Magda Veselská

The Early Days of the Documentation Campaign¹ 

The effort to document the persecution of the Jews by collecting authentic documents and papers produced in the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia began while the Second World War was still raging. These activities were conducted by the staff of the Jewish Religious Community in Prague² (Židovská náboženská obec v Praze, hereafter JRCP) as the office responsible for all persons affected by the Nuremberg Race Laws within the borders of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia,³ as well as in the Terezín Ghetto, where most of the Protectorate’s Jews were deported, beginning at the end of the year 1941.

In Terezín, this work was primarily carried out by the people who had been on the very first transports in November and December 1941 and were involved in building up the organization and structure of the ghetto from the very beginning, worked for its self-government, and had access to documents. Their motives varied from wanting to document the founding and development of the ghetto, its typical features, and life within it, the work of the members of its self-government, specific groups of prisoners or individuals and important phenomena to later capturing the course and extent of the catastrophe or collecting evidence and testimony for later use after the war. Still others wanted to keep alive the memory of their life in the ghetto, of their friends and fellow prisoners. 

Some collectors likely thought about the future use of these authentic documents from Terezín, i.e. to create a record of the persecution of Czech Jews. For example, Josef Polák (1905–1965), an employee of the ghetto’s central registration office, published rescued material such as various summaries and statistics after the war, firstly in collaboration with the journalist Zdeněk Lederer (1920–1981),⁴ and later with the lawyer Karel Lagus (1903–1979).⁵ H. G. Adler (1910–1988), who was deported to Terezín in February 1942, also relied on the authentic documents collected in the ghetto.⁶ Others collected mementos for their own private use, such as Hermann Weisz (1907–1974), who maintained scrapbooks⁷, or who held on to documentation of specific phenomena—culture and sports that presented the human face of the ghetto and the activities in which they participated (the collection of posters and various invitations on cultural and sports events in the ghetto of Karel Heřman/Hermann, 1905–1953).⁸ These collections acquired secondary source value for Shoah research only once they were made public, as did the private archives of individuals living outside of the Terezín Ghetto, such as that of Věra (Erika) Pokorná (1911–1990), who was in an intermarriage.⁹ Deportees to Terezín collected not only documents, but also amassed knowledge that they later used in their professional work. Two names stand out: the psychologist and philosopher Emil Utitz (1883–1956) and the physician Lilly Pokorná (1894–1974).¹⁰

The History of the Documentation Campaign and Its Staff

Already in the Terezín Ghetto, Yochanan Zeev Schek (1920–1978) began to collect documents, especially those related to the cultural and educational activities of the Zionists and their youth program, something that was extremely important to them. He likely put together a collection containing art and literature as well as documents on the work of the Jewish self-government during the year 1944. After he was deported to Auschwitz in the fall of 1944, his future wife Alisa continued with the effort (more about this in Daniel Shek’s introduction). After liberation, she brought the preserved documents to Prague, where Schek had returned to from Kaufering. His experience of other concentration camps, in which he apparently came to realize the extent and impact of the catastrophe that had befallen European Jewry, spurred him to decide to continue collecting documents of what had happened during the war in a systematic way and on a much larger scale, so that “with the last remnant of the faith that I still cherish for life, I could put it behind me in a way that could make future Jewish generations draw the appropriate conclusions.”¹¹

Zeev Schek. Courtesy of Rachel Shek.

He divided the documents pertaining to the Bohemian Lands into groups under a heading entitled Documentation Campaign (hereafter Campaign) in cooperation with the Budapest office of Sochnut as follows: 1) anti-Jewish literature, articles, and newspaper clippings from the period of the Second Czechoslovak Republic and Protectorate; 2) documents related to anti-Jewish regulations that were issued by “superior authorities,” i.e. the Nazi Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung and Gestapo, including all forms and printed material, etc.; 3) scholarly and artistic works that were produced in defiance of the Nazi terror, and documentation of cultural activities; 4) photographic documentation of desecrated cemeteries, destroyed synagogues, concentration camps, and the Terezín Ghetto; 5) testimonies of former prisoners as documentation of Nazi atrocities in order to preserve the memory of the dead and to provide evidence for bringing the perpetrators to justice.¹² He actively sought out deeds that could be interpreted as acts of inner revolt and resistance to Nazi oppression (literary or scholarly works) and considered the future, primarily promotional usage of the collected material. Of great importance to him was the documents’ potential to achieve punishment of the war crimes, which was an actual issue after the Second World War.

