde Amalie née Michel. As a young man, he lived in Cologne and started a bed linen manufacturing business, S & J Weiss, with his brother Siegmund. As the situation for Jews in Germany worsened in the 1930s, he and Siegmund smuggled money from the business to banks in Holland to aid in the Weiss family’s emigration. Jacob Weiss emigrated with his wife and children in 1939 and settled in New York. This collection contains family trees, family correspondence, translations of family correspondence, vital records, immigration and naturalization records, correspondence and legal documents concerning restitution claims, correspondence and legal documents concerning the estate of Hermann and Carolina Michel née Frank, and correspondence and photographs concerning family gravesites and the restoration of a Jewish cemetery.

This collection primarily documents the professional life of the social worker Gertrude van Tijn, who worked with Jewish refugees in Amsterdam during the 1930s-1940s. Much of the material focuses on the experiences of Dutch Jewry along with the German-Jewish refugees who had fled to Holland. About half the collection relates to the manual training farm Werkdorp Nieuwesluis. Some reports on the postwar refugee situation in Shanghai and Australia and biographical material are also present. The collection includes reports, correspondence, official documents, newspaper clippings and articles and a few photographs.

This collection comprises letters, official documents, and photographs that pertain to the lives of members of the Gettinger family, specifically the brothers Isadore (Isidor) and Israel, as they attempted to emigrate from Austria amid the rise of the German Reich and the implications thereafter.

Documents pertaining to Gisela Bloch and her ancestors, consisting of an 18th century travel journal, two friendship books, diaries, and some official records.

The bulk of the materials in this collection concern Arthur Bial's education and professional career as a physician in Germany, his emigration to the Netherlands in the 1930s and internment in the Westerbork camp. There is also a diary-memoir written by his son who also survived internment in Westerbork.

This collection consists of the personal papers of the Hochherr family of southwestern Germany. Materials include vital records, photographs, a genealogical chart, a family history, official records of family members’ deportations and deaths in extermination camps, an account of life in Nazi-occupied Holland, and an account of an escape to Switzerland. With the exception of the photographs, the collection consists entirely of photocopies.

This collection primarily contains materials relating to Hugo Sinzheimer's professional activity as a labor lawyer and professor. It includes published writings, drafts of his 1938 book Jüdische Klassiker der Deutschen Rechtswissenschaft (Jewish Classics in German Jurisprudence), legal work files and correspondence, as well as some educational material. Some biographical information on Hugo Sinzheimer is also present, as well as a few personal items, including an illustrated biographical poem. Some writings and other papers of Ludwig Sinzheimer are included.

The collection holds correspondence showing mostly the personal lives of the Arnhold family from Dresden throughout the first half of the 20th century. The letters discuss family affairs like the engagement of Ilse Arnhold in 1913 and the birth of her children, travels through Europe, and longer stays abroad as well as the everyday lives of the family members.

The collection contains the correspondence between Jakob Katz and his fiancée Gerti Birnbaum, and comprises 195 letters in seven folders. Katz's letters were written in Frankfurt, in Magyargencs (Hungary), and in London; Birnbaum's' letters were written in Kissingen, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Kreuznach, Berlin, Jerusalem, London, Frankfurt, and Tel Aviv. The earliest letter is dated July 1, 1933, and the last was written on February 18, 1936. Some letters are undated or appear to have been written by a third person.

This collection consists of photocopies of family trees, vital documents, photographs, and genealogical research notes and correspondence relating to the Ensel, Leitner, Mauthner, Schor, Schink, and Weinberg families.

This collection contains the personal papers of members of the Leiter and Berliner families of Hamburg and Berlin. Some members of these families immigrated to the United States in the late 1930s while others survived World War II in Amsterdam, as forced laborers in Berlin, or in Theresienstadt. Materials include vital documents, official papers, personal correspondence, poems, clippings, official announcements and orders, banking records, restitution materials, and a few photographs.

This collection contains three generations of family and personal documents pertaining to the family of Louis Herz. Included are vital documents such as birth certificates, death certificates, and identification cards, as well as passports, death notices, school documents, and military papers.

The collection includes memoirs, poems, notes, correspondence, photographs and clippings pertaining to Miriam Merzbacher-Blumenthal, to her husband Peter and to her mother Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss.'Materials concentrate on the 1940s, when Miriam Merzbacher-Blumenthal and her mother Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss lived in Amsterdam and New York, as well as on correspondence from the 1950s and 1960s.

