Jewish ghettos

The bulk of the collection contains documents generated by the Judenrats of the Vilna ghetto during Nazi occupation. The Yiddish poets Abraham Sutzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginski, interned in the Vilna Ghetto before escaping to the forests as partisans, were instrumental in the removal of this collection from Vilna and its subsequent transfer to the YIVO Archives in New York. The collection is therefore named in their honor.

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.

David Friedman (Friedmann; 1893-1980) was an artist in Berlin. During the Nazi Holocaust, he was incarcerated in the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz. He resumed his artistic career immediately after the war and then immigrated to the United States. His papers include artwork, memoirs, and essays focusing on his experiences in the Holocaust.

German, Lithuanian, and Polish. 1 printed page, with handwritten entries.

This collection contains various materials related to the Łódź Ghetto which were originally part of the Bund Archives. Materials include memoirs and eyewitness accounts, materials created by the German occupiers, notices from the ghetto administration, documents originating with resistance groups, photographs, post-war articles and newspaper clippings about the Łódź Ghetto, internal ghetto correspondence, and various ephemera items, such as an armband, ghetto money and various work permits.

Folder 1 contains the Questionnaire of the Austrian Heritage Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute and additional biographical documents. Vital documents include birth certificates, residency permits, military documents, and other related documents stemming from the war years in Cernauti / Czernowitz. There are also documents relating to his attempts to emigrate from Romania, an honorary diploma, correspondence relating to emigration and exhibitions, his parents' death certificates and other post-World War II Romanian and American identification documents.

The Eric Lind collection documents his involvement with numismatics and philately and his interests in the Holocaust and the fate of the Jews during World War II. Materials collected here cover topics such as Anti-Semitism, Holocaust, Nazis and Neo-Nazis, forgeries during WW II, stamps and currency, and the era of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The collection consists of printed materials, artifacts, paper money and coins, stamps, post cards, envelopes, correspondence, documents, and photographs.

This collection contains correspondence between Paul Arthur Metzger and Richard Kohn and the correspondence of Lilly Kann as well as eulogies for Paul Kann and Minna Kohn and the Mayer Kohn family tree (1796-1936). All items are photocopies.

The Max Michelson Family Collection documents the life of a Latvian Jewish family living in Riga. The main subjects of the collection are correspondence between family members, who moved abroad and those who stayed in Riga and some family pictures. The collection consists of letters, genealogical information and photographs. Languages: The collection is in German, Russian and English.

The collection documents life inside the Lódz Jewish ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland. It consists predominantly of the records of the Eldest of the Jews in the Lódz ghetto, Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski, and of his administration. Included are original correspondence, announcements, circulars, charts, publications, reports, essays, albums and photographs.

This collection contains the papers of Julian Hirszhaut, a Yiddish journalist and author of several works about the Holocaust in Poland. He collected a great number of historical documents on this topic, including hundreds of eyewitness accounts, which make up an important part of this collection. The materials in this collection relate to Hirszhaut’s important work gathering documents and testimonies of the Holocaust, as well as to his other professional activities as a journalist.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of historian and bibliographer Philip Friedman. These materials include correspondence with individuals and with organizations, newspaper clippings, subject files, manuscripts of works by Friedman and by others, and some of Friedman’s personal documents. These materials relate to Friedman’s work on the histories of various Jewish communities, particularly those in Poland, and his work gathering source documents about the Holocaust.

The collection relates to the life of Jewish refugees, mostly of German and Austrian origin, in Shanghai primarily between the years 1939-1948. It covers many aspects of their experience, including political and cultural events, relief and charity activities, and self-help. The collection originated from the YIVO exhibition that was organized and displayed in 1947 in Shanghai and later in New York. The collection consists of manuscripts, minutes of meetings, correspondence, newspaper clippings, and printed materials.

The collection contains correspondence mostly authored by Stephanie and Franz Pisker, dispatched from Vienna, Austria and the Jewish ghetto in Opole, Poland to their daughter Susan (née Herta) in America, before Franz and Stefanie were killed in the extermination camp of Sobibor. Also included are official documents and letters pertaining to their unsuccessful attempt to immigrate to the United States and the questionnaires by the Austrian Heritage Collection of Susan and her husband John H. Graham.

The Territorial Collection, Poland 2 is comprised of documents that were amassed at the YIVO in New York City. The collection is of mixed provenance and is fragmentary in nature, consisting of miscellaneous materials dating back to World War II and its immediate aftermath. The Territorial Collection Poland 2 is a portion of the greater Territorial Collection (RG 116), which incorporates materials that are relevant to over 42 different countries and geographical regions. The overarching theme of the collection Poland 2 is the annihilation of the Jewish life in Poland under the Nazi rule. Chronologically, the Territorial Collection Poland 2 follows the Territorial Collection Poland 1, which pertains to pre-World War II Poland; and precedes the Territorial Collection Poland 3, which pertains to post-World War II Poland.