To achieve his goals, Schek assembled a small team at the beginning of July 1945, united by its identification with the Zionist movement, age, mutual friendships, wartime experience, and gradually cemented intention to emigrate to Palestine. The team’s makeup changed over time. Task of Alexander Schmiedt was to seek out survivors willing to provide testimonies, especially among the members of the Zionist community, and he also maintained the Campaign’s archive.¹³ The testimonies were generally recorded by Marta Krátká and Berta Gerzonová, and their authenticity was confirmed by Harry Tarsi and his companion from the Stab transport¹⁴ and Zeev Schek’s pre-war friend from Olomouc, Robert Ludvík Weinberger, who was involved in the research into wartime anti-Jewish legislation.¹⁵ The Campaign’s main typists were Helena Schicková, Marta Fischerová, Edita Saxlová, and, starting in early 1946, the future writer and translator Ruth Bondy. Jiří Lauscher made models of Terezín and Auschwitz. Mordechaj Livni’s job was to “search for and gather Nazi documents that were mainly to be found in the cellar of the Gestapo headquarters in Prague.“ He also gathered material directly in Terezín. Specialists, such as the commercial photographer Fred Kramer (1913–1994)¹⁶ or the physician Erich Nasch, who helped gather documents on concentration camps in Austria and Germany in the fall of 1945, were employed to conduct specific tasks.¹⁷ 

Funding for the Campaign’s work was provided by the Ezra Committee in Prague.¹⁸ Schek also managed to procure support from other institutions as well. For instance, Karel Stein (1906–1961), the Chairman of the Jewish Religious Community in Prague and member of the Council of Jewish Religious Communities in the Czech and Moravian-Silesian Lands, wanted to work very closely with the Campaign. Both institutions saw the documentation of wartime events as extremely important, as they felt responsible for preserving witness testimonies and for public awareness of the fate of the Jews during the Second World War. However, they didn’t have the means or capacity to work independently because they were also dealing with repatriation and helping survivors, as well as defending the interests of Czech Jews in their negotiations with the Czechoslovak state, often in property issues (more about this in Jan Láníček’s introduction). But they offered the Campaign a different kind of support—offices, technical facilities, the mediation of contacts with renewed Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia and with other institutions, and last but not least representation when dealing with the authorities. Although Schek was in continuous negotiations with the Budapest Sochnut¹⁹ and shared its ideals and opinions, the office didn’t get back to him for a long time despite urgent reminders and personal pleas due to a lack of clarity about the internal situation and the delineation of competencies. This was a source of frustration for Schek, especially when others, such as The World Jewish Congress, were eminently interested in his work and results.²⁰ In order to save time, he agreed to cooperate with the JRCP in early August 1945. 

The first postwar issue of the revived Věstník ŽNOP²¹ published at the beginning of September 1945 featured a report about the Campaign working on behalf of Sochnut and collecting “everything that recalled the Nazi terror in the occupied territory”²² for the Prague Jewish community. The documents destined for the JRCP were to be stored in the Jewish Museum in Prague,²³ which was administered by the community. The person appointed to manage this process was the previously mentioned H. G. Adler. The rules of cooperation between the Campaign, the JRCP, and the Jewish Museum in Prague were agreed upon in the middle of October 1945.²⁴

While this was happening, Schek was already cooperating with Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia, which he called on to collect relevant documents, artworks, and brief but factual survivor testimonies.²⁵ The Jewish community in Schek’s home town of Olomouc was one such participant. Elsewhere, it was individuals who took up the work, such as Bruno Bock in Brno, who confirmed the authenticity of the testimonies of Ruth Morgensternová and Leo Herzog, or Traudl Lichtensternová in Mariánské Lázně.²⁶ The gathering of documents in Terezín continued, and Schek was approached by individuals who had managed to collect and hide papers during the war²⁷ or who had begun collecting testimonies in peacetime. Among them were Rabbi Richard Feder of Kolín (1875–1970), who wrote about his wartime experience and internment in Terezín and included the fates of his fellow believers from Kolín in one of the first ever postwar books on Czech Jews during the Second World War.²⁸ Max Munk had his own personal reasons for participating in the effort. He collected testimonies on topics that affected him the most—life in Buchenwald (Gustav Herzog and Josef Fried), but also for example Terezín, which he only knew from secondhand accounts (reports by Max Borger and Vilém Baum). He also asked survivors to submit stories about his brother MUDr. Erich Munk. Other testimonies were obtained and recorded apparently by chance whenever he had the opportunity: a native of Riga recalled his experiences in the city’s ghetto (Isak Berner), someone else the Jaworzno camp (Paul Heller), etc. He stopped working after handing over his records to the Campaign, but apparently helped transport part of the Campaign archive to Palestine, where he joined his wife and children in September 1946.²⁹

