Walter Laqueur was the former director of the Wiener Library
Jüdische Nachrichten (Jewish News), was founded by the Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund (Swiss Association of Jewish Communities), Zürich, as its press office in 1936, to confront Nazism but also to address growing anti-semitism in Switzerland. To this end it produced news bulletins in German and French and distributed them to numerous editorial offices throughout Switzerland.
Under the leadership of Dr. Benjamin Sagalowitz (1938-1964) JUNA amassed a large archive of documentation concerning the Holocaust and the fate of Jewish refugees and other related subjects. Parts of this archive were used to create the three dossiers in this collection.
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War Two. It was the wartime intelligence agency and was the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Otto Ernst Schüddekopf (1912-1984), historian, gained his doctorate in 1938 and became an English contributor to the Auslandsnachrichtendienst (foreign news service) and member of the Reichssicherheitshauptamtes (Reich security main office) with the rank of SS-Obersturmführer. From 1953 he worked as a history lecturer and co-edited the International Jahrbuch für Geschichts- und Geographieunterricht. In 1973 he was awarded the cultural prize of the federation of tradesunions. He died in 1984.
The 'Hielscher Group' was named after Friedrich Hielscher, an anti-Nazi, who encouraged those sympathetic to his cause to oppose the Nazis from within the party. He was arrested after the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler.
Hechaluz, was an umbrella organisation founded in 1917 to propagate the settlement of Jews from the Diaspora to Kibbutzim in Palestine.
Dr Bela Berend was born in Budapest, 12 January 1911, the son of Adolf Presser and Regina Máriás. As a young Rabbi he was regarded as a non-conformist, anti-assimilationist, Zionist who, later with the threat of deportations, advocated emigration as the way to save the Hungarian Jewish population.
His role on the Hungarian Jewish Council brought him into contact with elements of the extreme, anti-Semitic Hungarian Right, in particular Zoltán Boznyák, who, paradoxically, shared the same desire to remove Hungary's Jewish population. This association resulted in his becoming one of the most controversial figures in the Hungarian Holocaust.
In 1946 he was tried for war crimes by the newly installed communist government, where he faced accusations of collusion with the Gestapo, stealing Jewish property and collaborating with the extreme right. After appeals he was finally exonerated and settled in the United States, where he changed his name to Albert B Belton. However, despite the court's final ruling he faced numerous accusations and libels over the course of the next few decades.
He was also a witness in war crimes trials and referred to in the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, 1961. He was an ardent Zionist and defender of the state of Israel.
The Jewish Refugees Committee, later the German Jewish Aid Committee, was founded in the early months of 1933 by Otto Schiff under the aegis of the Central British Fund for the Relief of German Jewry. Its tasks were to arrange for the admission of refugees to Britain, their maintenance, training, employment or re-migration. A number of provincial committees were formed to deal with issues regarding Jewish refugees in these areas. The Leeds office trainee department was supervised by David Makovski.
Hermann Perl, was a German Jewish immigrant who arrived in Great Britain probably some time in the late 1930s. He had a number of friends and associates in Breslau (Wroclaw), Poland.
The Laterndl theatre opened on 21 June 1939 at the address of the Austrian Centre, 126 Westbourne Terrace. It was conceived of as a Kleinkunstbühne. Kleinkunst was a term created in the 1930s for a type of anti-Nazi cabaret. It is described as being at the serious end of the comic market, and whilst it included many of the elements common to cabaret, it didn't include the more frivolous and bohemian.
Martin Miller was responsible for production as well as being one of the main character actors. The writers were Franz Hartl, Hugo Königsgarten, Rudolf Spitz, and Hans Weigel. Kurt Manschinger dealt with the music, décor was by Carl Josefovics and costumes by Käthe Berl. The actors were Lona Cross, Greta Hartwig, Willy Kennedy, Jaro Klüger, Fritz Schrecker, Sylvia Steiner and Marianne Walla.
