Subcollections 1-3, the Yehuda Bauer Interviews, United Jewish Appeal Oral History Project, and Herbert Katzki Oral History Project, are listed on this page. Subcollections 4-7, the Ralph Goldman Research Interviews, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee 90th Anniversary Interviews, and Additional Interviews, are available here. Subcollection 8, the 2021-2022 JDC Archives Oral History Project, is available here.

This subcollection contains 19 interview transcripts, in addition to summaries and notes, created by historian Dr. Yehuda Bauer between 1966 and 1968. There are no audio recordings associated with these files.

In 1964, JDC partnered with Dr. Bauer and the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem to document JDC’s history. Dr.Bauer, then a professor at the Institute, began his research at JDC’s New York office in 1966.

Over the course of two years, Dr. Bauer interviewed JDC staff members about the functions and structure of the organization.Topics discussed include: wartime fundraising strategies; the efforts of the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation (Agro-Joint) in the USSR;loan and aid distribution programs in Europe during and after World War II;and JDC’s relationship with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and other aid organizations. Some interviewees also discussed their family histories, experience with Jewish education and thoughts on Zionism.

Dr. Bauer’s research on JDC resulted in two books: My Brother’s Keeper: A History of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee 1929-1939, published in 1974, and American Jewry and the Holocaust:The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee 1939-1945,published in 1981.

The individuals interviewed in this subcollection are listed in the drop-down menu. Some individuals appear across multiple subcollections:

Record Group: Anthal, Robert, 1968

Extent: 1 folder

Yehuda Bauer’s notes on an interview with Robert Anthal conducted on April 29, 1968.

Robert Anthal was born in 1898 in Vienna, Austria. From 1939 to 1945,Anthal was employed as an accountant by Saly Mayer, president of the Schweizerischen Israelitischen Gemeindebundes (Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities). When Mayer became Director of JDC in Switzerland,Anthal was hired as an accountant at the JDC office in St. Gallen. He served there as the Chief Accountant from 1945 to 1947.

Record Group: Bein, William, 1976

Extent: 3 folders

Transcript of an interview conducted by Yehuda Bauer with William Bein in January and February, 1967.

William Bein served as JDC Director for Poland from March 1946, after the previous country director, David Guzik, was killed in a plane crash. In March 1950, after JDC was expelled from Poland by the Communist government, he served as JDC Director for Morocco.

Record Group: Goeroeg, Frederick (Gorog, Frigyes), 1968

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains Yehuda Bauer’s notes on an interview with Frederick Goeroeg conducted on March 14, 1968.

Frederic Goeroeg worked as a lawyer and bank director in Budapest until 1938, when the government enacted a number of anti-Jewish laws. From 1938 to 1945, Goeroeg served with a variety of Jewish aid organizations in Hungary. Upon the liberation of Hungary in 1945, Goeroeg served as Director of the JDC Hungary Office in Budapest until 1948.

Record Group: Goldstein, Jonah J., 1967

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains Yehuda Bauer’s notes on an interview with Jonah J. Goldstein conducted on January 30, 1967.

Jonah Jamison Goldstein was born April 6, 1886 in Ontario, Canada. Goldstein worked as a lawyer and judge of the Court of General Sessions of New York City. In 1920, Goldstein married Harriet B. Lowenstein, a lawyer and accountant,who served as JDC Comptroller from 1919-1944. In 1930, Goldstein served as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the New York Allied Jewish Campaign, which worked to raise funds for Eastern European Jews as well as the development of Palestine. Goldstein died in 1967.

Record Group: Gorodetzki, Benjamin, 1967

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains Yehuda Bauer’s notes on an interview with Benjamin Gorodetzki conducted on April 12, 1967.

Benjamin Gorodetzki was born in 1907 in Bobruisk, Minsk. At the age of 18, he became Chief Rabbi of Kiev. Facing persecution from Soviet powers, Gorodetzki left the USSR in the 1930s and settled in Paris.As Director of the European Bureau of Lubavitch, he was responsible for coordinating education and rehabilitation programs for Jewish refugees in Europe and North Africa.Gorodetzki worked closely with JDC throughout the post-war period and thereafter.Gorodetzki died in 1995 in Brooklyn.

Record Group: Haber, Samuel, 1968

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Yehuda Bauer with Samuel Haber on June 18, 1968.

Samuel Loeb Haber was born in 1903 in Hirlau, Romania. In 1911, Haber immigrated to the United States and settled with his widowed mother, two brothers and two sisters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trained as an economist, Haber worked as the Regional and Staff Statistician for the Work Projects Administration (WPA) in Chicago, Illinois, from 1935 to 1942, and the National Director of the Division of Research and Statistics for the WPA in Washington, D.C., from 1942 to 1943. Haber served as a Military Government Officer in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946, with tours of duty in England, France, and Germany. In 1946, Haber worked in the U.S. State Department as Assistant Chief in the Division of German and Austrian Economic Affairs.

In March 1947, Haber joined JDC as Director for the U.S. Zone of Germany, and for the next seven years,he managed JDC operations in both Germany and Austria. He served as JDC Assistant Executive Vice Chairman from 1955 to 1956, and also as Country Director in Morocco from 1954 to 1956. He was the JDC Representative in Poland in 1957, becoming the first JDC staff member permitted to work in the country since 1950.

Haber became the Assistant Director General of the Geneva office from 1958 to 1964, and served as the Executive Vice Chairman from 1967 to 1975. He died in 1984.

Record Group: Lanzkron, Joseph, circa 1967

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Yehuda Bauer with Joseph Lanzkron, circa March 1967.

Joseph Lanzkron was born in 1906 in Hamburg, Germany. He was trained as a doctor and worked as the Chief Medical Officer for the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation (Agro-Joint) in the USSR from 1935 to 1938. He practiced medicine at various hospitals in Belgium from 1939 to October 1946.

In November 1946, Lanzkron was hired by JDC to serve as the Senior Medical Officer in the U.S. Zone in Germany, where he worked extensively with displaced persons and survivors. Lanzkron served with JDC in Germany until 1950, when he immigrated to the United States.

Record Group: Linder, Harold, 1967

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Yehuda Bauer with Harold Linder on May 4, 1967.

Harold Linder was born in 1900 in New York City. In the 1930s, Linder was a partner in in the brokerage firm, Carl M. Loeb, Rhodes & Co., and later became President of the General American Investors Company, Inc.During World War II, he served as a Lieutenant Commander and Commander in the Navy. A member of the JDC Board of Directors, Linder was appointed to serve as the JDC Representative in London in 1945. Linder served as JDC Vice Chairman from 1941 to 1942, and 1944 to 1946.

Record Group: McLelland, Roswell D., 1967

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Yehuda Bauer with Roswell D.McLelland on July 13, 1967.

During the early 1940s, Roswell D. McClelland worked for the Geneva office of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization.In 1944, McClelland became the U.S. Representative on the U.S. War Refugee Board in Berne, Switzerland. He worked closely with Saly Mayer, JDC’s representative in Switzerland during World War II.

Record Group: Meyer, Hans, 1967

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains Yehuda Bauer’s notes on an interview with Hans Meyer conducted on November 15, 1967.

Hans Meyer was a partner in M. M. Warburg & Co, an investment bank founded in 1798 in Hamburg, Germany. In 1930, Meyer was appointed Director of the bank’s first foreign branch, which was established in the Netherlands. Meyer was a cousin of Max M. Warburg, who was a brother to Felix M. Warburg, JDC’s first Chairman from 1914 to 1932.

Record Group: Rees, Elfan, 1967

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains Yehuda Bauer’s notes on an interview with Elfan Rees conducted on November 1, 1967.

Elfan Rees was the Deputy Director of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in Czechoslovakia, circa 1945. In the 1950s, he served as the representative in Europe of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs and was an advisor on refugee affairs to the World Council of Churches.

Record Group: Rock, Eli, 1967

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Yehuda Bauer with Eli Rock on September 23, 1967.

Eli Rock was born in 1915 in Rochester, New York, to Jewish immigrants from Russia. Following his graduation from Yale Law School in 1940, Rock worked as an attorney in Rochester. In January 1942, President Franklin D.Roosevelt re-established the National War Labor Board (NWLB) to administer wage control in national industries. Rock worked for the NWLB from 1942 to 1944 as Director of the Disputes Division in the Regional Office of Philadelphia. In September 1944, Rock volunteered with the merican Field Service and served as an ambulance driver in the French Army until 1945.

Rock began his service with JDC as Field Director in France in June 1945. He was transferred to Germany and served as JDC Representative in Munich and Berlin until 1947. In Germany, Rock helped to secure supplies for Jewish refugees in DP camps. He also served as a liaison to the U.S. Military Government in Germany and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). Rock served as JDC Legal Counsel in New York from 1948 to 1949. He worked as Secretary of the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization from 1949 to 1951. Rock died in 2000.

Record Group: Rosenberg, James N., 1966

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Yehuda Bauer with James N. Rosenberg on October 5, 1966.

James N. Rosenberg, born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, in 1874, was a lawyer, painter and philanthropist.Rosenberg graduated from Columbia College and received a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1898. He served as a lawyer for a number of high-profile bankruptcy cases, including the 1912 reorganization of the United States Motor Company, later known as the Chrysler Corporation.

Rosenberg began his service with JDC in 1921 as Chairman of the European Executive Council. During this time, Rosenberg worked with U.S.Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover on a food assistance program for the American Relief Administration in the Soviet Union. In 1924,he helped to create the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation (Agro-Joint) and served as the organization’s Chairman until 1942. Agro-Joint, led by Dr. Joseph A. Rosen, created agricultural colonies, medical aid societies and industrial schools in Ukraine and Crimea.

Rosenberg led the effort to establish the Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA) for Jewish refugees fleeing Europe. In addition to the settlement projects, Rosenberg also served as Vice Chairman of the JDC from 1923 to 1939 and Honorary Chairman from 1946 to 1970.

Record Group: Schwartz, Joseph, 1961-1968

Extent: 7 folder

This file contains transcripts of interviews conducted by Yehuda Bauer with Joseph Schwartz on November 29, 1961, August 14, 1962, October 24, 1967 and on an unknown date in 1967, May 24, 1968 and June 14, 1968. The contents also include a brief biography of Schwartz.

James N. Rosenberg, born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, in 1874, was a lawyer, painter and philanthropist.Rosenberg graduated from Columbia College and received a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1898. He served as a lawyer for a number of high-profile bankruptcy cases, including the 1912 reorganization of the United States Motor Company, later known as the Chrysler Corporation.