At the end of October 1945, Schek decided to join forces on documenting the events of the Shoah with the colleagues from Slovakia, where, unlike in Bohemia or Moravia, it was possible to document the armed resistance movement, e.g. the Jews’ involvement in the Slovak National Uprising. Due to the limited timeframe, it’s not possible to determine whether closer cooperation actually took place.³⁰ Schek also tried to establish contacts with similar initiatives in other countries, as he considered the coordination of joint efforts to be a crucial endeavor, but according to available information it appears that he was unsuccessful.³¹

In the middle of December 1945, at Schek’s suggestion, the JRCP published another report in Věstník ŽNOP, in which it appealed anew to the Jewish communities outside of Prague to be active and cooperative.³² At the time, discussions about how the collected material would be divided were already underway because Schek was preparing to emigrate to Palestine. In February 1946, he asked the chairman of the JRCP, Karel Stein, to continue with the collecting of documents even after the end of the Campaign and gave him the portion of the material destined for the Jewish Museum.³³ He took part of the documents for Palestine when he emigrated.³⁴ The Campaign officially finished their activities due to financial limitations on May 31st, 1946.³⁵ The remaining material was brought to Palestine with the help of friends over the course of 1946.

According to the agreement arranged by Leo Hermann in October 1945, Schek handed over the Campaign’s materials to Georg Herlitz, the director of the Zionist Central Archives, until further notice.³⁶ The collection was subsequently kept in the Jewish Historical Archives (now the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, CAHJP) in Jerusalem, where it was rudimentarily sorted. Only in 1976 did Schek transfer it to the Yad Vashem Archives, but as the Zeev Schek (Osef Zeev Shek) collection, and not the Documentation Campaign collection (Osef Mifal ha-dokumentatziya), which some of Schek’s colleagues saw as being at odds with the project’s original intent.³⁷ It’s kept in the fonds O.7.cz (Czech Republic), where the nature of the documents and a note on the handover from the CAHJP serve as guidelines for identifying the inventory, and O.64 (Terezín); according to the inventory, the collection is listed under files 1–110. Individual files may also appear in the Beit Terezin Archive since the Sheks significantly contributed to its founding and to the creation of its collections.

The Nature of the Collected Material 

The Campaign’s first results were summarized in the above-mentioned report published in the September 1945 issue of Věstník ŽNOP. Over the course of the summer of 1945, its staff managed to collect some of the anti-Jewish literature and periodicals that had come out during the occupation, as well as 2,000 various forms and printed matter that documented the orders issued by the superior authorities and their implementation. On the basis of excerpts from the Collection of Laws and Regulations and information from sectoral ministries, it also collected all of the anti-Jewish regulations proclaimed during the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. It achieved its objective of collecting literary and art works from concentration camps, photographic reports from Auschwitz and Terezín, and documentation of destroyed synagogues and cemeteries, such as Julius Lederer’s coverage of Březnice. The report also mentioned the testimonies of former camp prisoners as evidence of Nazi atrocities. Some of these were taken down in the Campaign’s office in Prague, while others were copies of existing texts like those by H. Vinohradský.³⁸ They can be identified according to their more-or-less uniform style of arrangement. Some are given identification numbers, even though from the recorded data it seems that they were numbered simultaneously (reports with a lower number have a later date), but the numerical order is far from complete. The name of the person who recorded the testimony, who witnessed it, and who accepted it on behalf of the Documentation Campaign can be found in the footer. Apart from a few exceptions, the contents of which are more akin to an attempt at a summary or memoir (e.g. the reminiscences of Cäcilie Friedmannová or Erich Nasch), the testimonies, in accordance with the Campaign’s guidelines, are brief and concise accounts of wartime events, a good example of which is Marianna Meissnerová’s statement.³⁹ Depending on their content, they can be divided into several groups. 