The theatre moved to 153 Finchley Road and then to 69 Eton Avenue by November 1941. One of the most famous achievements associated with 'das Laterndl' was the Martin Miller's spoof Hitler broadcast on April Fools' Day, 1940, in which Hitler claimed that Columbus had discovered America with the aid of German science, giving Germany territorial claim. A text of the speech is included in this collection.
Charles Joseph Singer (MA, DM, D.Litt.,Hon D.Sc., FRCP), born 2 Nov 1876, London; studied University College London, and from 1896-1899 studied zoology at Oxford, graduating BA, BCh.; qualified from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School MRCS LRCP, 1903. He gained other degrees honours during his career: MA MD; FRCP; Honorary DSc. From 1904-1908 Singer held various posts in England and abroad, including Sussex County Hospital; Brighton; Government House, Singapore; Abyssinia (Medical Officer to exhibition); Malta and Salonica, where he trained during the First World War when he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps.
Singer held various posts throughout his career: Registrar to the Cancer Hospital, London; Physician to the Dreadnought Hospital; Lecturer in the history of medicine at University College London, as well as work abroad including Visiting Professor at University of California, Berkeley.
This collection comprises two deposits whose relationship to each other is not known. The first consists of correspondence and reports concerning participants in two famous acts of protest during the Third Reich: the Rosenstrasse Protest in which the (mostly) Aryan partners of a specially segregated group of Jewish prisoners protested at their detention by the Nazis in a former welfare office for the Jewish community in Berlin, 1943; Das Sovjet-Paradies Aktion in which 500 Jews and Germans were arrested, half of whom were subsequently executed for sabotaging an exhibition by the Nazis designed to pour scorn and ridicule on the Soviet Union, 1942.
This first deposit came from Annelore Leber, the former wife of the pre-1933 SPD MP, Julius Leber, who was tortured and murdered by the Nazis in the aftermath of the plot to assassinate Hitler in July 1944. It was donated to the Wiener Library after a meeting between Annelore Leber and Alfred Wiener in Berlin in 1958. The material, which consists mainly of personal accounts of participants, was collated as a result of an advertisement put out in the Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung der Juden in Deutschland, 18 February 1955, asking for eye witness testimonies of these events.
The custodial history of the second deposit is unknown. It consists of transcripts of interrogations of former Nazi military and officials and interviews with anti-Nazi German citizens, by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) Morale Division, June-July 1945. The object of the questioning was to ascertain the morale of the population in the wake of sustained Allied bombing raids.
The Reichsvertretung der jüdischen Landesverbände was founded at the end of 1932 and it was superceded by the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden as the first organisation to claim to be truly representative of all German Jews. Its principal achievement was the establishment of the Zentralausschuss für Hilfe und Aufbau (Central Committee for Aid and Reconstruction) which was to become the main social and economic instrument of German Jewry. The Preussische Landes Verband (The Prussian State League) was the largest regional Jewish organisation but had no legal standing.
The Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland was founded in 1933 and became the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden in 1935, and later the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland in 1939. It came into being shortly after the Nazi seizure of power as the successor to the Reichsvertretung der jüdischen Landesverbände, a loose federation of Jewish organisations in Germany. Its main objective was to deal with the serious problems facing German Jewry from the new, antisemitic regime.
Rabbi Leo Baeck was elected president, and the driving force in the organisation was its chief executive officer, Otto Hirsch. The organisation's activities were to include all aspects of the internal life of the Jews of Germany, and it was to act as their representative before the authorities as well as Jewish organisations abroad. Its main spheres of operation, conducted through the Zentralausschuss der Deutschen Juden für Hilfe und Aufbau (Central Committee of German Jews for aid and reconstruction) were education, vocational training, support for the needy, economic assistance, and emigration.
The Reischsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Organisation of German Jews) came into being in February 1939 and, as far as its leadership and basic purposes was concerned, was a continuation of its predecessor, the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland. As a result of the intensification of the Third Reich's anti-semitic policies, its aims were increasingly linked to Jewish survival, and in particular, emigration. It was put under the control of the Ministry of the Interior, in practice the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office). It was the only organisation in Germany dealing with Jewish survival until its liquidation in July 1943 when its leaders, Leo Baeck and Paul Eppstein were deported to Theresienstadt.
The Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland was founded in 1933 and became the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden in 1935, and later the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland in 1939. It came into being shortly after the Nazi seizure of power as the successor to the Reichsvertretung der jüdischen Landesverbände, a loose federation of Jewish organisations in Germany. Its main objective was to deal with the serious problems facing German Jewry from the new, antisemitic regime.
Rabbi Leo Baeck was elected president, and the driving force in the organisation was its chief executive officer, Otto Hirsch. The organisation's activities were to include all aspects of the internal life of the Jews of Germany, and it was to act as their representative before the authorities as well as Jewish organisations abroad. Its main spheres of operation, conducted through the Zentralausschuss der Deutschen Juden für Hilfe und Aufbau (Central Committee of German Jews for aid and reconstruction) were education, vocational training, support for the needy, economic assistance, and emigration.
The Reischsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Organisation of German Jews) came into being in February 1939 and, as far as its leadership and basic purposes was concerned, was a continuation of its predecessor, the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland. As a result of the intensification of the Third Reich's anti-semitic policies, its aims were increasingly linked to Jewish survival, and in particular, emigration. It was put under the control of the Ministry of the Interior, in practice the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office). It was the only organisation in Germany dealing with Jewish survival until its liquidation in July 1943 when its leaders, Leo Baeck and Paul Eppstein were deported to Theresienstadt.
The Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland was founded in 1933 and became the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden in 1935, and later the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland in 1939. It came into being shortly after the Nazi seizure of power as the successor to the Reichsvertretung der jüdischen Landesverbände, a loose federation of Jewish organisations in Germany. Its main objective was to deal with the serious problems facing German Jewry from the new, antisemitic regime.
Rabbi Leo Baeck was elected president, and the driving force in the organisation was its chief executive officer, Otto Hirsch. The organisation's activities were to include all aspects of the internal life of the Jews of Germany, and it was to act as their representative before the authorities as well as Jewish organisations abroad. Its main spheres of operation, conducted through the Zentralausschuss der Deutschen Juden für Hilfe und Aufbau (Central Committee of German Jews for aid and reconstruction) were education, vocational training, support for the needy, economic assistance, and emigration.
The Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland (Jewish Aid in Germany) was an organisation established by German Jews in 1901 to engage in social welfare and educational activities among needy Jews. It remained in operation until 1941, and during the Nazi period it assisted German Jews trying to emigrate.
After World War One, the Hilfsverein concentrated its efforts on Jewish refugees from eastern Europe who were stranded in Germany while trying to emigrate overseas.
The help that the Hilfsverein was able to give encompassed all aspects of emigration; up-to-date information, based on reports received from hundreds of contacts abroad; vocational counselling, technical arrangements, bureaucratic formalities and financial advice. When the Hilfsverein began to assist Jewish emigration from Germany, a clear division of responsibility was made between it and the Jewish Agency. The latter, through the Palastina-Amt, dealt exclusively with emigration to Palestine, while the Hilfsverein dealt with emigration elsewhere.
The Hilfsverein continued to function as an independent agency until 1939, when it became a section of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland. In 1941, when emigration was prohibited altogether, that section also went out of existence.
The Council for German Jewry was established in 1936, in the aftermath of the Nuremberg race laws, with the objective of assisting German Jews to leave Germany through coordinated emigration. It succeeded the Central British Fund for the Relief of German Jewry, which was founded in 1933, shortly after the Nazis came to power.
An agreement was reached between Zionists and non-Zionists for an emigration plan and in January 1936 a delegation of leading British Jews went to the United States in order to establish a partnership with American Jewry to raise $15 million to assist in the emigration of 100,000 German Jews aged 17 to 35. Whilst they succeeded to a certain extent, a number of factors combined to impede their efforts including British immigration policy in Palestine, emigration obstacles in Germany and the growing impoverishment of German Jewry. After the war the organisation became known as the Central British Fund for Relief and Rehabilitation.
The Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten (RjF) was founded in 1919 to combat the resurgence of anti-Semitism during the First World War. From the outset it was both a defence organisation and a veterans' association. It endeavoured to be apolitical but was regarded as assimilationist when compared with other Jewish organisations such as the Zionist Centralverein. It became the second largest German Jewish organisation with 30-40,000 membership at its peak, publishing its own fortnightly newspaper, Der Schild.
By 1924, at its national congress the RjF resolved to include physical training for the young. Athletics and, in particular, boxing were promoted, the latter as a form of self-defence and a means to counter the claim that Jews were weak and cowardly.
As anti-Semitism increased during the Weimar years, links with other non-Jewish veterans' associations decreased. By the time the Nuremberg race laws had been brought into force, any privileges that the Reichsbund might have enjoyed, by virtue of members' service to the fatherland, were gone.
David Spector, a British born Jew, dedicated much of his life to fighting fascism in Britain, having experienced at first hand, the effects of Nazi persecution on Holocaust survivors.
In World War Two he enlisted in the Royal Artillery and within 2 years he was heading for the Middle East, where he became the youngest ever staff captain at a military college in Egypt. He then volunteered for the Jewish Brigade, and was appointed brigade major, training many of the men who were later to become senior officers in Israel's army. At the end of the war, Spector helped thousands of displaced Holocaust survivors make their way to Palestine.
After World War Two he returned to work in the City and became a leading figure in AJEX, the Association of Jewish Ex-servicemen, serving as its national vice-chairman and as a member of the Board of Deputies' Defence Committee. However he eventually resigned from these posts in protest at what he regarded as a soft attitude towards Moseley's post-war attempts to return to British political life. He died in 1997.
Around 1968 Grattan Puxon (Secretary of the Gypsy Council) was asked by Vanko Rouda (Secretary of the Comité International Tsigane) to collect material which might help Gypsies in their reparations claims. At about the same time the Wiener Library was advertising grants for research into modern history. The two strands came together and after a meeting at Reading University it was agreed that Grattan Puxon and Donald Kenrick would work jointly on collecting material on the Gypsy genocide during the Nazi period.
As a result a volume of material was prepared, known as Gypsies Under the Nazis (611/16).
The Komitee ehemaliger politischer Gefangener was founded in the immediate post-World War Two years to represent the interests of former political prisoners. In 1947 it changed its name to the Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes to include all those who suffered under the Nazis. This anti-fascist organisation still exists with branches all over Germany.
Julius Kühl came from a Chassidic family in Poland from where he moved to Switzerland in early childhood. He completed his doctorate on Polish-Swiss trade relations in the summer of 1939 at the University of Bern. From 1938 until the end of the war he was employed by the Polish Consular service, Bern. Thanks to a sympathetic head of Consular service, Alexander Lados, a non-Jew, and with the use of the diplomatic pouch, Kühl was able to circumvent state censorship enabling news about the murder of Jews to reach America and to facilitate communication between Jewish relief organisations in their attempts to rescue Jews.
In 1949 he moved to America with his Swiss-born wife and 2 children where he eventually became a property developer.
During the course of his war-time activities he formed close ties with a number of individuals and organisations intent on rescuing Europe's Jews. There follows a brief description of two of those organisations which feature most prominently in this collection.
The Hilfsverein für jüdische Flüchtlinge im Shanghai (Aid Organisation for Jewish refugees in Shanghai)(HIJEFS) was founded by Recha Sternbuch and her husband, Isaac, in 1941, with the objective of assisting rabbinical students who had fled to the Far East. It soon expanded its activities to include the provision of passports to non-religious Jews from many European countries and changed its name to Hilfsverein für jüdische Flüchtlinge im Ausland (Aid Organisation for Jewish Refugees Abroad).
Va'ad Hahatsala (Rescue Committe) was established in 1939 and was based in the USA at the offices of its parent body, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States. It was an emergency committee formed initially to provide financial support to more than 20 Talmudic academies which had left Poland for Lithuania. It continued to provide relief throughout the war to Jews all over Europe. It had offices in Montreux, Switzerland. Both Julius Kühl and Isaac Sternbuch were on the committee.
