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Wiener Library

Lasker-Wallfisch, Anita: personal correspondence


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 1556 WL 1040

Held at: Wiener Library

Title: Lasker-Wallfisch, Anita: personal correspondence

Date(s): 1939-1945

Level of description: Collection level

Extent: 4 files

Name of creator(s): Wallfisch | Anita | Lasker- | b 1925 | musician x Lasker-Wallfisch

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

Anita Lasker was born into a professional Jewish family, one of three sisters (Marianne and Renate). Her father was a lawyer; her mother a fine violinist. They suffered discrimination from 1933 but as their father had fought at the front in the First World War, gaining an Iron Cross, the family felt some degree of immunity. Marianne, the eldest sister, fled to England in 1941. In April 1942, Anita's parents were taken away and are believed to have died at Isbica, near Lublin, in Poland. Having been initially arrested in Breslau for aiding the escape of French forced labourers, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was later able to survive Auschwitz by playing the cello in the Auschwitz prisoners' orchestra. Towards the end of the war the sisters were transferred to Bergen Belsen where they remained for up to a year after liberation. During this time Anita was a witness at the Lüneburg trial where camp guards and Kapos were tried for their war crimes.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Personal correspondence of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch with family members, documenting in part the experiences of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and her sisters in Bergen Belsen concentration camp and in England, 1945, and the experiences of their parents prior to transportation to their deaths, close to the Lublin Ghetto, 1942.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: German and English

System of arrangement:

Arranged chronologically by correspondent.

Conditions governing access:

Open

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies can be made for personal use. Permission must be sought for publication.

Physical characteristics:

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:

Lasker-Wallfisch family

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of originals:

Imperial War Museum, London

Related material:

Publication note:

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Archivist's note: Entry compiled by Howard Falksohn.

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: January 2008


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Antisemitism | Racial discrimination
Concentration camps | War crimes | Humanitarian law
Holocaust | Genocide | War crimes | Humanitarian law
Jews | Religious groups
Refugees | Migrants
Third Reich | Nazism | Totalitarianism | Political doctrines
World War Two (1939-1945) | World wars (events) | Wars (events)

Personal names
Wallfisch | Anita | Lasker- | b 1925 | musician x Lasker-Wallfisch

Corporate names
Bergen Belsen concentration camp x Belsen

Places
Germany | Western Europe | Europe
London | England | UK | Western Europe | Europe
Poland | Eastern Europe