IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 1556 WL 1183
Held at: Wiener Library
Title: Gross family documents
Date(s): 1938-1945
Level of description: collection
Extent: 1 file
Name of creator(s): Gross family
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Wilhelm and Getrud Gross were typical middle class Germans living in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland). Wilhelm was a Professor of Engineering and Gertrud was the daughter of wealthy industrialists. Her uncle, Karl Gross, had a substantial collection of art works and antiquities, which were confiscated and many of which are probably currently in museums in Eastern Europe. They were of Jewish ethnic origin, but were not religious and they integrated their children totally into German culture.
They had 3 children: Dorothea; an elder brother, Karl; and a younger brother Klaus. Wilhelm was one of 6 siblings. His sister, Emilie, married into the Kuppenheim family.
It appears from the correspondence that Wilhelm was incarcerated in Buchenwald shortly after Kristallnacht and released 5 weeks later on the proviso that he and his family leave Germany immediately. The grandparents fled to Holland in 1939 whence they were later deported and perished in the Holocaust. The three children came to Great Britain.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Papers of the Gross family, 1938-1945, documenting the experiences of an assimilated German Jewish family, some of whom managed to escape to safety and others who perished in the Holocaust. Comprising original correspondence between members of the family and friends before, during and after World War Two; personal papers such as certificates and photographs.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: German and English
System of arrangement:
Chronological by document type
Conditions governing access:
Open
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copies can be made for personal use. Permission must be sought for publication.
Finding aids:
Description exists to this archive on the Wiener Library's online catalogue www.wienerlibrary.co.uk
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Sybil Sharpe
ALLIED MATERIALS
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note: Entry compiled by Howard Falksohn.
Date(s) of descriptions: January 2008