Dr. George Bergmann was born the son of a salesman in Lissa (Posen) in 1900. He went to school in Lissa and then studied philosophy, economics and law in the universities of Heidelberg, Breslau and Munich. During this period he became a member of the Kartellverband jüdischer Studenten to which organisation he retained links for the rest of his life.
Gained his doctorate, oeconomiae publicae, at the Univeristy of Munich, 1922; became a lawyer, 1929; began working in the chambers of the lawyers Julius Heilbronner and Dr. Eugen Schmidt, 1930.
In June 1933 he went to France where in September he was struck off the register of lawyers as a consequence of the Nazi racial laws. Unable to obtain a work permit he supported himself through casual work. In 1935 he married F I Hilde Baum from Fulda.
At the outbreak of war he volunteered to serve in the French army. There followed periods of internment in a number of prison camps, service in the Foreign Legion and served in the British Army in North Africa, Italy and Austria, 1943-1947.
In January 1947 he was demobilised to Australia where he owned a delicatessen business, was one time secretary of the World Jewish Congress and having gained British and Australian nationality in 1950, became a permanent officer of the Commonwealth.
Fritz Goldschmidt was born in Breslau in 1893, the son of a doctor who founded the first Jewish student fraternity in 1886. Goldschmidt was a judge in the High Court in Berlin, however shortly after the Nazis came to power, new legislation precluded him from continuing in the profession and he devoted most of his time to working for the Central Verein Deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (Central League of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith) as the representative for Charlottenburg.
Goldschmidt was sent to Sachsenhausen between 1937 and 1938; a detailed description of this can be found within his personal account. At Sachsenhausen he befriended an evangelical preacher, an acquaintance of Martin Buber and Pastor Niemöller.
After Goldschmidt's release he came to Great Britain in May 1939. He later became joint secretary of the United Restitution Office in London in 1949 and died in 1968.
Nothing is known about the author of these diaries.
Walter Rauff was a professional naval officer until 1937 when he began working for the Nazi Sicherheitsdienst (security service) in which service he became head of the technical affairs section of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security main office). In this capacity, during 1941 and 1942 he supervised the outfitting and despatch of some 20 gas vans in which at least 200,000 people were murdered. Rauff left Berlin to lead an SD Einsatzkommando in Tunis in late 1942. He became district SS und Polizeiführer (SS and police leader) for Northern Italy in September 1943. After the war, having escaped from a prisoner of war camp he eventually settled in Chile where he managed to evade extradition and died in 1984.
Fritz Gross was born in Vienna in 1897, the son of a Jewish dealer in precious stones, Herman Gross; fought in World War One, where he lost some of his closest friends, after which he moved to Germany where he worked at a variety of jobs in different places; joined the German Communist Party (KPD)in 1919 and was also an activist in various other left wing groups such as the 'Internationale Arbeiter-Hilfe', of which he was the general secretary in 1923.
He married Babette Thüring, also an activist, in 1920 and they had a son in 1923; in 1929, after their separation he moved to Hamburg, and stayed in the house of Magda Hoppstock-Huth; after Adolf Hitler came to power he moved to England, eventually setting up home in Regent Square, London, where he built up a lending library for other refugees and the house became a meeting place. He spent much of his time working in the British Library where he produced most of his writing, without being able to publish much; died 1946.
In May 1960 Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped in Argentina by Israeli agents and handed over to the police authorities in Israel. The police investigation was put into the hands of a special unit (Bureau 6) which took 9 months to complete its task. The resulting indictment comprised 15 counts of crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, war crimes and membership of a hostile organisation.
The trial commenced on 10 April 1961 and Eichmann pleaded not guilty on all counts. Supported by more than 100 witnesses and 1600 documents the prosecution presented its case. The defence made no attempt to challenge the facts of the Holocaust or the authenticity of the documents that were evidence of it. The defence played down Eichmann's involvement and stressed the need to obey orders. The court found Eichmann guilty on all counts and sentenced him to death on 15 December 1961. Eichmann's lawyers lodged an appeal against the verdict and on 29 May 1962 the Israel Supreme Court rejected the appeal. Eichmann was executed on 31 May 1962.