Born in Russia, Joseph J. Schwartz was an ordained orthodox rabbi with a Ph.D. in Semitics from Yale University. He began his career with JDC as a member of the executive staff, moved up to Vice Chairman from 1939 to 1941, and served as Chairman of JDC’s European Executive Council (EUREXCO), or Overseas Director, from 1942 to 1949.

During World War II, working with government officials, humanitarian agencies, refugee groups, and underground leaders, and assisted by a core of devoted staffers, Schwartz spearheaded rescue and emigration activities from JDC’s hastily improvised headquarters in Lisbon and traveled unceasingly to save his fellow Jews.After liberation, Jewish survivors and displaced persons faced abominable living conditions; at the same time they were also subjected to antisemitism and to hostile treatment from the U.S. Army. In 1945, Schwartz joined Earl Harrison, Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School who had been appointed by President Harry S. Truman to tour the DP camps in Europe, on his tour and participated in drawing up the landmark final report, which called for separate Jewish camps and for UNRRA participation (with JDC help) in administering them.

Confronted by staggering postwar needs, Schwartz moved JDC headquarters back to Paris and initiated massive relief efforts to rebuild life for the surviving Jews of Europe.Schwartz realized that the Jewish refugee problem would be solved only by emigration to Palestine, and he actively supported the Bricha organization and Aliya Bet. His opinion ultimately prevailed at New York headquarters, and in a departure from established policy, JDC provided Bricha with funding and supplies, intervened with Washington and the U.S. Army on issues of borders and refugee quotas, and set up a program in the British detention camps on Cyprus to aid illegal immigrants. Schwartz passed away in 1975.

Record Group: Silber, Joseph S., 1968

Extent: 1 folder

Transcript of an interview conducted by Yehuda Bauer with Joseph S.Silber on April 1, 1968.

Joseph S. Silber was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1898 to Jewish immigrants from Austria. He was an attorney and served as JDC Country Director for Austria from 1946 to 1947. Silber died in 1977.

Record Group: Smolar, Boris, 1967

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Mordechai Altschuler and Yehuda Bauer with Boris Smolar on December 27, 1966.

Boris Smolar, a renowned journalist affiliated with JDC, was born in 1897 in Rovno, Ukraine. He arrived in the United States in 1919 after serving in the Russian Army during World War I.In 1924, he joined the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), a worldwide news-gathering organization, which served Jewish community newspapers.During the 1920s and 1930s, Smolar reported on the rise of Nazism as Chief European Correspondent for the JTA and wrote extensively about JDC aid programs.

In addition to his reporting, Smolar worked directly with JDC; he helped to establish JDC offices in Lutsk and Brest-Litowsk,Ukraine, in the early 1920s. During World War II, Smolar served JDC by investigating the situation of Jews in Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Italy. At his request, Smolar never held a title or received a salary from JDC. In 1939, Smolar was named Editor-in-Chief of the JTA, a post he held until retiring in 1967. He wrote a number of books, includingSoviet Jewry Today and Tomorrow (1971) and In the Service of My People(1982). He died in 1986.

Record Group: van Tijn, Gertrude, 1968

Extent: 2 folder

This file contains Yehuda Bauer’s notes on an interview with Gertrude Van Tijn conducted on May 21 and 22, 1968.

Gertrude van Tijn was born in Braunschweig, Germany and studied social work. She served as JDC’s representative in Holland and a member of an advisory committee of the League of Nations’ Commission for Refugees. Although she sent her children abroad, Gertrude van Tijn remained in Holland and chose not to go into hiding because of her work assisting refugees.

In September 1943 she was sent to the concentration camp Westerbork and then Bergen-Belsen. In July 1944, van Tijn was among those Jews exchanged from Bergen-Belsen for Germans in Palestine. Afterwards the Dutch government-in-exile offered her a position in London to work with displaced Jews. After van Tijn reunited with her children in New York, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) offered her a position working with refugees in China. She stayed in this role for a year, and then spent three months working for JDC in Australia before traveling to the United States. She died in 1974.

Record Group: Wachtel, Hyman, 1968

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains Yehuda Bauer’s notes on an interview with Hyman Wachtel conducted on February 6, 1968.

Hyman Wachtel was born in 1907 in New York City. From 1942 to 1945, he served as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, as a transport commander on a ship that carried U.S. troops,prisoners of war, and material supplies. From 1945 to 1946, Wachtel worked with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration(UNRRA) in Germany and served as the Director of the UNRRA DP camp in Neu Freiman near Munich.

In 1946, Wachtel joined JDC as a Supply Officer in Germany. He was responsible for the allocation and distribution of supplies throughout the U.S. Occupation Zone. Wachtel was promoted to JDCDirector of Operations in the British Zone of Germany, and served in that post until 1949. Throughout the 1950s, Wachtel worked in a variety of public and private enterprises, including as a Contract Specialistand Purchasing Agent for the U.S. Government in 1952 and a Project Officer for the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency from 1952 to 1956. Wachtel returned to JDC during the 1960s to serve as the Assistant Director General of MALBEN, a social service organization dedicated toaiding Israel’s aged, disabled, and at-risk populations. Wachtel died in 1985.

Record Group: Warburg, Edward M.M., 1967

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Yehuda Bauer with Edward M.M.Warburg on April 13, 1967.

Edward Mortimer Morris Warburg was born in 1908 in White Plains, New York. His father, Felix M. Warburg, was JDC’s first Chairman from 1914 to 1932. In 1942, Warburg enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private and was eventually promoted to Captain. He served until 1945 and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Edward Warburg served in a variety of leadership roles at JDC: Vice Chairman from 1938 to 1939; Co-Chairman in 1940; Chairman from 1941 to 1942 and 1945 to 1965; and Honorary Chairman from 1966 to 1991. Throughout his time at JDC, Warburg worked to secure funds for healthcare, childcare and other humanitarian aid programs for displaced persons and refugees. He received decorations from the governments of Belgium and Italy for his work with displaced persons. Edward Warburg served as Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal from 1951 to 1955, and as President from 1955 to 1956. He died in 1992.

This subcollection contains 20 interview transcripts, which were created under the auspices of the United Jewish Appeal’s (UJA) Oral History Project during the 1970s and 1980s. In January 1939, the United Palestine Appeal, the National Coordinating Committee Fund, Inc., and JDC unified their fundraising efforts and formed the United Jewish Appeal for Refugees and Overseas Needs, subsequently known as the United Jewish Appeal.

In addition to transcripts, these files also contain clippings,correspondence, and interviewers’ notes dating from 1974 to 1992. Many of the interviewees in this sub-collection were executives or lay leaders at JDC and UJA during World War II and the immediate post-war period. Topics discussed include: the formation and early leadership of UJA; wartime fundraising strategies; Zionism in America; and refugee resettlement programs.

The individuals interviewed in this subcollection are listed in the drop-down menu. Some individuals appear across multiple subcollections:

Record Group: Bernstein, Philip, circa 1977-1985

Extent: 2 folder

These files contain a transcript of an interview conducted by Lauren Deutsch and Menachem Kaufman with Philip Bernstein, circa 1977, and correspondence.

Philip Sidney Bernstein, a prominent rabbi and civic leader, was born in 1901 in Rochester, New York. Bernstein graduated from Syracuse University and was ordained as a rabbi in the first graduating class of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1926. Bernstein served as Rabbi of Temple Brith Kodesh in Blefton, New York, for 47 years.

Throughout World War II, Bernstein supervised some 300 rabbis in the U.S. Armed Forces. He served as the U.S. Army’s Adviser on Jewish Affairs and continued in this role during the post-war period. Bernstein advocated for better conditions for Jews in displaced person (DP) camps and helped to find homes for some thousands of DPs and survivors.

After the war, Bernstein served as chief executive of the Council of Jewish Federations from 1955-1979, and afterwards as executive vice-president emeritus and consultant from 1979-1995. He provided guidance for the merger of the New York Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the United Jewish Appeal of New York. He wrote What the Jews Believe (1951), Rabbis at War (1971) and To Dwell in Unity (1983). Bernstein died in 1985.

Record Group: Biele, Harry, 1975

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Jeffrey Hodes with Harry Biele on June 27, 1975.

Harry D. Biele was born in 1908. He joined JDC in 1944, and served as Secretary for the Committee on Latin America and the Committee on Agro-Joint. From May to June 1945, he worked for the JDC office in Lisbon. Later that year, he became Deputy Director of JDC Operations in Germany and served until 1947.

Record Group: Borenstein, Paula, 1979

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Menachem Kaufman with Paula Borenstein on February 23, 1979.

Paula (Pessele) Borenstein was born and raised in Vilna, Lithuania. In 1941, the Nazis occupied Vilnius and forced the Jewish population into ghettos. More than 21,000 Jews were killed in Vilna, including Borenstein’s father,mother, sister and brother. In 1943, Borenstein was deported to a concentration camp in Germany and forced to work in an ammunition factory.

Upon liberation, Borenstein traveled to France, along with hundreds of other Jewish orphans. When she arrived in Paris in May 1945 with a group of Holocaust survivors known as “the youngsters from Buchenwald,” she had her first encounter with JDC, when she was assisted by a JDC-supported childcare organization, Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants(Society for the Aid of Children). In November 1948, using her knowledge of Yiddish to record speeches given by delegates from the displaced persons countries at JDC’s third postwar conference, Borenstein formally began working for JDC. From 1948 to 1998, Borenstein, known to many as “Pessele,”served as Public Relations Officer in JDC’s Paris office, leading numerous missions to Poland, Israel and the Czech Republic, and retiring in December 1998. Borenstein died in 2009.

Record Group: Baerwald, Pauline, 1976

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Jeffrey Hodes and Menachem Kaufman with Pauline Baerwald Falk on March 22, 1976.

Pauline Baerwald Falk was a philanthropist and co-founder of JDC’sJunior Division. The Junior Division, established in 1933, was tasked with raising funds and awareness among Jewish American youth. Falk served as the Junior Division’s National Chairman until 1939, and as Honorary Chairman thereafter. She served on JDC’s Board of Directors for many years. She passed away in 2000.

Record Group: Fink, Paulette, 1976

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Menachem Kaufman with Paulette Fink on March 16, 1976.

Paulette Fink was born in 1911 in Mulhouse, France. In the early 1940s,Fink and her husband, Yves Oppert, joined the French Resistance. Fink worked with a network of priests and nuns to save Jewish children whose parents had been deported from France. Around 1944, Oppert was tortured and killed by the Milice française, a French paramilitary force. Fink continued to work with the Resistance until the end of the war.