Based on the preserved material, it appears that the priority wasn’t to simply document what happened in Terezín, a camp through which most of the Protectorate’s Jews at some point passed, but also to focus on other concentration, extermination, and labor camps and ghettos where Czech Jews were persecuted. Some witnesses spoke about the first transports from the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia to Łódź, Minsk, etc., among them Karel Abeles or Leo Herzog. The majority of those who had lived through Terezín gloss over their imprisonment in the ghetto and begin their accounts with the moment of their departure or summarize it in one or two sentences. Some concentrate on describing the next transport or internment in another camp like Otto Friedländer, Otto Kalwo, Benjamin Lewin, Alexander Schmiedt, Zdeněk and Jiří Steiner, or Evžen Schönfeld, while others concentrate on a specific act or event, such as Hanuš Gibián, H. Safirstein, or Valerie Straussová. It’s possible that the Campaign’s staff believed that the circumstances of life in Terezín were sufficiently well-known among the survivors. Moreover, several accounts of the ghetto were published after the war. Their documentation of the ghetto therefore was more about gathering extensive testimonies on a particular activity, area, or phenomenon, especially if it could be interpreted as resistance to persecution (culture, education, etc.)—see the statements submitted by Heda Grabová, Willy Groag, Heinrich Klang, Otto Muneles, Zeev Schek, Emil Utitz, or information on the so-called “Schleuze.” Still others recounted specific events and their experience of them, like Jan Bondy or the report by an unknown author on the census of prisoners in the Bohušovice Basin. 

Many testimonies comment on a specific act, event, aspect, person or their fate (most often the circumstances of their death). Taken in their entirety, they create a mosaic of various situations and individual lives (see Ota Klinger's recollection of the death of Jan Hermann). Some interviewees provided multiple accounts on various topics (e.g. Josef Kláber, Erich Kulka, Ota Klinger). Some of the statements were taken down onsite: in the middle of August 1945 Schek took part in the exhumation of the graves of death march victims in Teplá and questioned a number of witnesses on the spot. Logs and reports were also made by Weinberger and Nasch during their previously mentioned trip to Austria and Germany to visit the former concentration camps, hospitals, and DP camps there. In addition, the Campaign’s staff received many suggestions to procure certain testimonies in the overall effort to punish war crimes.⁴⁰

At the end of October 1945, Schek was asked by the London Sochnut to document in detail the activities of leading Zionist workers (Jakob Edelstein, Franz Kahn, Otto Zucker, Erich Munk, and others). Documenting the Zionist movement was nothing new for the Campaign (see the testimony of Erika Wolfová).⁴¹ Schek writes: “I know very well that won’t help any of them, but it should be known under what terrible circumstances various people took responsibility on themselves. I am aware that this was often not for ideal but material reasons, but I also know how many of them showed themselves to be truly great in specific cases.”⁴² People’s memories of Jakob Edelstein, in particular, were collected (see the testimonies of Erich Kulka or Josef Kláber), but some of those addressed were unable or unwilling to revisit their traumatic experiences.⁴³ 

The agreement between the Campaign and the JRCP on the division of the documents into those to be transferred to Palestine and those that would remain in Prague was in essence a general one. Copies were to be made of all documents, with the understanding that the original would be kept where it was of greater value to the local community—documents on the activity of the JRCP would stay in Prague, the documents important to the Zionist movement in Palestine. Any duplicates were to be divided.⁴⁴ However, a comparison of what is now kept at the Yad Vashem Archives and in the archive of the Jewish Museum in Prague has shown that the terms of the agreement have not been fulfilled. It’s possible that copies or duplicates of all of the documents were not made in time and over the decades losses may have occurred in both collections. Shek wrote in 1947 that the Campaign’s staff “succeeded in securing the larger part for Palestine.”⁴⁵ The set of regular reports on the wartime activities of the JRCP addressed to the superior office, the Nazi Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung and their correspondence, the files of some Moravian Jewish communities, the Campaign’s files, and specific witness statements are only kept in Yad Vashem.⁴⁶ In terms of the Jewish Museum in Prague’s archive, only the Campaign’s stamp or copyright mark allows for the unambiguous identification of the Campaign’s documents. For unmarked documents, secondary clues or other leads have to be relied upon.⁴⁷ Unfortunately, identifying the original collection of the Campaign, including its later additions, especially in view of the subsequent handling of both collections and the mutual sharing of copies, has proven impossible. 