Myer Jack Landa was born in Leeds in 1874. He was a British Jewish writer and long time sketch writer in the Press Gallery at the House of Commons. He married Gertrude Gordon, sister of Samuel Gordon, the writer. The two of them published a number of novels and plays together; she often under the pseudonym of Aunt Naomi. His principal interests seem to have been the portrayal of the Jew and Jewish life in theatre and the importance of Palestine as the centre of Jewish life.
George Brody and Irma, née Pauncz, and their children were a well-to-do, assimilated Jewish Hungarian family who were living in Budapest when the Nazis began to transport the Hungarian Jewish population to death camps in 1944. They survived the war and stayed on in Hungary until shortly after the Russian invasion in 1956 when George and Irma successfully attained refugee status in Switzerland and Judit came to England. Livia, the other daughter died in 1947.
The Cohn and Baer families were Berlin Jews during the Third Reich.
Ella Mayer was born in a village in the Rhine Palatinate in 1908, the daughter of a kosher butcher in a small Jewish community. In 1932 both Ella and her sister were brought to England to stay with an English uncle, who had lived in London since before the First World War. Having already met Ben Courts, on the threat of enforced return to Germany, due to the immanent expiry of her visa, they married and she made London her permanent home.
Walter Raschkow, was a German Jewish architect. His wife Emma was non-Jewish. Their daughter, Ingeborg-Maria Raschkow (later Mayer) went to England throughout World War Two whilst her parents remained in Stuttgart.
Jacobs was a Major in the Civil Defence Forces during World War Two.
This collection of documents and images came about as the consequence of an appeal made in the May 1962 issue of the AJR Information, by the Council for Jews from Germany, for memorabilia and documents of Germany Jewry, of historical and artistic value, for the Memorial Hall to German Jewry at the Wiener Library.
Walter Rosenberger was a judge in the Berlin civil court, 1 Oct 1929-1 Apr 1933, when, along with other 'non-aryan' judges he was relieved of his duties. He died in May 1980.
Otto Löwenstein was Jewish but his wife was not. He died in prison, 1938, though it is not known why he was sent there.
The papers in this collection relate to the trial of six Danish Nazis for anti-semitic libel, in Copenhagen, 1937. The defendants include Ernst Lemvigh Müller, Niels Olsen, editor of the National-Socialistiks Maanedhaefte, Aag Henning Andersen, Nannestad Møoller, Valdemar Jensen, editor of Stormen and Betty Henning. The longest sentence was 80 days.
Heinz Werner Löwenstein emigrated to South Africa in 1935. He became a sergeant in the South African Army [1941]; saw action in North Africa, 1942; Italian prisoner of war, Oct 1942; repatriated, Apr 1943.
The Kitchener camp, a derelict site which had previously been an army camp, was taken over by the Council for German Jewry at the beginning of 1939 as a result of pressure from the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland to rescue threatened Jews from Germany and Austria. Conditions for admission were that inmates must be aged between 18 and 40 and that they have a definite prospect of emigration overseas. The camp began receiving refugees in February 1939 and ended with the outbreak of war in September after which most of the inmates chose to enlist in the British army. Three young English Jews, Jonas and Phineas May and M Banks, who were later to become commissioned officers in the Pioneer Corps, were put in charge of the management of the camp.
Charlotte Lewin was born in Breslau in 1892. She went to school there and passed an examination to become a teacher of English and French in 1912. Soon afterwards she spent 18 months in England in order to improve her English. On her return to Breslau she worked as a secretary at the American Consulate until 1917 when diplomatic relations with the USA were broken. After a short period working as a librarian at the Breslau municipal library she went on to work in the archives and library at Breslau University Department of Economics.
She took over the running of her father's textile business along with an associate in 1923, her father having died in 1921. During this time she continued to teach and study the English language.
In October 1936 she was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment for making defamatory comments about Goebbels after the latter had come to Breslau to give a lecture. After her release 7 months later she began to make plans to leave Germany. She arrived in England in March 1938. In London and later Darlington she worked for HM Forces Education Department as a German language teacher.