During the post-war years, Fink helped establish 11 orphanages to care for 1,500 child survivors. She worked closely with JDC, which provided funding for all of the orphanages. In 1946 and 1947, under the auspices of JDC, Fink travelled to the U.S. to help raise awareness and additional funds.Between 1946 and 1954, Fink also aided Aliyah Bet, the transport of European Jews to Palestine. She passed away in 2005..

Record Group: Friedman, Herbert, 1975

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview with Herbert Friedman conducted on December 7,1975.

Herbert Friedman, born in 1918 in Connecticut to Jewish immigrants, was a Rabbi and Chief Executive at the United Jewish Appeal. He graduated from Yale University in 1938 and went on to study with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise at the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City. Friedman was ordained in 1943 and served with the U.S. Army’s Chaplaincy Corps in Germany from 1945 to 1947. He worked closely with JDC to help locate and aid hundredsof Jewish survivors. During this time, Friedman was recruited by the Haganah to help facilitate Aliyah Bet, i.e. the transport of European Jews to Palestine.

In 1947, Friedman was disciplined and decommissioned from his chaplaincy post in Germany; he abetted a smuggling operation,in which hundreds of medieval religious manuscripts were removed from U.S. Army custody and sent to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. After dismissal, Friedman returned to the U.S., resumed his rabbinical career and lectured nationally on the refugee crisis in Europe for the United Jewish Appeal. In 954, Friedman became Chief Executive Officer of U.J.A. and served until 1971. He passed away in 2009.

Record Group: Ginsberg, Edward, 1976

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Menachem Kaufman and Jeffrey Hodes with Edward Ginsberg on March 9, 1976.

Edward Ginsberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1917 and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1938 and a J.D. from Harvard University in 1941. Upon graduation,Ginsberg returned to Cleveland to practice law. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Ginsberg played an active role in both the U.J.A. and JDC. He served as U.J.A. General Chairman from 1968 to 1971, U.J.A. President from 1971 to 1974, and JDC President from 1972 to 1974.

Record Group: Goldwater, Monroe, circa 1976

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Menachem Kaufman and Sam Abramson with Monroe Goldwater, circa March 1976.

Monroe Goldwater was born in 1885 in New York City. He graduated from New York University Law School in 1906, and established a law practice with Edward J. Flynn, a long-time Democratic Party boss in the Bronx.Starting in the 1930s, Goldwater was active in a variety of Jewish charity organizations. In 1944, Goldwater became President of the U.J.A. of Greater New York. Three years later, he became Chairman of JDC’s Reconstruction Committee. Goldwater later served as JDC Vice President,Honorary Vice President, and member of the Board of Directors.

Record Group: Katzki, Herbert, 1976

Extent: 1 folder

Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Herb Katzki joined JDC in 1936 as Assistant to Executive Director Joseph Hyman and remained with the organization for 60 years.

When World War II broke out, Katzki was sent to the JDC office in Amsterdam, then to Brussels, and finally to Paris, where he served as Secretary of EUREXCO (European Executive Council). Just days before the Nazis entered the city, Katzki sealed the office and fled to Bordeaux, and then to Lisbon, where JDC relocated its overseas headquarters. From there, Katzki returned to France to open a JDC office in Marseilles for assistance to Jewish refugees in unoccupied France. He remained there until December 1941, when the U.S. entered the war, and returned to Lisbon the following year.

At the end of 1943, Katzki was drafted into the U.S. Army and placed on detached service to the U.S. War Refugee Board. He was assigned as special attache, first to the American Embassy in Ankara and then to the embassy in Bern.

After his discharge, Katzki was appointed JDC Country Director for Germany, where he headed a vast program for survivors and displaced persons. From 1947 to 1967, as Secretary of EUREXCO – the title was subsequently changed to Assistant Director General for Overseas Operations – he was responsible for JDC programs in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. He was transferred from Paris to Geneva in 1958, when the JDC office was moved there, and named Deputy Director General in 1965.

Two years later, Katzki returned to NY headquarters and was appointed Assistant Executive, and then Associate Executive Vice President. He retired in December 1979, but continued to work for JDC on a voluntary basis until his death in August 1997.

Record Group: Kravitz, Jack, 1976

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Menachem Kaufman with Jack Kravitz on March 18, 1976.

Jack Kravitz was born in Manchester, England in 1909. His family immigrated to the United States in the 1920s and settled in Hartford, Connecticut. Kravitz attended Amherst College and received graduate training in social work. From 1937 to 1940, he worked as Director of Resettlement for the National Refugee Service, and developed a resettlement program for Jews from Austria, Germany, Poland, and Romania.

Record Group: Margolis, Laura, 1976

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Menachem Kaufman with Laura Margolis on April 26, 1976.

A professional social worker, Laura Margolis was sent to Cuba in 1939 by the National Refugee Service, a JDC-supported agency. She worked with American consular officials in Cuba to assist Jewish refugees seeking entry into the U.S., and her success in Cuba led to her next assignment as JDC representative in Shanghai, a haven for some 20,000 refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. Margolis used her talents as an administrator to raise money and to reorganize the relief program that sustained many. She was interned by the Japanese in February 1943 as an enemy alien and released in a prisoner exchange in September.

The following year, Margolis was deployed by JDC to Europe, where she established a home for French children smuggled into Spain. In Sweden, she organized a parcel service for inmates in the Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.After the war, Margolis was sent by JDC to Belgium to set up a welfare program for survivors and to support homes for children and the elderly; she was decorated by the Belgian government for her work.

In 1946, Margolis was assigned to France as JDC’s first female Country Director. She was tasked with providing aid for thousands of survivors and helping to rebuild the Jewish community. In France she married Marc Jarblum, a Zionist leader, and the two immigrated to Israel in 1953. From 1954 to 1955, Margolis served as Director of Social Services for JDC-MALBEN, a network of services and institutions for elderly, chronically ill, and handicapped newcomers to the State. After a stint with the Jewish Agency, she returned to MALBEN in 1958 as director for Special Projects, working with disabled children and adults. She died in 1997.

Record Group: Nesher, Aryeh, circa 1978

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Lauren Deutsch and Menachem Kaufman with Aryeh Nesher, circa 1978.

Dr. Aryeh Nesher is an Israeli educator and social scientist. During World War II, Nesher fought with the anti-Nazi resistance in his native city of Chernowitz, Romania. After the war, Nesher traveled to the U.S. Occupation Zone in Germany in order to gain passage to Palestine.

In 1945, Nesher was elected Secretary-General of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews, the official representative body of displaced Jews in the American Zone from 1945 to 1950. Nesher served as the Committee’s liaison to JDC, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), and the U.S. Army.

Record Group: Rice, James, 1988

Extent: 2 folder

These files contain transcripts of interviews conducted by Maurice Bernstein with James Rice on May 19 and 20, 1988.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Rice came to JDC in 1945 with experience in the field of social service. After brief assignments in France and Italy, he was sent to Austria as JDC Director of Operations in the U.S. and French Zones of Occupation. There, he supervised the distribution of supplementary food, clothing, and medicines and secured housing for survivors and displaced Jews.

In mid-1946, he was transferred to the JDC office for France, where he was responsible for providing aid to the thousands of refugees who streamed into France from displaced persons camps in Austria, Germany, and Italy, and from Eastern Europe.At the end of 1948, Rice was asked to open a JDC office for Geneva and to serve in a liaison capacity with the IRO (International Refugee Organization). In 1950, he succeeded Saly Mayer as Country Director for Switzerland, where he served until 1955.

From 1955 to1966, Rice served as executive director of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in New York. He then moved to Chicago and became executive vice president of the Jewish Federation, overseeing its successful merger with the Jewish Welfare Fund. Rice retired in 1979. He passed away in 1997.

Record Group: Rosenwald, William, 1976

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Jeffrey Hodes with William Rosenwald on March 13, 1976.

William Rosenwald was a businessman, philanthropist, and U.J.A. Chairman.His father, Julius Rosenwald, was President and Chairman of the Board at Sears,Roebuck & Company from 1910 to 1932. After William Rosenwald graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he worked alongside his father at Sears, and was later involved in a variety of business enterprises, including the American Securities Corporation,Western Union International, and Ametek.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Rosenwald was a major benefactor of Jewish charities.He served on the JDC Executive Committee for some 50 years. In 1939,Rosenwald became the first president of the National Refugee Service,and also helped to establish a nationwide U.J.A. campaign. Rosenwald served as U.J.A. National Chairman from 1942 to 1946, and directed the fundraising campaigns of 1955, 1956 and 1957. From 1974 to 1977, he served as the first President of the combined U.J.A.-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York.

Record Group: Smolar, Boris, 1977

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Lauren Deutsch and Menachem Kaufman with Boris Smolar on June 22, 1977.

Boris Smolar, a renowned journalist affiliated with JDC, was born in 1897 in Rovno, Ukraine. He arrived in the United States in 1919 after serving in the Russian Army during World War I.In 1924, he joined the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), a worldwide news-gathering organization, which served Jewish community newspapers.During the 1920s and 1930s, Smolar reported on the rise of Nazism as Chief European Correspondent for the JTA and wrote extensively about JDC aid programs.

In addition to his reporting, Smolar worked directly with JDC; he helped to establish JDC offices in Lutsk and Brest-Litowsk,Ukraine, in the early 1920s. During World War II, Smolar served JDC by investigating the situation of Jews in Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Italy. At his request, Smolar never held a title or received a salary from JDC. In 1939, Smolar was named Editor-in-Chief of the JTA, a post he held until retiring in 1967. He wrote a number of books, including Soviet Jewry Today and Tomorrow (1971) and In the Service of My People(1982). He died in 1986.

Record Group: Trobe, Harold, 1976

Extent: 1 folder

Transcript of an interview conducted by Menachem Kaufman with Harold Trobe on May 10, 1976.

A native of Pennsylvania and a graduate of the Columbia University School of Social Work, Harold Trobe began his career with JDC in 1944. He was appointed Director of Operations in Lisbon, JDC’s wartime base and a haven for refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied countries and seeking to emigrate to Palestine and the Americas.After liberation, Trobe was named JDC Country Director of Czechoslovakia, and charged with administering a welfare program for survivors. In 1946, he was assigned to supervise JDC activities for Jewish refugees and displaced persons in northern Italy.