Summary

Just like in many other European countries, many people in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia sought to record what happened during the occupation by collecting authentic documents both while the war was still ongoing and immediately after liberation. Such activities in the Bohemian Lands, however, were fairly specific and have few things in common with other European initiatives, particularly those described by Laura Jockusch.⁴⁸ 

From the outset, the group around Zeev Schek focused on documenting the work of the Zionists. Through the material they collected, they wanted to inform future generations of their firm stance and deliberate actions, loyalty to their ideals even in the harsh conditions of the ghetto, and active resistance to oppression and persecution by educating the young and promoting cultural activities. Later on, Schek himself coined the term meri le-lo neshek (resistance without weapons),⁴⁹ and even after war concentrated on documenting related phenomena and actions. For Zionist institutions, the Campaign also documented prominent members of the movement, its heroes, and focused on providing pictorial documentation of sites of persecution for promotional and informational purposes. Additionally, it sought to record the fate of Czech Jews not held prisoner in the Terezín Ghetto by drawing on examples.

Collecting documents in Terezín was the manifestation of an active outlook on life, a refusal to give in, a faith in the future and in the survival of the Jewish people, and the belief that life would go on after the war. Unlike the traumatization of the collectors in other countries that Jockusch writes about, the Campaign’s staff maintained this attitude even after the war. Despite the immensity of the tragedy that befell the Jewish population of Bohemia and Moravia, Schek and his colleagues represented the active and objective approach, all while looking ahead towards life in the Jewish state. 

Time constraints, as the Campaign only operated in the Bohemian Lands for several months, and the insufficient expertise of its staff led it to refrain from assessing its own material. Most of the Campaign’s members hailed from a generation that had taken up their professions or specializations after the war; a majority was only a little over 20 years of age at the time. None were historians or representatives of other humanities disciplines; only the lawyer Robert Weinberger was able to make use of his pre-war education. Schek acted in a more intuitive way and, in many cases, responded to the possibilities available to him. His attempts at establishing contacts with other European documentation initiatives, with whom he could confer about methodology and share experiences, seem to have gone unanswered. At home, he could find only limited direct inspiration, for instance in the gathering of witness testimonies for the Extraordinary People’s Courts.

Despite these limitations, the Campaign was able to put together an important collection of sources, which continues to be actively expanded not only by the two institutions where parts of it were deposited, i.e. the Yad Vashem Archives and the Jewish Museum in Prague, but also by other memorials and archives established after the war (e.g. Terezín Memorial or Beit Terezin). Although the documents have been copied, duplicated, and shared countless times, the collections are complementary and only when taken as a whole do they provide a comprehensive picture. 

NOTES

1 ‒ This text is based on a detailed study on the early postwar documentation of the Shoah in the Bohemian Lands, see Magda Veselská, “Early Documentation of the Shoah in the Czech Lands: The Documentation Project and the Prague Jewish Museum (1945–1947)” Judaica Bohemiae 52, no. 1 (2017): 47–85.

2 ‒ Renamed the Jewish Council of Elders in Prague from January 1943.

3 ‒ For example, see the activities of Hanuš Aschermann (1914–1944), a worker in the emigration department of the JRCP and member of the Czech-Jewish movement, described by a witness, see the Archives of the Jewish Museum in Prague (AJMP), Oral History Collection, Interview no. 404 (Z. P., woman). 

4 ‒ Zdenek Lederer, Ghetto Theresienstadt (London: Edward Goldston & Son Ltd., 1953).

5 ‒ Karel Lagus, Josef Polák, Město za mřížemi (Praha: Naše vojsko, 1964).

6 ‒ E.g. Hans Günther Adler, Theresienstadt. 1941–1945. Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft, Geschichte Soziologie Psychologie (Tübingen: Mohr, 1955).

