Holocaust survivors

This collection contains the records of the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews, an organization founded in 1961, in New York City, by members of the Joseph Popper unit of B’nai B’rith, to foster and disseminate knowledge about the history and culture of Jews in the Czech and Slovak lands. Along with the Joseph Popper unit and, later, the Holocaust Survivors of Slovakia, the society sponsored an annual memorial service held in New York City to honor Czechoslovak Jews who perished in the Holocaust. A majority of the records are from the tenure of Rabbi Norman Patz as president (1994-2008). The materials primarily comprise correspondence, and items related to the annual memorial service, including texts of addresses, and yizkor memorial booklets. Also included are meeting minutes, letters to the membership, financial reports, writings, speeches, obituaries, clippings, photographs, and printed ephemera. The society's correspondence reflects its participation in cultural events related to Czech and Slovak Jewish history, as well as its relationship to the Jewish communities in the Czech Republic and, to a lesser extent, Slovakia; some correspondence with members contains genealogical information.

This collection contains the archival papers of Arthur Rath. Most of it consists of correspondence with friends and family members. Primary topics of the collection are Arthur's life in Switzerland towards the end of World War II and the decades immediately after, correspondence with friends who were also Jewish refugees from Germany after the war, and Arthur Rath's life decisions following the displacement of his family during the war.

The collection consists mostly of letters, mainly in Yiddish, sent to Adel from the camps.

Constitutions. Minutes of a memorial meeting, 1975. Financial records. Souvenir journals, 1940, 1978. Correspondence. Bulletins, 1946-1979. Memorial book, 1958.

Souvenir journal, 1935. Journal of the United Chmielniker Relief Committee, 1938. Meeting notices. Journal of the Association of Former Residents of Chmielniker in Israel, 1963, 1967-1976, 1978. Photographic plate, stamp, banners, cemetery map. Memorial book, 1960.

Constitution (German). Certificate of incorporation, 1892. Minutes, 1945-1965. Correspondence, 1930s-1940s. Correspondence regarding Nazi war crimes testimony and material claims against Germany, 1960s. Personal materials relating to Przemysl, 1930s-1940s. Announcements, anniversary journal, 1941. Photographs. Memorial book, 1964. Materials of the United Relief for Przemysl, 1946.

Constitution. Financial records, 1932-1971. Meeting announcements. Constitution of the Drisser Brothers Benevolent Society.

This collection holds the diaries of the Israeli artist Yehuda Bacon.

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.

The collection consists of mimeographed, typewritten and photostated copies of documents published by Israeli authorities and covering the pre-trial and the trial period. There are also some non-official materials such as news clippings, pamphlet and news releases. The following are included: Materials prepared by the Israeli police. Inventory of police documents and eyewitness accounts. Pre-trial interrogation of Eichmann by Captain Less. Transcripts from tapes. Lists of documents mentioned during the interrogation. Analyses prepared by the police arranged by topic: Eastern Europe, Western Europe, gas killings, deportations, sterilization. Records of the trial. Copies of the trial proceedings, summaries of defense and prosecution, indictment, testimonies. Non-official material. Glossary of Nazi terms. Legislation regarding punishment of war criminals. Clippings from newspapers including Jerusalem Post. Arab propaganda pamphlets.

This collection pertains to the life of Doris Rauch (née Perlhefter), her uncle Norbert Troller, and fellow Holocaust survivors Oscar Bittner and Oscar Jellinek. It encompasses government documents and Rauch’s identification forms issued by the United States and Czechoslovakia, as well as her correspondence relating to family and Holocaust history in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Included are photographs of friends and family engaged in recreation or as posed portraits, the great majority in black and white. Authored by Norbert Troller himself are a memoir manuscript and family tree denoting those members killed during the Holocaust.

This collection contains the papers of Ernest W. Michel, Holocaust Survivor Journalist and public speaker,including clippings of newspaper articles written by and about Michel, correspondence between Michel and many important Jewish and political figures and autograph files, which Michel collected. Many of these files concern Michel’s Holocaust experiences, speaking engagements, the World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, and Michel’s work with the United Jewish Appeal.

Photographs (photocopies) and clippings pertaining to the author Ernest W. Michel.

The collection is of mixed provenance and consists mostly of 16 mm films and some 8 mm and 35 mm films. There is also a group of VHS and 3/4 in. tapes. Many of the films are registered as part of other record groups in the YIVO Archives and were physically separated from these record groups, placed in the Collection of Films, and cataloged, for preservation purposes and for improved access to researchers. The collection includes the following series: Amateur Films. ca. 75 items, 1920s-1930s. Amateur home movies made by American Jews on trips to Eastern Europe, mainly Poland. One segment of this series consists of films produced by Gustave Eisner, who owned the Gustave Eisner Travel Agency in the inter-war period and arranged trips back to Poland and to Palestine. The Eisner films include some of Palestine and of American Jewish life. Amateur films made by Abraham Twersky of the Sholem Aleichem Houses in the Bronx which include images of a number of notable cultural figures in the Yiddish secular world. Films of Towns and Cities Commissioned by Landsmanshaftn. 2 items. 1920s-1930s. A Pictorial Review of Kolbuszowa, 1929. A film about Sedziszow, Poland, 1935. Post-war films made by social welfare organizations. 1940s-1960s. About 40 items. Films produced by social welfare organizations such as the HIAS and the AJDC describing the situation of Jewish refugees and displaced persons and organizational work carried out on their behalf. Included are films about HIAS's involvement with Hungarian refugees in 1956. Miscellaneous films. A film about Jewish refugees in Shanghai in the late 1940s. 8 mm footage of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Cracow Ghetto during World War II. Yiddish language newsreel made of a memorial ceremony held in Skierniewice, Poland, in 1947 for Holocaust victims. A Scientific Expedition to Birobizhan (1929), a silent film by the faculty of Brigham Young University, Utah.

