Jews -- Germany -- History -- 1800-1933

Letters from her parents and siblings, collected by Paula Brandes, 1892-1903. The letters were primarily sent from the small town of Oberaula, with some of them coming from Frankfurt/Main, Hannover, Harburg, Langenschwalbach, Paris, Soest, and Wolfenbuettel.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Wąbrzeźno, known in German as Briesen. The records date from 1871 to 1921, concentrated in the era when the town of Briesen was part of the province of West Prussia, in the German Empire; only a handful of items date from the years 1920-1921, when the town was part of Poland. The collection comprises administrative and financial records kept by the Briesen Jewish Community Council, except for one volume of records kept by the Jüdischer Lese-Verein (Jewish Reading Society) of Briesen, in the years 1901 to 1908. Approximately 40% of the collection comprises financial records, 1882-1921, including official budgets and tax lists; 20% concerns the community's religious institutions; and another 20% comprises records related to community employees, especially rabbis and cantors. The remainder of the collection includes correspondence, communal meeting minutes and decisions, circulars announcing meetings, and a variety of administrative records. Included are records pertaining to communal council elections; synagogue seat rentals; burials and the care of graves; the construction and maintenance of the mikveh (ritual bath house); the expansion of the cemetery; synagogue rules and the renovation of the synagogue; charitable activities, often in cooperation with regional and national Jewish organizations; and the religious school and Jewish elementary school.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Krotoszyn, known in German as Krotoschin. The records span the years 1828 to 1919, when the town was part of the Posen (Poznań) region of Prussia and, after 1871, of the German Empire; in 1919, it became part of newly independent Poland. The records are mainly those of the Jewish communal administration, or council, of Krotoschin, along with some records kept by communal voluntary associations, or, in one instance, the teacher of the Jewish elementary school. The collection consists predominantly of correspondence and minutes, with inclusion in some periods of documents such as tax lists and lists of eligible voters; records concerning charitable aid to community members and donations to external causes; and other types of documents, including insurance policies, mortgage records, debt repayment plan, and drawings/plans of property. Highlights include records related to property damage in a town fire of 1827; documentation of income and expenses for the year 1835; records of communal elections, 1834-1872; correspondence concerning marriages, 1838-1841, and requests for death certificates, 1834-1858; a small amount of material pertaining to the religious school, circa 1880s-1902; correspondence with regimental commanders of the German army regarding Jewish soldiers from the Krotoschin area, 1891-1910; applications for the position of rabbi, 1895, and cantor/shochet, 1904-1910; and continuous proceedings of the communal council in the period 1905 to 1913.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Ostrów Wielkopolski, today in west-central Poland, in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. The region was annexed by Prussia in 1793, in the Second Partition of Poland; in German the town was known as Ostrowo. The records date mainly from 1834 to 1919, with a few materials from as early as 1822. During this period the town was part of the Posen (Poznań) region of Prussia and, after 1871, of the German Empire; in 1919, it was incorporated into the Second Republic of Poland. The community numbered nearly 2,000 members in the late 19th century and declined steadily thereafter due to migration of members to larger German cities or overseas; only a small Jewish community remained during the interwar period. The records are mainly those of the Jewish communal administration, or council; a small amount of material pertains to several community voluntary organizations. Included are financial records such as budgets, balance sheets, and tax lists; communal minutes and decisions throughout the period; correspondence with the government, and, to a lesser extent, with Jewish organizations and other Jewish communities; records pertaining to community members' naturalizations, marriages, births, and synagogue seat contracts; petitions from individual community members, especially pertaining to charitable aid in the mid to late 19th century; records pertaining to communal educational and religious institutions; records on the hiring and employment of community rabbis,cantors, and other personnel, including application materials from candidates not hired; property records and mortgages; documentation of construction and renovation of communal buildings; records related to court cases, bequests, and estate and guardianship matters; and ephemera such as meeting notices and announcement fliers, as well as scattered clippings.

The collection contains documents pertaining to various Jewish communities in Hesse (Germany) and Bohemia (Czech Republic), including Oberaula; Blowitz (Blovice); Goltsch Jenikau (Golčův Jeníkov); Burghaun; and Langenschwarz. Included in the collection are photocopies of articles, maps, cemetery records, birth records, census records, family registers, and synagogue registers.

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.

The collection contains materials of physician Benni Schlottmann and musician and conductor Louis Schlottmann. Included is a lithograph of and doctor of medicine diploma for Benni Schlottman; and poem written by Louis Schlottmann for Louise Köster on her birthday and letter containing biographical notes about Louis Schlottmann.

The collection contains documentation of the Stern family, including a passport for Abram Süskind Stern; letters for the appointment of mathematician Moritz Abraham Stern as associate professor and professor at the University of Göttingen; brief obituary for historian Alfred Stern; and notes on the life of Süsskind Stern. Of particular interest is a mohel book from the ancestors of Moritz Abraham Stern in Frankfurt am Main with 55 pages of handwritten entries dating from 1698 to 1826.

Vital documents, letters of protection and municipal citizenship, autograph albums, wills and testaments, marriage contracts, memoirs, obituaries, and clippings concerning members of the Valentin family, the family business, the freight-movers Jacob & Valentin, and related families, including the Abraham, Behrend, Loewen, and Mannheimer families; noteworthy documents include memoirs of the banker Samuel Liepmann Loewen, 1824, and records of the Prussian minter and medalist Jacob Abraham, 1753, as well as photocopies of records of his son, the minter Abraham Abramson.

This collection contains papers of several generations of the Veit and Simon families, including passports, letters of protection, contracts, wills, official and financial documents, and a few photographs. Some of the prominent individuals featured in this collection include Moses Mendelssohn, Dorothea Schlegel, and Meyer Amschel Rothschild.

Various documents and letters relating to the Zunz family of Frankfurt am Main, dealing primarily with banking and estates