Germany -- Emigration and immigration

This collection contains the correspondence, official documents, and the German passports of Eugene and Cecilia Leoni. The passport documents the addition of their Jewish names, and their efforts to leave Austria after the Nazi occupation. Collection also includes their son Leon's school report cards, textbooks, exercise books from Vienna, and a school certificate from Havana, Cuba. One of the report cards indicates that Leon was transferred to another school for Jewish children in 1938, and the exercise books also reflect Hitler's occupation.

This collection contains family papers of the businessman George Manasse, as well as papers of his wife, Anne-Marie Manasse (née Simon) and extended family members. Most prominent in this collection is the immigration correspondence of the couple. The collection also includes personal papers, photographs, sermons, a diary, inflation currency and ration coupons, and other material.

This collection contains mostly Hannelore Daniel’s diaries which reflect her everyday life, childhood memories, and Holocaust experiences as well as her creative writing on similar topics. Most of the material is written in old German script.

The collection holds diaries, memoirs, reports, letters and papers pertaining to five generations of the Hellmann-Kirchberger family. A prominent topic is the life of the family in the Lahn area in Rhineland in the 18th and 19th century. Additional topics are the emigration from Nazi Germany and immigration to the United States. Letters and diaries that are included in the collection draw an intense picture of the distinct impacts of historical and social events from the 18th until the beginning of the 21st century.

This is a collection of clippings pertaining mostly to German-Jewish individuals, whose life, accomplishment, or death had been noteworthy enough to trigger the interest of an editor at a newspaper or a journal. From the 1960s to the end of the 20th century, archivists at the Leo Baeck Institute perused dailies, immigrants’ journals and periodicals of special interest groups in the United States, in Israel, in various European countries and beyond to discover traces of the scattered survivors of German-speaking Jewry. Birthday celebrations, special anniversaries and obituaries as well as reports about deeds and accomplishments were clipped from the publications and collected. Today, these clippings bear testimony of all these individuals’ lives and German speaking Jewry as a whole.

Joseph Austrian emigrated from Germany to New York in 1850, and settled in Michigan. His memoirs depict his life in Germany, his trip to Castle Garden, and his life in Michigan and Illionois. Austrian began by working for his brother Julius, a shopkeeper in La Pointe and Eagle River; and eventually opened up a shop of his own in Hancock and later in Chicago, Illinois. Austrian later was involved in the steamboat and copper businesses.

Various official documents and correspondence pertaining to the emigration of Elli Adler and her two sons, Kurt and Peter. Also included are emigration documents, passports Harald and Recha Goldschmidt. A small, hardcover family stammbuch is also included, along with telegrams and paper items concerning their assimilation in the United States.

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").

Family papers of the American Sephardic Solis and Cohen families, composed of materials created through circa. 19860, through to the 1930s, with some additional materials prior to and after the time period. Contains correspondence, diaries, journals, medical papers, and eulogies of the family; materials relating to Zionist and Jewish organizations in the United States and abroad; genealogical research and correspondence of several famous Jewish personas; and artifacts, art work and other ephemera.

Contains Sulzberger's passport from Baden (1848), seven documents from Germany certifying his qualifications as a shohet, and three letters from German friends and relatives (2 from 1853, 1 undated) regarding immigration to America. Also includes the will of Nathan Segal (Michaelfeld, 1825); a Halitzah document (Eppingen, 1830); two letters; and the will of Mayer Sulzberger.

Audio and transcripts of interviews with 253 German Jewish refugees, who had settled in principal metropolitan areas of the United States during the main period of immigration, 1937-1941.

The following individuals were interviewed:

Adler, Kurt; Albert, Karl; Alexander, Theodore ; Apt, Harry; Apt, Melitta; Arnold, Henry H.; Auerbach, Ella (née Levi) (Selfhelp interview only); Auerbach, Richard Joseph; Aufrecht, Fred; Bachrach, Kurt; Bamberger, Fritz; Bamberger, I. Nathan; Baruch, Hansi (Pollack); Bauer, Bernard; Becker, Dorothy W.; Beiser, Arthur; Bergmann, Martha (Selfhelp interview only); Bern, Fred; Bick, Edith; Bieringer, Walter; Bloch, Marie; Brandt, Richard; Breuer, Jacob; Brill, Walter; Brodnitz, Friedrich; Buky, Herbert; Bunzel, Annelise ; Cahn, Herman; Cahman, Werner; Caim, Sigmund; Caim, Margaret; Callmann, Rudolf; Cohn, Bernhard, N.; Crystal, David; Dohan, Emil; Dorian, Frederick; Dreyfuss, Fred; Einstein, Erna; Eis, Ruth (Née Levy); Elsas, Charlotte ; Elsner, Jerry; Erlanger, Helmut; Erlbach, Erich; Feuerring, Gertrud (Née Falck); Fields, Henry; Fields, Howard J.; Frank, Helmut; Frankel, Ernest; Friedlander, Harriette; Friedman, Arthur; Friedmann, Edgar; Froehlich, Hans; Froeschel, Walter George; Fromm, Alfred; Gans, Ernest; Glaessner, Phillip ; Goldbeck, Kurt; Goldenberg, Norbert; Goldschmidt, Margaret (Née Müller); Goldstein, Mr. and Mrs. Hans; Goldstine, Regina; Gringauz, Samuel; Gruebel, Frederick; Gruenewald, Max; Gruenebaum, Erich Otto; Guggenheim, Felix; Guttmann, Alexander; Hamburger, Martin; Heiman, Jack; Heimann, Thea (née Prinz); Held, Robert; Hellmann, Norbert; Herz, Kurt; Hirsch, Erwin; Hirsch, Theodore; Hirschfeld, Brigitte; Hirschfeld, George; Jacobson, Herman; Jacoby, Gustav; Jonas, Hans (Henry); Jospe, Alfred; Kahn, Oskar; Kamm, Gunter; Karp, Richard; Kaye, Kurt; Kerr, George; Klestadt, Fred; Kober, Helen; Kohn, Helmuth; Koppel, Max; Kreuzberger, Max; Kubin, Rosa (née Lustig);

Landauer, Carl; Lederman, Fred; Lehman, Robert; Lekisch, Karl Peter (Selfhelp interview also); Leschnitzer, Adolf Friedrich; Leschnitzer, Maria (née Bratz); Lessing, Fred; Levi, Heinz; Levy, Harold; Loeb, Julius; Loewenthal, Erich; Lourie, Anton; Lowe, Walter; Lowenthal, Ernst Gottfried; Lowins, Eric; Mainzer, Martin; Martin, Charles; Martin, Regina (née Ullmann); Mayer, Alfred; Mayer, Frederick M.; Mayer, Irma (Selfhelp interview also); Mayer, Max; Mayer, Siegfried; Meyer, Frederick M. and Ruth; Moller, Rafael ; Moser, Alfred; Muehsam-Edelheim, Margaret (née Meseritz); Munk, Michael; Nachman, Ernest; Nachman, Kurt; Nauen, Alice; Netter, Kurt Fred; Neuhaus, Ralph; Newman, Edward; Noether, Rolf; Nowak, Willi; Noymer, Arthur; Noymer, Eugene; Nussbaum, Max; Oppenheim, Max; Oppenheimer, Alice; Ostomel, Maurice; Parker, Lenore; Perry, Alfred; Pessen, Helmut; Peters, Walter; Philipp, Albert; Pick, Charlotte; Pick, Ludwig; Pinkus, Ernest; Pinner, Heinz; Poli, Werner; Pollack, Hansi ; Poras, Frederic T.; Prager, Alfred; Prauer, Herbert; Prinz, Joachim; Rabenstein, Manfred; Reinsberg, Kurt; Reissner, Hanns Guenther; Roche, Paul; Ross, Martin; Rosskamm, Margaret; Rosskamm, Stephen; Rossman, Ilse (née Wirth); Rossman, Karl; Rubel, Theodore;

Sachs, Rudolph; Salomon, Hans; Schaalman, Herman; Schiff, Gabriele; Schloss, David; Schott, Walter L. ; Schwab, Simon; Schwerin, Kurt; Shtull, Jacob; Silberman, Curt C.; Simon, Paul; Slade, John; Sobotker, Martin; Sondheimer, Eric; Stagen, William Ernest; Stahl, Rudolph; Stark, Henry; Steierman, Julius; Steinitz, Hans Joachim; Stolper, Toni (Selfhelp interview only); Stransky, Hugo; Herbert A. Strauss ; Strauss, Susan; Sud, Ira; Taxer, Ellen; Tietz, Albert Ulrich; Tietz, Margaret (née Dzialoszynski); Treguboff, Sanford; Tuchman, Frederick C.; Tyson, Irma; Van der Walde, Ludwig; Walter, Otto L.; Warmbrunn, Hans; Weil, Henry; Weinberg, Fritz; Wertheim, Abe ; White, John; Wimpfheimer, Henry; Winkler, Franz; Winter, Justin; Wise (Weiss), Richard; Witt, Nathan; Wronkow, Ludwig; Wurtenberg, Kaethe; Wurzburger, Walter S.; Zimmer, Erich; Zimmer, Orah; Zivi, Hugo

Five interviews were conducted with the following individuals affiliated with ‘Selfhelp Community Services’: Auerbach, Ella (Née Levi); Bergmann, Martha; Lekisch, Karl Peter; Mayer, Irma; and Stolper, Toni. Transcripts from these interviews may be found in Box 11.