Constitution. Minutes, 1969-1976. Financial reports. Anniversary journals.

Pinkas (record book) of the hevrah kadisha (burial society), 1910-1953, including minutes, rules, names of officers and deceased society members. Golden book (record of deaths of members). Materials from Soroki relating to relief activities of American landslayt, 1920s-1930s. Memorial book of the Jewish hospital in Soroki, 1922. Materials pertaining to trip of Morris Seltzer to Soroki for distribution of relief funds, 1925. Personal materials, book of memoirs about Soroki by David Seltzer. Correspondence. Anniversary journals. Endowment fund report. Photographs of Soroki, 1920s-1930s. Constitution, First Soroker Bessarabian Ladies Aid Society. Materials pertaining to the Bessarabian Federation of American Jews. Address list of the First Soroker Ladies Aid Society.

These records detail the history of the displaced person camps in the American zone in Austria. 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, vocational, and cultural groups, as well as personal papers. There are also records of the U.S. Army, UNRRA, and IRO’s actions in the camps.

These records detail the history of the displaced person camps in Germany, primarily in the American zone. 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.

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.

This collection documents the experience of Hedwig Geng née Berg (1891-1981) as a Jewish woman living in Munich during the Nazi regime and her survival of Theresienstadt. Materials include personal correspondence, official correspondence and directives, ephemera from Theresienstadt, identification papers, poems, notes, clippings, and a few photographs.

The Holocaust Collection consists of various donated materials pertaining to the Holocaust assembled into a single research file. Only a couple items date from the historical time period, most items were created decades after the Holocaust.

The papers pertain to the experiences of David Gertler, a functionary of the Jewish administration in the Lodz ghetto. Gertler was head of the Sonderabteilung (Special Unit) which performed the function of secret police in the ghetto. He was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. Recorded interview with Gertler by I. Kuperstein. Kuperstein's observations and evaluation of the interview, 1974. Proceedings of the Court of Honor of the Jewish Rehabilitation Commission against Gertler, 1948, including reports of witnesses. Correspondence of Gertler. Summary report of the trial of the former Gestapo leaders in Lodz, Fuchs, and Bradfisch, at which Gertler was a witness.

Correspondence, photographs, manuscripts, clippings, personal documents. Materials concerning Jews in Bialystok.

Manuscript of a play by Katz, titled In blut un fayer. Correspondence, 1946-1971. Photographs of J. Katz in Poland in the 1930s, of DP camps. Documents from DP Camps. Clippings from DP camp newspapers.

The papers relate to Apenszlak's association with Nasza Trybuna and with Polish-Jewish organizations, and to his work on behalf of Polish-Jewish refugees during and after World War II. Correspondence. Manuscripts of Apenszlak and of others. Records of Nasza Trybuna. Photographs. Correspondents include the Polish National Council (in exile), London. There is also correspondence with organizations of Polish Jews in the U.S., Germany, France and Canada, such as: Association of Refugees and Immigrants from Poland; Central Committee of Jews in Poland; Federation of Jews from Poland in the U.S. Occupation Zone in Germany; American Federation of Polish Jews; Canadian Federation of Polish Jews. Materials on topics relating to the Holocaust, including lists of Jewish survivors and refugees. Materials on the history of Polish Jews. Personal documents.

The records relate to Jewish Agency work with displaced persons following World War II, and include the following: correspondence with banks, vendors, Jewish National Fund, Keren Hayesod, and offices of the Jewish Agency in Geneva, Jerusalem, and Paris. Circulars and flyers. Financial records, including journals and account books, auditors' reports, cash books, ledgers, and records of support payments to individuals. Reports of the Immigration and Purchasing Departments. Correspondence and lists concerning release funds.

This collection contains posters, programs, and newspaper reviews for performances of Jewish theater in cities in Germany, Austria, and Lithuania, including theater produced by and about displaced persons in post-World War II Germany.

The collection consists of clippings from West-German, Swiss, and US newspapers, as well as some correspondence, published materials and ephemera, describing various aspects of Jews in Germany after the Holocaust.

This collection contains the papers of Joseph Perkins Chamberlain, a professor of law who worked with many refugee aid organizations during the 1930s and 1940s. The papers reflect the work of Chamberlain and the organizations in rescuing and assisting refugees from Europe during this time. Although the bulk of the documents consists of correspondence, the collection also includes minutes of meetings, reports, statistical information, clippings, booklets and transcripts of speeches.