Kurt Josef Waldheim was born 1918; served in the Wehrmacht, 1941-1945; squad leader, Eastern Front, 1941; interpreter and liaison officer with the Italian 5th division (Pusteria), Apr-May 1942; O2 officer (communications) with the Kampfgruppe West Bosnia, Jun-Aug 1942; interpreter with the liaison staff attached to the 9th Italian Army in Tirana, early summer 1942; O1 officer in the German liaison staff with the 11th Italian Army and in the staff of the Army Group South Greece in Jul-Oct 1943; O3 officer on the staff of Army Group E in Arksali, Mitrovica and Sarajevo, Oct 1943-Feb 1945; Austrian diplomatic service, 1945-1972; Secretary-General of the United Nations, 1972-1981; President of Austria, 1986-1992; died 2007.
In early 1986 when Waldheim's candidacy for the office of Federal President of Austria was made known his service as a Wehrmacht intelligence officer during World War Two caused an international controversy. A Thames Television documentary was made on Kurt Waldheim's role during the War. The programme takes the form of a commission of enquiry presided over by 5 distinguished European judges in which evidence of Waldheim's wartime duties and activities is subjected to scrutiny by lawyers. The object of the exercise is to ascertain whether or not Waldheim should be answerable to charges of certain war crimes. Testimony is taken from a number of historians and lawyers and eyewitnesses. The unanimous conclusion of the commission is that Waldheim should not have to answer charges for war crimes.
In 1929 Dr Paul Plaut, a psychiatrist and child delinquency expert in Berlin, published a book, Die Psychologie der produktiven Persönlichkeit. In preparation he sent questionnaires to about 400 prominent scientists and artists in Germany and Austria asking for their views and experiences.
Michael Zylberberg was born in Plotsk, Poland, 1906, into a rabbinical family. He qualified to teach Hebraic history and literature in Warsaw and proceeded to work in a number of schools there, 1933-1939. After the outbreak of World War Two he was active in the Warsaw ghetto organising illegal schools for thousands of homeless children. After the Warsaw ghetto rising in 1943 he managed to escape to the Aryan side of Warsaw, where he lived for 2 years passing off as a Christian.
Years after the end of the war he was contacted by someone who had discovered his manuscript diary and notes. He published his diary under the title A Warsaw Diary in 1969. He also contributed many articles and book reviews on the subject of the Holocaust to the Jewish Chronicle.
He became secretary of the British section of the Yivo Institute, and was a member of the Association of Jewish Journalists and of the World Jewish Congress. He died in 1971.
The provenance of the document is unknown. Whilst the document states that it was produced for the Landgericht, Münster, 1960, the case to which it pertains is not known.
Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklarung nationalsozialistischer Gewaltverbrechen (Central Office of the Provincial Justice Authorities to Resolve National Socialist Violent Crime) in Ludwigsburg, Germany, was initially set up to investigate only those Nazi crimes committed outside the territory of the Federal Republic; in later years it assumed responsibility for investigating all Nazi crimes.
Eliezer Kaplan was born 1891; joined the Socialist Zionist Party, 1905; founder of the Youth of Zion - Renewal movement, 1908; founder of the Youth of Zion movement in Russia, 1912; member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference, 1919; immigrated to Mandate Palestine, and was involved in merging Youth of Zion with Hapoel Hatzair to form Hitachdut, 1920; elected to the Zionist Executive Committee, 1920; went to Berlin to run Hitachdut's world office, 1920; returned to Mandate Palestine and joined the Histadrut's Office of Public Works, 1923; Director of the Technical Department of the Tel Aviv municipality, 1923-1925; Tel Aviv city council, 1925-1933; treasurer of the Jewish Agency, 1933-1948; signed the Israeli declaration of independence, and appointed Minister of Finance in the provisional government, 1948; elected to the first Knesset as a member of Mapai, and retained the Finance Ministry post, also becoming Minister of Trade and Industry; Deputy Prime Minister, 1952; died 1952.
Unknown