7 ‒ Today, part of the collection O.64 (Theresienstadt Collection) in the Yad Vashem Archives (YVA).

8 ‒ Jana Štefaniková, ‘Karel Herrmanns Tätigkeit in Theresienstadt in den Jahren 1941–1944. Die Heřman-Sammlung und ihr Schicksal’, Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente, 2004: 72–135.

9 ‒ AJMP, Documents of Persecution, inv. no. 78, box 38.

10 ‒ Emil Utitz, Psychologie života v terezínském koncentračním táboře (Praha: Dělnické nakladatelství, 1947); Lilly Pokorná, ‘Die Lungentuberkulose im Konzentrationslager Theresienstadt im Vergleich mit der bei Häftlingen in anderen deutschen Konzentrationslagern’, Tuberk-Arzt 4 (1950): 406–414.

11 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz (Documentation regarding the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia, mainly during the Holocaust), file no. 267. Letter from Zeev Schek to Traudl Lichtensternová, 10. 12. 1945.

12 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Letter from the Documentation Campaign to Emerich Klein, editor of ‘Ichud’, 31. 7. 1945.

13 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Report for the Secretariat of the JRC, 27. 7. 1945.

14 ‒ Transport St (Stab, so-called štáb) from Prague to Terezín from 4. 12. 1941. Prisoners from this group formed a substantial part of the first leadership of the Jewish self-government (e.g. Jakob Edelstein or Otto Zucker).

15 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Letter from the Campaign to the Personnel Office, 6. 3. 1945; Ibid. Letter from R. Weinberger to Z. Schek, 18. 3. 1946.

16 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 267. Credentials for Max Lieben; Ibid. Credentials for Fred Kramer.

17 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Message from the Campaign to the Secretariat of the JRC, 2. 10. 1945.

18 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 268. Letters from The Jewish Agency for Palestine, ‘Ezra’ committee in Bratislava to the Campaign, 6. 9. 1945.

19 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Record for the JRC Leadership, 27. 7. 1945.

20 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Letter from the Campaign to Salomon Adler-Rudel, 19. 10. 1945. The first response of the London Sochnut only informed Schek that he must await the decision of the headquarters in Jerusalem, see YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 268. Letter from the Jewish Agency for Palestine to the Campaign (translated into Czech), 23. 10. 1945.

21 ‒ Newsletter of the JRCP.

22 ‒ Věstník ŽNOP, 1. 9. 1945, p. 8. Documentation Campaign of the JRCP. Schek regularly informed the JRCP about his work, see YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Message from the Campaign to the Leadership, 5. 8. 1945.

23 ‒ On the history of the Jewish Museum in Prague, see Magda Veselská, Archa paměti. Cesta pražského židovského muzea pohnutým 20. stoletím (Praha: Academia, 2012); same author, ‘“The Museum of an Extinct Race” – Fact vs. Legend: A Contribution to the Topic of the So-Called Jewish Councils in Central Europe’, Judaica Bohemiae 51, no. 1 (2016): 41–83.

24 ‒ AJMP, Jewish Museum in Prague 1945–1960, inv. no. 4, box 35. List of people who worked with the Jewish Central Museum on October 1st, 1945; YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Letter from the Campaign to Štěpán Barber, 18. 10. 1945.

25 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Letter from the Campaign to the JRC in Olomouc, 20. 8. 1945. It refers to previous correspondence.

26 ‒ E.g. YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 267. Letters for Traudl Lichtensternová-Holubová, 26. 10. 1945.

27 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Report for the Leadership of the JRC, 27. 7. 1945. On the activities of individuals, see YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 268. Karl Basch, Vermerk. Betrifft: Statistisches und sonstiges Material über das Konz. Lager Theresienstadt, 21. 7. 1945.

28 ‒ Richard Feder, Židovská tragedie. Dějství poslední (Kolín: Literární a umělecké sbírky města Kolína, 1947).

29 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 265. Letter [from Harry Tarsi] to Zeev Schek, 8. 4. 1946.

30 ‒ For example, see YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 267. Record of the meeting on the work of the Documentation Campaign in Bratislava on October 30th, 1945.