From 1947 to 1952, he served as Country Director for Austria and then returned to Italy in the same capacity.After a period of service with HIAS, Trobe rejoined JDC in 1965 to serve as Director-General for South America. The following year he was transferred to Israel as Deputy Director and subsequently Director for MALBEN and JDC-Israel, where he oversaw the expansion of JDC’s health and welfare programs for elderly, ill, and handicapped immigrants. He remained a member of JDC Executive staff until 1977.

Record Group: Warburg, Edward M.M., 1975-1992

Extent: 2 folder

Contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Menachem Kaufman and Howard Stone with Edward M.M. Warburg on April 14, 1975. Also includes correspondence with clippings.

Edward Mortimer Morris Warburg was born in 1908 in White Plains, New York. His father, Felix M. Warburg, was JDC’s first Chairman from 1914 to 1932. In 1942, Warburg enlisted in the U.S.Army as a private and was eventually promoted to Captain. He served until 1945 and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Edward Warburg served in a variety of leadership roles at JDC: Vice Chairman from 1938 to 1939; Co-Chairman in 1940; Chairman from 1941 to 1942 and 1945 to 1965; and Honorary Chairman from 1966 to 1991. Throughout his time at JDC, Warburg worked to secure funds for healthcare, childcare and other humanitarian aid programs for displaced persons and refugees. He received decorations from the governments of Belgium and Italy for his work with displaced persons. Edward Warburg served as Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal from 1951 to 1955, and as President from 1955 to 1956. He died in 1992.

Record Group: Weiler, Jack, circa 1970s-1980s

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview with Jack Weiler, circa 1970s-1980s.

Jack D. Weiler was a philanthropist, real estate developer and JDC Chairman. Weiler was born in Svitskoy, Ukraine. His father, a rabbi,educated his nine children at home. The Weiler family immigrated to the U.S. in 1910 and settled in New York City. Weiler started his own business and in 1936, he partnered with developer Benjamin H. Swig of Boston. Their firm, Swig, Weiler & Arnow Management Company, grew to a $1 billion enterprise.

Weiler’s work with Jewish charities began in the 1940s. He served as the Chairman of the Real Estate Division of U.J.A. and in 1953, became National Chairman of U.J.A. New York. He held a number of positions with JDC, including Vice Chairman from 1958 to 1973, Chairman of the National Council from 1966 to 1973, Chairman from 1975 to 1977, and Honorary President from 1978 to 1995.

Record Group: Winestine, Norman, 1981

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Issachar Miron with Norman Winestine on February 19, 1981.

Norman Winestine was born in 1895 in Wassaic, New York, and raised in Waterbury, Connecticut. He received a Bachelor’s degree from Yale University and went on to study at Columbia University and Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning. During World War I, Winestine helped raise money for the Central Relief Committee, an Orthodox Jewish relief organization and one of three committees that formed JDC.

During World War II, Winestine served two years with the Military Welfare Department of the Red Cross in Sri Lanka.Following his service, Winestine volunteered with JDC in Vienna until 1946. Upon his return to the U.S., Winestine took over U.J.A. responsibilities for the state of Montana. He traveled to many cities across the state raising funds and organizing talks with Jewish leaders.

This subcollection contains 82 interview transcripts created by Herbert Katzki between 1974 and 1996. Katzki was a JDC executive and Associate Director-General who served the organization from 1936 to 1979 throughout Europe and North Africa. After 61 years, Katzki retired from official service, but continued his involvement with JDC on a volunteer basis.

In March 1979, Katzki formed the JDC Oral History Committee with fellow JDC veterans: Ralph Goldman, Joan Kagan, Murray Kass, Rose Klepfisz, Abe Loskove and Joan Wolchansky. The committee sought to establish an oral history project that would document the lives and accomplishments of JDC employees and further enrich JDC’s archival records. Katzki began conducting interviews with JDC employees and former employees in 1979.

Priority was given to employees who served during WWII and the immediate post-war years. Topics discussed include: conditions in displaced persons(DP) camps; the supply programs of 1945 and 1946; Aliyah Bet; the creation of Israel; and the rehabilitation of survivors. As the project progressed,the topics of discussion grew to include: operations in Eastern Europe during the Cold War; aid programs developed in Israel and North Africa from the late 1940s to 1990s; and the reconstruction of Jewish communities in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s.

For the majority of the interviews, Katzki served as the sole interviewer, though he occasionally partnered with Marc Tabatchnik, Murray Kass, and other former JDC employees. Some employees, in lieu of participating in interviews, submitted written recollections.In addition to transcripts, this sub-collection includes audio recordings, clippings, correspondence, notes and project proposals compiled by Katzki. JDC staff members later added notes and relevant clippings to the folders until 2010.

The individuals interviewed in this subcollection are listed in the drop-down menu. Some individuals appear across multiple subcollections:

Record Group: Administration, 1974-1999

Extent: 4 folder

Correspondence, biographies of interviewees, project proposals and templates for release forms.

Record Group: Abramovitch, Stanley, 1991-2010

Extent: 3 folder; 1 sound cassette: analog; 2 sound files: digital

Audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Stanley Abramovitch on December 17, 1991. Additional materials include correspondence, clippings,notes and a collection of vignettes written by Abramovitch.

Born in Kalisz, Poland, in 1920, Stanley Abramovitch was a Jewish educator and administrator who spent over 60 years working for JDC. He began as a volunteer in Germany helping to rehabilitate survivors and was soon assigned to the DP camps in the American Zone as JDC’s Education Director.

In 1949, he was appointed JDC’s first Director for Iran, where he organized nutrition, medical care, and educational programs.From 1952 until the 1980s, he served as Director of JDC’s Education Department, working in JDC’s overseas headquarters in Paris on the post-Holocaust reconstruction of Jewish education in both Europe and the Moslem countries. He supervised the modernization of Jewish day schools throughout Western Europe and helped develop Jewish education facilities for thousands of North African newcomers to France. At the same time, Abramovitch helped raise the level of Jewish education in schools run by the Alliance, Lubavitch, and Ozar Hatorah in North Africa and the Middle East.

In 1972, Abramovitch moved to Israel, where he took over the management of JDC’s Yeshiva Program.In 1989, Abramovitch was recruited as one of six representatives of JDC’s newly formed Soviet Union Team, tasked with organizing religious, cultural, and educational programs to promote the revival of Jewish communities in the Soviet Union. He was appointed director of the North Caucasus region, Central Asia, and until 2002, western Ukraine; that year he also took on responsibility for Armenia. By the early 1990s welfare needs had become paramount, and Abramovitch was actively involved in setting up a network of centers, known as “hasadim,” and developing services for the elderly in his assigned regions. He passed away in May 2013.

Record Group: Benjamin, Sylvia Markowitz, 1982-1986

Extent: 1 folder

This file contains correspondence between Sylvia Markowitz Benjamin and Herbert Katzki, as well as Benjamin’s 1948 report on her service with JDC in Germany.

Sylvia Markowitz Benjamin joined JDC in 1945 as an Immigration Officer at the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons (DP) camp in Germany. Benjamin helped some 2,000 survivors secure immigration visas to the United States and elsewhere. Benjamin also served with JDC as a Senior Field Representative in the Hamburg region and as an administrator at the Warburg Children’s Home in Blankenese, Germany.

Record Group: Bernstein, Blanche, 1985-1993

Extent: 3 folders; 3 sound cassettes: analog; 12 sound files: digital

Audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki with Blanche Bernstein on January 15, 1985 and October 14, 1991.Correspondence between Bernstein and Katzki.

Blanche Bernstein was born in New York in 1913. She studied at Hunter College and received a Ph.D in Economics at Columbia University. In 1945, she joined the JDC staff in Paris as Director of Research. Bernstein was later appointed Budget Director and served with JDC in Europe for approximately 3.5 years.

Subsequently, she served in a number of public and private institutions in New York City, including the Community Council of New York; the New York City Human Resources Administration; and Director of the Social Policy Research Institute at the New School. She wrote about welfare and social work in numerous academic journals. She published a book, The Politics of Welfare: The New York City Experience, in 1982. Bernstein died in 1993 in New York.

Record Group: Biele, Harry, 1980-1983

Extent: 2 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 10 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki and Marc Tabatchnik with Harry Biele on May 5, 1983, as well as correspondence and notes.

Harry D. Biele was born in 1908. He joined JDC in 1944, and served as Secretary for the Committee on Latin America and the Committee on Agro-Joint. From May to June 1945, he worked for the JDC office in Lisbon. Later that year, he became Deputy Director of JDC Operations in Germany and served until 1947.

Record Group: Brook, Benjamin, 1984-1986

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassettes: analog; 2 sound files: digital

Audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Benjamin Brook on June 1, 1984. Contents also include correspondence, notes, and photocopies of photographs.

Benjamin Brook was born in 1913 in New York City.From 1944 to 1946, Brook served as Director of the JDC Office in Rome and as Acting Director of the Italy Office. In Italy, he helped the Jewish Brigade move Jewish refugees from Austria and Germany to Palestine; participated in food distribution programs; and founded Italy’s first Hachsharot, agrarian training programs to prepare refugees for immigration to Palestine. Upon the completion of his service in Italy, the Italian Government presented Brook with an award and a Medal of Commendatore.

Record Group: Cohen, Gerda, 1994

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 6 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Gerda Cohen on March 18, 1994, as well as correspondence and excerpts of Cohen’s memoir.

Gerda Cohen was born in Malacky, Slovakia. She served with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and JDC in Slovakia during the post-war period.

Record Group: Eibenschutz, Eleonora, 1991-1993

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 2 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Eleonora Eibenschutz on December 14, 1991, as well as correspondence between Eibenschutz and Katzki.

Eleonora Eibenschutz was born in Trieste, Italy. During World War II,Her family faced discrimination under Mussolini’s anti-Semitic laws and Eibenschutz’s father, a member of the Italian Resistance, was killed. Eibenschutz studied at the Rome School of Social Work and in 1969 became the JDC Representative in Italy. She later served as Director of the Italy Office and coordinated JDC’s services for transmigrants. Eibenschutz served for over 40 years and retired from JDC in 1991.

Record Group: Einziger, Morris (Monek), 1982-1989

Extent: 3 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 2 sound files: digital

Contains audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki with Morris (Monek) Einziger on May 12, 1982 and May 17, 1982,as well as correspondence and notes.

Morris (Monek) Einziger was born in 1906 in Gorlice, Galicia. He graduated from university in Vienna in 1928. During World War II, he spent six years in Buchenwald; he was liberated by the U.S. Army in April 1945. He and his brother organized the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in Austria; in this capacity, he joined JDC to serve as an advocate for survivors. He was a liaison and supply officer for JDC, responsible for distributing parcels of food and supplies in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps.

