Jewish Cultural Community, Vienna: Papers

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 1556 WL 1254
Held at	: Wiener Library   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/ ›
Full title	: Jewish Cultural Community, Vienna: Papers
Date(s)	: 1939-1942
Level of description	: collection
Extent	: 1 file
Name of creator(s)	: Jewish Cultural Community, Vienna

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

The offices of the Jewish Community in Vienna were re-opened having been closed down in the immediate afermath of the German takeover of Austria (1938). The newly restored community organisation devoted a large part of its resources towards planning emigration and social welfare. It also became involved in vocational training. The Jewish Community in Vienna was disbanded on 1 November 1942 and replaced by a council of elders for the Jews of Vienna. The remaining assets of 6.5 million marks were transferred to Prague to be used to finance the Theresienstadt Ghetto. The central office for Jewish emigration was closed down and responsibility for deportations was transferred to a branch of the SS.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Correspondence and papers of the head office of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde, Wien (IKW) (Jewish Cultural Community, Vienna), 1939-1942, including correspondence and statements from the housing and emigration departments of the IKW, which provide biographical details of Jews who have suffered persecution under the Nazis and have subsequently fallen on hard times; copies of letters sent from the head office of the IKW to various municipal authorities and the police regarding treatment of individual Jews; report (author unknown) entitled 'Zwölf Fragen über die Auswanderung aus Wien, 1 Januar bis 30 April 1940', in which many aspects of the Jewish emigration from Vienna are discussed; an original Jewish tram pass issued to Berta Brand and 2 pieces of 'Jude' badges (housed in the Wiener Library 'Special Collections').

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
German

System of arrangement:

Chronological

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

Archival history:

The papers were in the possession of Berta 'Sara' Brand, a former employee of the organisation. Her nephew, the depositor, discovered them amongst her possessions after her death in Vienna in 1982.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Siegfried Weizmann

Allied Materials

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:
February 2008