The collection contains documentation of the life of Moritz Schweizer, particularly his persecution during World War II. Included in the collection is a diary excerpt listing concentration camp victims he buried after his liberation; correspondence; documents pertaining to his emigration from Germany to Amsterdam; documents pertaining to his internment in Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen; information kept by Schweizer on children in the orphanage at Bergen-Belsen; and letters of sympathy to his wife after his death.

The collection contains copies of various materials accumulated in the course of Moritz Sobernheim's work at the German Foreign Office.

Manuscripts, materials relating to HansKohn's professional experience, materials relating to his political activities, correspondence, diaries, materials relating to his experience in World War I and as a prisoner of war, personal documents, photos, clippings.

The Papers of Reverend Abraham Lopes and Mrs. Irma Robles Cardozo contain various materials reflecting the personal and professional lives of Rev. and Mrs. Cardozo, including Rev. Cardozo’s position as Hazzan at Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City and Irma Lopes Cardozo’s numerous philanthropic activities. In addition, there are various materials relating to Sephardic communities throughout the world, honors the Cardozos received, and individuals who had an important influence upon them.

This collection contains the papers of Resi Weglein and reflects various periods of her life, especially the time period 1942 to 1945. Resi Weglein and her husband Siegmund Weglein were deported to Theresienstadt in August 1942, where she helped to provide health services to the detainees. The bulk of the documents in the collection consist of personal correspondence, restitution materials, emigration and immigration papers, and photographs. The collection also includes two handwritten notebooks of Resi Weglein and associated manuscripts which reflect her experiences as a nurse in Theresienstadt. The collection also provides information about the rest of her family, especially her husband Siegmund Weglein, who served in World War I, and her son Walter Weglein (later Weglyn), who was rescued via Kindertransport. Also included are clippings, book reviews, reports and correspondence from the War Refugee Board, and an assortment of materials pertaining to the Theresienstadt period.

The collection documents the lives of Ludwig Löwenthal and his wife Rosa (née Kohn) with their teenage son, Willi during their time in the Netherlands and subsequent deportation to Theresienstadt. The collection includes personal correspondence from the camp and official documents from Germany and the Netherlands.

The collection contains materials pertaining to the Rosenberg-Aronheim family and Nora Kronstein-Rosen.

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.

The Salier Family Collection holds papers of members of the Salier family as well as related families, such as the Alexander, Lipmann, and Lehmann families. The collection consists primarily of official, educational, and professional documents of family members, along with a small amount of family correspondence, a few photographs, family writing, newspaper clippings and articles, a cookbook, and a friendship album.

Contains three signed letters from Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and an unsigned and undated nine page letter/report. The latter report and a letter of August 20, 1860 were discussed in a 1940 article on Rabbi Hirsch in the Dutch newspaper Nieuw Israelitisch Weekblad, a copy of which along with partial English translation is in this collection. There are also eight lengthy letters from leaders of the Amsterdam Jewish community sent to Rabbi Hirsch. Other documents in this collection include bank checks, photocopies of Hirsch letters circa 1834-1835, photocopy of Hamburg citizen oath (1851), and a Raphael Hirsch family tree tracing lineage to 17th century.

This collection documents the research of Jewish historian Samuel Oppenheim (1857-1928) concerning the lives of colonial Jews in the Americas, and the early history of the United States. Included in the collection are his notes, transcripts of original works, photocopies of the records of the Dutch West India Company, correspondence relating to his research, his writings, and original documents from the Mayor’s Court of the City of New York that date from 1653-1760.

This volume, which belonged to Shmuel Robles de Medina, hazzan of Congregation Neve Shalom, contains the following: a Hebrew poem with the first letters forming the acrostic, "Shmuel Robles de Medina"; formulas for ketubot, divorce, power of attorney, certification of ritual slaughter, removal of a required levirate marriage (halizah) in Portuguese and Hebrew; specifications for a mikveh with the mention that land for the mikveh was purchased by Rabbi Olivera. Of interest is a document for halizah which was received from Amsterdam. The document includes the names of the parties involved as well as the names of the witnesses, including David Cohen d'Azevedo (d. 1792). The last few pages contain copies of documents which have been copied out in Dutch.

The collection holds two autobiographical writings by the artist Elisabeth Model. One work centers on her husband’s persecution by the Nazis in Amsterdam, their narrow escape with their sons Wolfe and Peter, and her sister Mali to New York, and their life in the United States. Her second work focuses on her life in relation to various places and people that impressed her. Also included are family photo albums, some correspondence, and other documents that constitute addenda to the original Elisabeth Model Collection, AR 6306.