By 1948, Einziger transferred to the Munich supply warehouse, where he worked with Akiva Kohane to oversee the distribution of supplies in DP camps across Austria and eventually bcame director of warehouses. Later, he served as the director of the last DP camp, Foehrenwald, which closed in 1957. After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Einziger served as director of various camps for Hungarian Jewish refugees.

In 1968, Einziger became Country Director in Vienna. He served in this capacity for 35 years.

Record Group: Eliezri, Eli, 1991

Extent: 2 sound cassettes: analog; 6 sound files: digital

Audio recording of an interview conducted by Gideon Taylor with Eli Eliezri on June 7, 1991.

Eli Eliezri was a JDC staff member since the 1980s, when he represented JDC while organizing and providing welfare to the Ethiopian Beta Israel community prior to the airlift of over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in Operation Solomon in 1991. That was the first of many special projects in which he was involved. He administered JDC’s disaster response and crisis management operations in many locations around the world: Kenya, Kosovo, Kenya, Indonesia, and Thailand, among others.

The projects he oversaw included: the 11 rescue convoys of Jewish and non-Jews from the besieged city of Sarajevo from 1991 to 1994, during the second Yugoslav War; the construction of sanitation facilities for tens of thousands of Rwandan refugees in the vast camps of Goma, Zaire; the establishment of local partnerships in Kosovo to rebuild 36 schools and build a mosque in partnership with the Catholic Church and local Muslims, and with contributions from Jews.He died in 2010.

Record Group: Eskenazi, Lydia, 1993-1995

Extent: 2 folders

Contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Lydia Eskenazi on March 8, 1994, as well as clippings, correspondence, and notes.

Lydia Eskenazi was the first employee of the JDC Office in Greece when it opened in 1945, a few months after the end of World War II. She was the daughter of a prominent Jewish family whose ancestors settled in Greece after the Spanish Inquisition. She gradated from the Greek Gymnasium in Athens and was attending the Athens University School of Law when the German invasion interrupted her studies. Eskenazi went into hiding for 13 months until after Greece was liberated in 1945.

As a linguist fluent in seven languages, Eskenazi started her work at JDC as an interpreter and translator. She transitioned to working in several different areas of JDC welfare response: reception and integration of internees; the distribution of clothing and cash relief; and migration efforts. In 1954, after a merger of the major Jewish migration organizations, she also became the representative of the United HIAS Service in Greece while continuing to work for JDC. After the Greek Jewish communities became more self-supporting, her work focused more upon general relief efforts. As JDC’s emigration officer in Athens, she provided ongoing assistance to individuals looking to resettle and liaised with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Record Group: Falk, Pauline Baerwald, 1989-1990

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 2 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Pauline Baerwald Falk on October 26, 1989, as well as correspondence between Falk and Katzki.

Pauline Baerwald Falk was a philanthropist and co-founder of JDC’s Junior Division. The Junior Division, established in 1933, was tasked with raising funds and awareness among Jewish American youth. Falk served as the Junior Division’s National Chairman until 1939, and as Honorary Chairman thereafter. She served on JDC’s Board of Directors for many years. She passed away in 2000.

Record Group: Feder, Theodore, 1982-1995

Extent: 4 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 6 sound files: digital

Audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki and Marc Tabatchnik with Theodore Feder on December 15, 1986.Additional transcripts of Feder’s reminiscences from April 1991 and Feder’s speech at the Paul Baerwald Award ceremony on May 20th, 1985.Clippings, correspondence and notes.

Born in Milwaukee, Ted Feder served in the U.S. Army for four years and embarked on a career of social service with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) after the war. He joined JDC in 1946 as Deputy Director in the U.S. Zone of Germany, also acting as liaison with the U.S. Army and the IRO (International Refugee Organization). In this capacity, he was instrumental in setting up vital programs and services for displaced persons and survivors and providing emergency aid for Jews from Central and Eastern Europe streaming into the DP camps in Germany in the immediate postwar years. Appointed JDC Country Director of Germany in 1955, he took part in the closing of the last DP camp at Foehrenwald.

Following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which flooded Vienna with thousands of Jewish refugees, Feder was assigned to Austria as Country Director and oversaw JDC’s emergency relief program. From 1959 to 1962, he served as Country Director of Iran, where he grappled with the problems of an impoverished community and helped JDC administer critical medical, education, and public health programs.

In his next role, as Director of JDC-MALBEN in Israel, Feder supervised a vast welfare network of social and medical services for elderly, disabled, and vulnerable populations. In 1966, he was transferred to JDC’s overseas headquarters in Geneva as Deputy Director-General, with responsibility for operations in the Middle East, Iran, Romania, Eastern Europe, Italy, and other countries. At the same time, he was liaison officer to the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees, the International Red Cross, and the International Council of Voluntary Agencies.

In 1974, Feder was appointed JDC’s Director of Overseas Operations. In 1988, he relocated to New York, where he continued his work with JDC as a consultant on overseas missions. He died in 2004.

Record Group: Fink, Paulette, 1984-1995

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 6 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Paulette Fink on February 1, 1995, as well as correspondence and notes.

Paulette Fink was born in 1911 in Mulhouse, France. In the early 1940s,Fink and her husband, Yves Oppert, joined the French Resistance.Fink worked with a network of priests and nuns to save Jewish children whose parents had been deported from France. Around 1944, Oppert was tortured and killed by the Milice, a French paramilitary force. Fink continued to work with the Resistance until the end of the war.

During the post-war years, Fink helped establish 11 orphanages to care for 1,500 child survivors. She worked closely with JDC, which provided funding for all of the orphanages. In 1946 and 1947, under the auspices of JDC, Finktravelled to the U.S. to help raise awareness and additional funds.Between 1946 and 1954, Fink also aided Aliyah Bet, the transport of European Jews to Palestine. She passed away in 2005.

Record Group: Fishzohn, Arthur, 1981-1983

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 4 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Murray Kass with Arthur Fishzohn on December 15, 1981, as well as clippings, correspondence, and notes.

Arthur Fishzohn was born in Kiev, Ukraine and raised in New York City. He studied law at Fordham University and worked for the National Refugee Service from 1939 to 1944. Fishzohn joined JDC in December 1944 and served in Turkey and Greece. In 1946, he became Director of the JDC Office in Bulgaria; he was the first American aid worker permitted to work in the country since the war.

Record Group: Fraenkel, Itzhak, 1986

Extent: 3 folders

These folders contain English and Yiddish transcripts of an interview with Itzhak Fraenkel conducted in 1986.

Itzhak Fraenkel was born in Poland. He receiving an engineering degree in France in 1936 and subsequently returned to Lodz to enter the family textile business. In 1944, during World War II, he and his wife were sent to different concentration camps. After the war ended, they both returned to Lodz and were reunited.

Fraenkel became the transport director for the Polish authorities. He was elected as Head of the Jewish Council in Lodz and later as National Head of the Federation of Jewish Councils in Poland. In 1973, Fraenkel retired, and he and his wife moved to Israel.

Record Group: Friedman, Herbert, 1984

Extent: 2 folders

Contains correspondence and a transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Herbert Friedman on September 14, 1984.

Herbert Friedman, born in 1918 in Connecticut to Jewish immigrants, was a Rabbi and Chief Executive at the United Jewish Appeal. He graduated from Yale University in 1938 and went on to study with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise at the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City. Friedman was ordained in 1943 and served with the U.S. Army’s Chaplaincy Corps in Germany from 1945 to 1947. He worked closely with JDC to help locate and aid hundreds of Jewish survivors. During this time, Friedman was recruited by the Haganah to help facilitate Aliyah Bet, i.e. the transport of European Jews to Palestine.

In 1947, Friedman was disciplined and decommissioned from his chaplaincy post in Germany; he abetted a smuggling operation,in which hundreds of medieval religious manuscripts were removed from U.S. Army custody and sent to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. After dismissal, Friedman returned to the U.S., resumed his rabbinical career and lectured nationally on the refugee crisis in Europe for U.J.A. In 1954, Friedman became Chief Executive Officer of the United Jewish Agency and served until 1971. He passed away in 2009.

Record Group: Ginsburg, Jacob, 1993-1994

Extent: 2 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 10 sound files: digital

These folders contain an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Jacob Ginsburg on June 4, 1993, as well as correspondence and notes.

Jacob Ginsburg joined JDC in 1959 as Deputy Director in Iran. He worked there for two years and then transferred to Tunis in 1962, where he also served as Country Director.

Record Group: Glassgold, Adolph Cook, 1983-1985

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 4 sound files: digital

Audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Adolph Cook Glassgold on December 15, 1983. Clippings,correspondence and notes.

Adolph Cook Glassgold was born in New York in 1899. He received a graduate degree in education from Columbia University, and in the early 1920s, worked as a member of the art department faculty at The City College of New York.

In 1945,he joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and served in a displaced persons camp in Landsburg, Germany.From 1948 to 1951, Glassgold served with JDC in Shanghai, China,replacing Charles Jordan as Director of Far East International Relief.

Record Group: Gottfarb, Inga and Ragnar, 1982-1996

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 2 sound files: digital

Audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Inga and Ragnar Gottfarb on May 21, 1984. Correspondence,notes and an excerpt of Inga’s Gottfarb’s manuscript, “The Fatal Oblivion.”

Inga and Ragnar Gottfarb were siblings recruited by Laura Margolis in 1944 to serve as JDC representatives in Sweden. After World War II, Ragnar served as JDC’s honorary representative in Sweden. He helped reunite families and provided assistance to refugees, survivors, and displaced persons in Sweden and organized the shipment of food and medical supplies from Scandinavian countries to survivors in Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and elsewhere.

Inga worked in JDC’s Stockholm office from 1944 to 1946. From the summer of 1946 to August 1948, she worked in JDC’s France office, primarily in the Family Reunion Service, assisting with tracing family members and distributing supplies to the local agencies. In April 1954, after receiving her M.S. from the New York School of Social Work (now the Columbia School of Social Work), Inga moved to JDC’s office in Rome, where she worked until 1960. From summer 1962 to summer 1963, Inga was sent to Algiers immediately before it declared independence, where she assisted the Jews who remained there.

Record Group: Gottlieb, Amy Zahl, 1986-1995

Extent: 2 folders; 1 audio cassette: analog; 8 audio files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Amy Zahl Gottlieb on September 12, 1990, as well as clippings,correspondence and notes.