31 ‒ E.g. YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Letter from the Campaing to Komisja historyczna wojwodzka zydowska Lodz [sic], 10. 8. 1945.

32 ‒ Věstník ŽNOP, 15. 12. 1945, p. 32. Documentation Campaign.

33 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Record for Dr. Stein, 6. 2. 1946.

34 ‒ Beit Terezin Archives (BTA), Zeev Shek Collection (571), inv. no. 16. Toldot ‘Mifal ha-dokumentatzia’ (Osef Zeev Shek), undated (after 1976).

35 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 265. Letter from the Campaign to the JRCP, 21. 5. 1946.

36 ‒ See, for example. YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 268. Translation of a letter from The Jewish Agency for Palestine (The Zionist Central Archive, Georg Herlitz) to the Campaign, 23. 11. 1945; YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 265. Letter from the Campaign to The Zionist Central Archive, 5. 12. 1946.

37 ‒ BTA, 571, inv. no. 16. Toldot ‘Mifal ha-dokumentatzia’ (Osef Zeev Shek), undated (after 1976); also Zeev Shek, ‘Edut le-dorot‘, Felix Weltsch (ed.), Prag ve-Jerushalayim. Sefer le-zekher Leo Hermann (Jerusalem, 1954), 70. Ruth Bondy stated that the group that founded the Beit Terezin memorial had counted on Schek depositing the Campaign’s collection there, which didn’t happen; she called it a disappointment. Author’s interview with Ruth Bondy about the Documentation Campaign, 10. 10. 2007. 

38 ‒ The author hasn’t yet been identified.

39 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 267: As far as the statements were concerned, “we are mainly concerned with things characteristic of a certain camp, i.e. the number of prisoners, housing conditions, food conditions, mortality, special events, selection, etc.“ writes the Campaign in a letter to Herta Bondyová, 24. 9. 1945. YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263: These were to be “short and factual subjective statements,” Record on the statements for the Documentation Campaign, 21. 8. 1945.

40 ‒ E.g. YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 268. Record of the CJRC to the Campaign with a request to interview witnesses about the Terezín “ladybugs” Elfriede Pavlištová and Elfriede Hübschová, 15. 11. 1945.

41 ‒ E.g. YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 263. Letters from the Campaign to Lola Manzoni in Vienna, 21. 1. 1946, with a question about Desider Friedmann, Robert Stricker, and Aron Menzser.

42 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 267. Letter from Zeev Schek to Traudl Lichtensternová, 10. 12. 1945.

43 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 268. Letter from Traudl Lichtensternová to Zeev Schek, 19. 11. 1945. 

44 ‒ ABT, 571, inv. no. 16. Toldot ‘Mifal ha-dokumentatzia’ (Osef Zeev Shek), undated (after 1976). Elsewhere, Schek characterizes it as an international or local value, see YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 264. Message from the Campaign to the Legal Division (Dr. Zimmer), 16. 10. 1945.

45 ‒ YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 269. Zeev Shek, Collection of Documents – Committee of Documentation, undated [1947].

46 ‒ YVA O.7.cz, file no. 30; O.7.cz, file no. 40; O.7.cz, file no. 42–43; O.7.cz, file no. 83 (Moravian Jewish communities); O.7.cz, file no. 53–63 (regular reports to the JRCP); O.7.cz, file no. 84–85; O.7.cz, file no. 109–111 (Zentralstelle); O.7.cz, file no. 263–270 (Campaign archive); O.7.cz, file no. 219–228; O.7.cz, file no. 230–262 (statements). For more, see YVA, O.7.cz, file no. 254. Eduard de Wind, Aussagen über die gynäkologischen Experimente, die von März 1943 bis August 1944 im K. L. Auschwitz durchgeführt wurden (copy), undated.

47 ‒ See, for example, AJMP, Terezín collection, inv. no. 343, box. 140. Debora Placzek, Magdeburger Barracs or B V or Main Street No 2 Theresienstadt, with whom Max Munk put the Campaign in contact with, as we know from the cited correspondence. 

48 ‒ Laura Jockusch, Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

49 ‒ ABT, 571, inv. no. 26. Zeev Shek, ‘Meri le-lo neshek (Revolt without Arms). Education and Culture at the Terezin Ghetto (Theresienstadt)’, copy of an article in an undated publication.