Amy Zahl Gottlieb was born in London. She joined the Jewish Relief Unit of the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad, sponsored by the Central British Fund for German Jewry, in 1943, and worked with European refugees who were being evacuated by the British Army. She was appointed JDC’s director of immigration from Austria and Germany.

Record Group: Greenleigh, Arthur, 1987-1993

Extent: 3 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 12 sound files: digital

Contains audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki and Marc Tabatchnik with Arthur Greenleigh on May 20, 1987 and May 22, 1987, as well as clippings, correspondence, and a draft of Greenleigh’s untitled manuscript.

Arthur Greenleigh was born in Manhattan and received a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University. From 1940 to 1944, Greenleigh served as assistant executive director of the National Refugee Service under William Haber. In 1944, Moe Leavitt asked Greenleigh to travel overseas to assist survivors and Displaced Persons, and in July 1944 Greenleigh traveled to Italy as JDC’s first country director, operating at that time under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees. He worked with the DELASEM (Delegazione Assistenza Emigranti e Profughi Ebrei), a local Jewish relief organization.

After four and a half months in Italy, Greenleigh served as Country Director in France, and then as Deputy Director for JDC’s European operations. He left JDC in 1946. Greenleigh later served as executive director of the United Service for New Americans, which eventually became the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). Greenleigh died in 1993.

Record Group: Haber, Samuel, 1980-1987

Extent: 2 folders; 7 sound cassettes: analog; 22 sound files: digital

Contains audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki and Murray Kass with Samuel Haber on December 15, 1980, January 20, 1981, January 28, 1981, February 11, 1981 and February 25, 1981.Contents also include clippings, correspondence and notes.

Samuel Loeb Haber was born in 1903 in Hirlau, Romania. In 1911, Haber immigrated to the United States and settled with his widowed mother, two brothers and two sisters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trained as an economist, Haber worked as the Regional and Staff Statistician for the Work Projects Administration (WPA) in Chicago, Illinois, from 1935 to 1942, and the National Director of the Division of Research and Statistics for the WPA in Washington, D.C., from 1942 to 1943. Habe served as a Military Government Officer in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946, with tours of duty in England, France, and Germany. In 1946, Haber worked in the U.S. State Department as Assistant Chief in the Division of German and Austrian Economic Affairs.

In March 1947, Haber joined JDC as Director for the U.S. Zone of Germany, and for the next seven years, he managed JDC operations in both Germany and Austria. He served as JDC Assistant Executive Vice Chairman from 1955 to 1956, and also as Country Director in Morocco from 1954 to 1956. He was the JDC Representative in Poland in 1957, becoming the first JDC staff member permitted to work in the country since 1950.

Haber became the Assistant Director General of the Geneva office from 1958 to 1964, and served as the Executive Vice Chairman from 1967 to 1975.

Record Group: Halbleft, Edward, 1994

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 4 sound files: digital

Contain an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Edward Halbleft on April 20, 1994, as well as correspondence and notes.

Edward Halbleft was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1928. He survived World War II by hiding in Belgium, France, and Switzerland. He was assisted by Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE), a French Jewish aid organization that aided child refuges and was supported by JDC.Halbleft immigrated to the United States in 1948.

Record Group: Isenstadt, Emily, 1994-1995

Extent: 1 folder

Contains correspondence between Emily Isenstadt and Herbert Katzki.

Emily Isenstadt worked for the National Refugee Service in Havana in 1939, during which time she worked closely with JDC.

Record Group: Jacobson, Israel Gaynor, 1981-1996

Extent: 4 folders; 4 sound cassettes: analog; 16 sound files: digital

Contains audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki and Murray Kass with Israel Gaynor Jacobson on April 14, 1981,April 21, 1981 and April 30, 1981. Contents also include clippings, correspondence, and notes.

Israel Gaynor Jacobson was born in Buffalo, New York in 1912. He joined JDC in 1944 and serve as Country Director of Czechoslovakia, Greece, Hungary, and Italy. In 1953,Jacobson became Director of European and North African Operations for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), helping to settle about 100,000 Hungarian and Egyptian Jews in Latin America. From 1953 until 1981, Jacobson directed programs for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), becoming world director in 1966. He retired in 1981. Jacobson passed away in 1999.

Record Group: Joslow, Jacob, 1990-1993

Extent: 4 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 6 sound files: digital

Audio recording and transcript of reminiscences by Jacob Joslow.Clippings, correspondence and notes.

Jacob (Jack) Joslow was born in New Britain, Connecticut in 1897. Joslow worked with JDC as Director of the Education Department in the U.S. Zone of Germany from October 1945 to December1946. He supervised educational programs in the DP camps and served as a liaison to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). Joslow continued his service with JDC in New York as Executive Assistant from 1947 to 1948.

Record Group: Katzki, Herbert, 1968-1983

Extent: 6 folders; 5 sound cassettes: analog; 12 sound cassettes: digital

Herbert Katzki’s accounts of his service with JDC are recorded in the following items: transcript of an interview conducted in February 1968; partial transcript of an interview conducted by Menachem Kaufman on March 30, 1976; audio recordings of Herbert Katzki’s reminiscences from January 1981; audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Raphael Levy on March 29, 1982; audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Helen Goldman on March 11,1983, May 3 and 5, 1983, July 8, 1983 and August 26, 1983; audio recordings of interviews conducted by conducted by Marc Tabatchnik on March 15 and 18, 1983; compilation of interview transcripts from 1968, 1976 and 1983, edited by Ellen C. Lewis.

Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Herb Katzki joined JDC in 1936 as Assistant to Executive Director Joseph Hyman and remained with the organization for 60 years.

When World War II broke out, Katzki was sent to the JDC office in Amsterdam, then to Brussels, and finally to Paris, where he served as Secretary of EUREXCO (European Executive Council). Just days before the Nazis entered the city, Katzki sealed the office and fled to Bordeaux, and then to Lisbon, where JDC relocated its overseas headquarters. From there, Katzki returned to France to open a JDC office in Marseilles for assistance to Jewish refugees in unoccupied France. He remained there until December 1941, when the U.S. entered the war, and returned to Lisbon the following year.

At the end of 1943, Katzki was drafted into the U.S. Army and placed on detached service to the War Refugee Board. He was assigned as special attache, first to the American embassy in Ankara and then to the embassy in Bern. In the summer of 1945, Katzki joined Joseph Schwartz on an inspection trip to the DP camps, led by Earl Harrison, which resulted in a landmark report to President Truman on conditions in the camps.

After his discharge, Katzki was appointed JDC Country Director for Germany, where he headed a vast program for survivors and displaced persons. From 1947 to 1967, as Secretary of EUREXCO – the title was subsequently changed to Assistant Director General for Overseas Operations – he was responsible for JDC programs in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. He was transferred from Paris to Geneva in 1958, when the JDC office was moved there, and named Deputy Director General in 1965.

Two years later, Katzki returned to NY headquarters and was appointed Assistant Executive, and then Associate Executive Vice President. He retired in December 1979, but continued to work for JDC on a voluntary basis until his death in August 1997.

Record Group: Laub, Morris, 1981-1992

Extent: 2 folders; 4 sound cassettes: analog; 12 sound files: digital

Contains audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki and Murray Kass with Morris Laub on February 24, 1981, March 5,1981, and March 11, 1981; and an additional audio recording of an interview conducted by Kass with Laub on March 17, 1981. Contents also include clippings and correspondence.

Born in Poland, Morris Laub joined JDC in July 1944 with a background in Jewish education and social work. After a brief period in Paris, he spent 1944 working for JDC in Greece, on loan to UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) there. Later, he rejoined JDC in Italy. From December 1946 to February 1949, Laub headed JDC’s extensive relief program in the British detention camps on Cyprus, providing supplementary food and clothing, medical and dental care, educational and cultural activities at a cost of some $2 million, to some 55,000 Jewish refugees who had been denied entry into Palestine.

Laub served as JDC’s first Country Director for Morocco. In October 1949, he was transferred to Paris to supervise JDC’s emigration program. After a stint at New York headquarters from 1951 to 1956, where he served as JDC Assistant Secretary, Laub returned to Paris in 1956 as Assistant to JDC’s Acting Overseas Director, Charles H. Jordan, to help direct JDC’s vast network of welfare activities in Europe, Israel, and Moslem countries.

Record Group: Levine, Joseph, 1980-1996

Extent: 2 folders; 4 sound cassettes: analog; 12 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of Joseph Levine’s reminiscences from December 8, 1980, as well as clippings and correspondence.

Joseph Levine served as JDC’s Regional Director in Regensburg, Germany after World War II

Record Group: Levy, Henry, 1982-1986

Extent: 2 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 6 sound files: digital

Audio recording and transcript of Henry Levy’s reminiscences, circa 1985.Correspondence between Herbert Katzki and Levy.

Henry Levy joined JDC’s overseas staff soon after World War II. He quickly became involved in supporting the resettlement of refugees from Displaced Persons camps in Israel, the United States, and elsewhere.

Levy was later appointed Director of JDC Operations in Bulgaria and then Czechoslovakia; Director of Emigration, working out of JDC’s headquarters in Paris; Country Director for Algeria and Tunisia and then as Director of Operations in Latin America, where he also served as a representative for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany (Claims Conference).

Record Group: Levy, Raphael, 1992-1995

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 6 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Raphael Levy on November 16, 1992, as well as clippings and correspondence.

Raphael Levy served as JDC’s Director of Public Relations from 1945-1950. Previously, he had also served as Publicity Director for the National Refugee Service and Director of Public Relations for the United Jewish Appeal. Between 1948-1974, he also participated in over 20 missions to Europe and Israel with American Jewish leaders and voluntary agency heads to Europe and Israel to review issues regarding care for Jewish refugees.

Record Group: Loskove, Abe, 1952-1993

Extent: 2 folders; 4 sound cassettes: analog; 20 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Murray Kass and Herbert Katzki with Abe Loskove on January 28, 1981, as well as audio recordings of additional interviews with Kass, Katzki and Loskove on February 11, 1981 and March 17, 1981, and correspondence.

Abraham Loskove joined JDC in 1945 and occupied many roles within the organization: Director of Operations of the Frankfurt Office after the liberation of Displaced Persons camps in Germany; Chief of the Camps Bureau in Italy; Country Director for Libya just prior to its declaration of independence in 1951, where he supervised the evacuation of 32,000 Libyan Jews; Country Director of Iran, Italy, and Morocco; and as Director for Community Relations in JDC’s New York Headquarters.

Record Group: Margolis, Laura, 1987-1989

Extent: 2 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 6 sound files: digital

Contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Margalit Bejerano with Laura Margolis on February 1, 1987, and a transcript and audio recording of an interview conducted with Margolis on October 7, 1981.

A professional social worker, Laura Margolis was sent to Cuba in 1939 by the National Refugee Service, a JDC-supported agency. She worked with American consular officials in Cuba to assist Jewish refugees seeking entry into the U.S., and her success in Cuba led to her next assignment as JDC’s representative in Shanghai, a haven for some 20,000 refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. Margolis used her talents as an administrator to raise money and to reorganize the relief program that sustained many. She was interned by the Japanese in February 1943 as an enemy alien and released in a prisoner exchange in September.

The following year, Margolis was deployed by JDC to Europe, where she established a home for French children smuggled into Spain. In Sweden, she organized a parcel service for inmates in the Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.After the war, Margolis was sent by JDC to Belgium to set up a welfare program for survivors and to support homes for children and the elderly; she was decorated by the Belgian government for her work.

In 1946, Margolis was assigned to France as JDC’s first female Country Director. She was tasked with providing aid for thousands of survivors and helping to rebuild the Jewish community. In France she married Marc Jarblum, a Zionist leader, and the two immigrated to Israel in 1953. From 1954 to 1955, Margolis served as Director of Social Services for JDC-MALBEN, a network of services and institutions for elderly, chronically ill, and handicapped newcomers to the State. After a stint with the Jewish Agency, she returned to MALBEN in 1958 as director for Special Projects, working with disabled children and adults. She died in 1997.

Record Group: Nesher, Aryeh, 1984-1986

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 4 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Aryeh Nesher on April 20, 1984, as well as correspondence and notes.

Dr. Aryeh Nesher is an Israeli educator and social scientist. During World War II, Nesher fought with the anti-Nazi resistance in his native city of Chernowitz, Romania. After the war, Nesher traveled to the U.S.Occupation Zone in Germany in order to gain passage to Palestine.

In 1945, Nesher was elected Secretary-General of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews, the official representative body of displaced Jews in the American Zone from 1945 to 1950. Nesher served as the Committee’s liaison to JDC, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), and the U.S. Army.

Record Group: Noguchi, Isamu, 1984

Extent: 1 folder; 1 sound cassette: analog; 4 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Elaine Weitzen with Isamu Noguchi on December 11, 1984.

Isamu Noguchi was an acclaimed Japanese-American artist and sculptor. He was commissioned to design the Billy Rose Art Garden at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Record Group: Peters, Evelyn, 1982-1994

Extent: 3 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 8 sound files: digital

Contains audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki with Evelyn Peters on December 6, 1992 and December 6, 1993, as well as correspondence and notes.

Evelyn Peters, a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, taught child development and child psychology before joining JDC in 1956. As JDC’s daycare consultant in Iran for six years, Peters trained staff and helped administer daycare centers for impoverished Jewish children throughout the country. Similar assignments followed in Germany, Morocco, and Italy.

In 1963, she moved to Geneva to head the Day Care Department at JDC’s Overseas Headquarters, focusing primarily on early-childhood education in Morocco, Tunisia, and Iran. By 1965, she was also working on preschool education in Jewish communities throughout Europe.In 1974, Peters was appointed Country Director for Tunisia; in 1981, Algeria; in 1989, India. She oversaw JDC-supported projects that focused on welfare assistance, care of the elderly, and Jewish education.She also co-authored the JDC Handbook for Teachers in Day Care Centers,which was widely used in training kindergarten teachers and was also adopted by the Peace Corps and other childcare agencies.

Record Group: Reinhard, Albert, 1988

Extent: 2 folders

Contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Albert Reinhard on June 7, 1988, as well as correspondence between Katzki and Reinhard.

Albert Reinhard served as JDC representative in Tangier, Morocco from 1940 to 1957. He helped to secure visas and aid for refugees arriving from war-torn Europe.

Record Group: Rice, James, 1981-1982

Extent: 3 sound cassettes: analog; 10 sound files digital

Contains an audio recording of an interview conducted by Murray Kass and Herbert Katzki with James Rice on May 13, 1981, and audio recordings of an interview conducted by Katzki with Rice on April 1, 1982 and on another unspecified date.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Rice came to JDC in 1945 with experience in the field of social service. After brief assignments in France and Italy, he was sent to Austria as JDC Director of Operations in the U.S. and French Zones of Occupation. There, he supervised the distribution of supplementary food, clothing, and medicines and secured housing for survivors and displaced Jews.

In mid-1946, he was transferred to the JDC office for France, where he was responsible for providing aid to the thousands of refugees who streamed into France from displaced persons camps in Austria, Germany, and Italy, and from Eastern Europe.At the end of 1948, Rice was asked to open a JDC office for Geneva and to serve in a liaison capacity with the IRO (International Refugee Organization). In 1950, he succeeded Saly Mayer as Country Director for Switzerland, where he served until 1955.

From 1955 to1966, Rice served as executive director of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in New York. He then moved to Chicago and became executive vice president of the Jewish Federation, overseeing its successful merger with the Jewish Welfare Fund. Rice retired in 1979. He passed away in 1997.

Record Group: Rippel, Stella, 1988

Extent: 2 folders; 3 sound cassettes: analog; 20 sound files: digital

Contents include an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Stella Rippel on February 17, 1988 and audio recordings of additional interviews with Rippel on February 25, 1988 and April 14, 1988, as well as correspondence from Katzki and a short story by Rippel.

Stella Rippel was a Holocaust survivor from Warsaw. She began working in JDC’s Warsaw office in 1949, where she assisted survivors in locating relatives and worked in the Children’s Department.

Record Group: Rock, Eli, 1992

Extent: 2 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 6 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Eli Rock on March 19, 1992, as well as clippings, correspondence and notes.

Eli Rock was born in 1915 in Rochester, New York, to Jewish immigrants from Russia. Following his graduation from Yale Law School in 1940, Rock worked as an attorney in Rochester. In January 1942, President Franklin D.Roosevelt re-established the National War Labor Board (NWLB) to administer wage control in national industries. Rock worked for the NWLB from 1942 to 1944 as Director of the Disputes Division in the Regional Office of Philadelphia. In September 1944, Rock volunteered with the American Field Service and served as an ambulance driver in the French Army until 1945.

Rock began his service with JDC as Field Director in France in June 1945. He was transferred to Germany and served as JDC Representative in Munich and Berlin until 1947. In Germany, Rock helped to secure supplies for Jewish refugees in DP camps. He also served as a liaison to the U.S. Military Government in Germany and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). Rock served as JDC Legal Counsel in New York from 1948 to 1949. He worked as Secretary of the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization from 1949 to 1951. He died in 2000.

Record Group: Rombro, Morris, 1982-1992

Extent: 6 folders; 3 sound cassettes: analog; 8 sound files: digital

Contains audio recordings and transcripts of Morris Rombro’s reminiscences from 1991-1992, as well as correspondence between Herbert Katzki and Rombro.

Morris Rombro was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1924. He received a degree from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and did graduate work in sociology at the University of Maryland. He served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946. He joined JDC in 1963 as Deputy Director in Morocco, where he supervised field workers assigned to different communities throughout the country as well as supervising the social work consultants on JDC’s staff. In 1967, he was named Country Director for JDC’s programs in Iran, overseeing medical, sanitation, educational, and vocational services for over 20,000 Iranian Jews.

When Rombro returned to the United States, he held positions with the United Federated Charities in Akron, OH, Buffalo, NY and Chattanooga, TN. Rombro died in 2011.

Record Group: Schmidt, William, 1981-1982

Extent: 1 folder

Contains correspondence between William Schmidt and Herbert Katzki.

William Schmidt, a Professor of Maternal and Child Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, was JDC’s Medical Advisor from 1945-1949, and again from 1953-1957. He oversaw numerous JDC health and medical care initiatives, including: the creation of a screening board for displaced physicians and dentists, to facilitate their return to their professions; assigning a medical officer to coordinate medical care in countries with a significant displaced persons population in collaboration with the Advisor on Jewish Affairs of the U.S. Commanding General, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), and other agencies; and the commission of several studies on public health and hygiene, mental illness and psychiatric care, and maternal and fetal health.

Record Group: Seidenman, Leonard, 1959-1988

Extent: 2 folders; 4 sound cassettes: analog; 32 sound files: digital

Contains audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Leonard Seidenman on October 28, 1987 and audio recordings of interviews with Katzki with Seidenman on September 28, 1987 and October 6, 1987. Contents also include correspondence, notes and the French-language newsletter,”Centrale: February 1959.”

Leonard Seidenman was born in New York City and received a degree in social science from the City College of New York. He served as a military personnel specialist in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946. He joined JDC in 1947 and served in numerous capacities and regions: Director of the Reconstruction Department in France; Director of Rabbinical Services; Headquarters Assistant to the Director-General with direct responsibility for countries without JDC offices, such as China, Portugal, South America, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries; and Director of Reception Services in Vienna during the Hungarian uprising in 1956. He was also involved with DP clearance operations in Germany.

In 1953, Seidenman left JDC for a two-year period to serve as campaign organizer for the European headquarters of the Israel Bond organization. After returning to JDC, Seidenman was named JDC Director for the Benelux countries–Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg–in 1958. Seidenman was transferred to Italy in 1964 as Director of JDC operations in that country, overseeing relief efforts there for Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe.

In 1967, Seidenman joined the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) as director of European and North African operations, and from 1981 to 1984, he served as executive vice president of HIAS, overseeing efforts to relocate Soviet Jewish émigrés. Seidenman died in 1995.

Record Group: Seifert, Esther, 1984

Extent: 2 folders; 1 sound cassette: analog; 2 sound files: digital

Contains audio recording and a transcript of interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Esther Seifert on November 19, 1984.

Esther Seifert worked for JDC from 1944-1952. She served as Personnel Officer in JDC’s Austria operations, under Harold Trobe, in the post-World War II period.

Record Group: Sequerra, Samuel, 1986

Extent: 1 folder; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 10 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki and Marc Tabatchnik with Samuel Sequerra August 28, 1986.

Samuel Sequerra was born in 1913. He served as Secretary of the Jewish Community in Lisbon, Portugal. In late 1941, Sequerra moved to Spain as a representative of the Red Cross. He worked with JDC to aid Jewish refugees in Spain and prisoners at the Miranda de Ebro camp. He died in 1992.

Record Group: Skura, Samuel, 1948-1986

Extent: 2 folder

Contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Herkert Katzki and Marc Tabatchnik with Samuel Skura on August 28, 1986 and correspondence.

Samuel Skura was born in Sosnowiec, Poland. In 1939, he was arrested by the Soviet Army and sent to a labor camp in Murmansk in northern Russia. Skura was released in 1941 and volunteered with the Polish Army and was sent to Central Asia. In 1946, Skura returned to Europe and resided to Feldafing, a displaced persons camp near Munich. He worked in the bookkeeping department of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the U.S. Zone of Germany.

In 1947, Skura began his service with JDC in the supply department, distributing food to displaced persons camps. He immigrated to the United States in 1949. In 1975, Skura became the Founding Vice President of the American Society for Yad Vashem. He died in 2008.

Record Group: Smolar, Boris, 1981-1982

Extent: 2 folder; 1 sound cassette: analog; 4 sound files: digital

Audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki and Murray Kass with Boris Smolar on April 23, 1981. Correspondence and notes.

Boris Smolar was born in 1897 in Rovno, Ukraine. He arrived in the United States in 1919 after serving in the Russian Army during World War I. In 1924, he joined the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), a worldwide news-gathering organization which served Jewish community newspapers.During the 1920s and 1930s, Smolar reported on the rise of Nazism as Chief European Correspondent for the JTA and wrote extensively about JDC aid programs.

In addition to his reporting, Smolar worked directly with JDC; he helped to establish JDC offices in Lutsk and Brest-Litowsk,Ukraine, in the early 1920s. During World War II, Smolar served JDC by investigating the situation of Jews in Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Italy. At his request, Smolar never held a title or received a salary from JDC. In 1939, Smolar was named Editor-in-Chief of the JTA, a post he held until retiring in 1967. He wrote a number of books, including Soviet Jewry Today and Tomorrow (1971) and In the Service of My People (1982). He died in 1986.

Record Group: Stein, Herman, 1992-2009

Extent: 3 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 4 sound files: digital

Contains audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki with Herman Stein on August 21, 1992 and January 11, 1993, as well as clippings, correspondence, and a transcript of Stein’s May 2000 speech,”Recollections of JDC in Europe in the Immediate Post-War Period.”

Herman Stein was born in New York City in 1917. He studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the College of the City of New York and the Columbia University School of Social Work, all in New York. In 1947, he joined JDC’s overseas staff as the Deputy Director of Budget and Research in Paris, and soon established JDC’s first welfare department to help plan and coordinate assistance to Holocaust survivors and displaced persons in Western Europe and North Africa. Stein also helped establish the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work in France.

In 1964, Stein became Professor and Dean of the Mandel School of Applied Social Services at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. In addition to his extensive teaching career, Herman Stein served as an adviser to UNICEF. In 1998, the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences founded the Annual Herman D. Stein Lectureship in International Social Welfare. Stein continued to consult for JDC until his final years. He passed away in 2009.

Record Group: Szalita, Alberta, 1987-1989

Extent: 3 folders; 4 sound cassettes: analog; 14 sound files: digital

contains audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki with Alberta Szalita on November 11, 1987 and March 2, 1988 and audio recordings of interviews with Katzki and Szalita on December 9, 1987 and February 3, 1988, as well as correspondence and notes.

Alberta Szalita was an influential psychoanalyst and theorist. Born in Poland in 1910, Szalita studied neurology at the University of Warsaw and graduated in 1939. She served with JDC as a physician during the late 1940s and early 1950s. She helped to establish psychoanalytic institutes in Israel and Norway, and authored many research papers on schizophrenia and psychoanalytic theory. She died in 2010.

Record Group: Tabatchnik, Marc, 1983-1992

Extent: 3 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 4 sound files:digital

Contains audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki with Marc Tabatchnik on March 15 and 18, 1983.

Marc Tabatchnik was born in Russia in 1907. He left for Belgium in 1931 and later moved to France, where, in 1937, he joined JDC.With the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1941, Tabatchnik and the JDC staff fled to Portugal. In 1940, Tabatchnik and his wife immigrated to the United States. In 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served for three years. He studied geopolitics at the New School for Social Research and in 1945 joined the Russian Institute at Harvard.Tabatchnik joined the United Jewish Appeal in 1950 and served for over thirty years in a variety of leadership positions. He died in 1992.

Record Group: Tavill, Fred, 1992-1994

Extent: 2 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 8 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Fred Tavill on November 12, 1993, as well as correspondence, notes, and a curriculum vitae.

Fred Tavill is a public health professional and educator. Born in Manchester, England, Tavill received a medical degree from Manchester University and trained in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London.

Tavill served with JDC from 1954 until 1968. In 1955, he was appointed Health Center Director in Shiraz, Iran. From 1957 to 1959, he served as Medical Director of Tehran’s Jewish Hospital and Health Center, and from 1960 to 1967, as Country Medical Director in Casablanca, Morocco. Under Tavill’s supervision, JDC staff members provided a wide array of medical services and basic health education.

Record Group: Trobe, Harold, 1979-2010

Extent: 2 folders

Contains a transcript of an interview conducted by Ralph Lowenstein with Harold Trobe on June 18, 1996, as well as clippings, correspondence, and notes.

A native of Pennsylvania and a graduate of the Columbia University School of Social Work, Harold Trobe began his career with JDC in 1944. He was appointed director of operations in Lisbon, JDC’s wartime base and a haven for refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied countries and seeking to emigrate to Palestine and the Americas.

After liberation, Trobe was named JDC Country Director of Czechoslovakia, and charged with administering a welfare program for survivors. In 1946, he was assigned to supervise JDC activities for Jewish refugees and displaced persons in northern Italy.

From 1947 to 1952, he served as Country Director for Austria and then returned to Italy in the same capacity.After a period of service with HIAS, Trobe rejoined JDC in 1965 to serve as Director General for South America. The following year he was transferred to Israel as Deputy Director and subsequenstly Director for Malben and JDC-Israel, where he oversaw the expansion of JDC’s health and welfare programs for elderly, ill, and handicapped immigrants. He remained a member of JDC Executive staff until 1977. Trobe died in 1996.

Record Group: Urbont, Carl, 1990

Extent: 1 folder; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 14 sound files: digital

Contains an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki on March 1, 1990.

Carl Urbont served as an educational adviser in JDC’s France office from August 1949 to September 1950.

Record Group: Warburg, Edward, 1981

Extent: 1 sound cassette: analog; 4 sound files: digital

Audio recording of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki and Marc Tabatchnik with Edward Warburg on May 26, 1981.

Edward Mortimer Morris Warburg was born in 1908 in White Plains, New York. His father, Felix M. Warburg, was JDC’s first Chairman from 1914 to 1932. In 1942, Warburg enlisted in the U.S.Army as a private and was eventually promoted to Captain. He served until 1945 and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Edward Warburg served in a variety of roles at JDC: Vice Chairman from 1938 to 1939; Co-Chairman in 1940;Chairman from 1941 to 1942 and 1945 to 1965; and Honorary Chairman from 1966 to 1991. Throughout his time at JDC, Warburg worked to secure funds for healthcare, childcare and other humanitarian aid programs for displaced persons and refugees. He received decorations from the governments of Belgium and Italy for his work with displaced persons.Edward Warburg served as Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal from 1951 to 1955, and as President from 1955 to 1956. Warburg died in 1992.

Record Group: Weingard, David, 1981-1994

Extent: 2 folders; 3 sound cassettes: analog; 14 sound files: digital

Contents include: an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Murray Kass with David Weingard on March 10, 1981; an audio recording and transcript of an interview conducted by Herbert Katzki with Weingard on June 22, 1994; and audio recordings of interviews conducted by Katzki with Weingard on June 28, 1994, July 15, 1994, July 20, 1994 and July 29, 1994.

David Weingard was appointed as Director of JDC’s Purchase and Supply Division in 1947, responsible for administering the largest relief purchasing program ever undertaken by a private and voluntary assistance organization. In 1951, he resigned as Assistant Secretary of JDC to go into business as a CPA, but continued serving in a volunteer capacity, overseeing the purchasing for JDC’s MALBEN health and social welfare programs in Israel.

Record Group: Weissman, Yefim, 1991-2002

Extent: 7 folders; Contains 3 sound recordings: analog; 12 sound files: digital

English and Russian transcripts of interviews with Yefim Weissman, circa 1990s, correspondence, and notes

Yefim Weissman was born in 1911 in Podolia Gubernia in present-day Ukraine. In the 1930s, Weissman lived in Simferopol, Crimea, where he worked as a driver in the Agro-Joint regional office. During Stalin’s Great Terror, he was arrested twice: in December 1937 and in May 1938. He was a World War II veteran. He emigrated to Israel in the 1970s.

Record Group: Westreich, Rosalie, 1994-1995

Extent: 5 folders; 4 sound cassettes: analog; 14 sound files: digital

Contains audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki with Rosalie Westreich on August 11, 1994, December 21, 1994,July 7, 1995 and August 17, 1995, correspondence, and notes.

Rosalie Westreich was born in Poland in 1908 and raised in Germany. She fled to France in 1937 and worked as a secretary and translator with JDC in Paris. Westreich immigrated to the U.S. in 1939 and worked as a secretary in JDC’s New York office. In 1945, Westreich returned to Germany to serve as Secretarial Assistant and later Executive Assistant to Samuel Haber, JDC Director for the American Occupation Zone of Germany. Westreich worked in Munich until 1949. She served with JDC in Iran from 1954 to 1957.

Record Group: Wollheim, Norbert, 1988-2004

Extent: 4 folders; 2 sound cassettes: analog; 6 sound files: digital

Contains audio recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted by Herbert Katzki with Norbert Wollheim on January 20, 1988 and June 24, 1988; transcripts of interviews conducted on May 10 and 17, 1991;correspondence; and clippings.

Norbert Wollheim was born in 1913 in Berlin, Germany. He studied law and political economy, but was forced to abandon his studies in 1933 due to the rise of Nazism. In 1938, he helped organize the Kindertransport,which brought some 10,000 Jewish children and teenagers from Nazi-controlled territories to Great Britain and Sweden.

In 1943, Wollheim, along with his wife and child, were deported to Auschwitz.Wollheim was liberated by U.S. forces in 1945, but his family perished.During his time in Auschwitz, Wollheim was forced to build a manufacturing plant for I.G. Farben. In 1951, Wollheim sued Farben for two years’ worth of work. Wollheim won the lawsuit, which also forced Farben to create a $6.43 million fund to compensate other Jewish slave laborers. In 1952, Wollheim immigrated to the United States and settled in Queens, New York. He died in 1992.