New Archival Collections

New Archival Collections at the Leo Baeck Institute

The Leo Baeck Institute is continually collecting new archival materials related to the history of German-speaking Jews. Please see in the following a list of recently digitized archival collections, each with a short synopsis. Clicking on the link underneath the title will lead to the collection’s finding aid, which in turn contains links to its digital objects.

Rachel Wischnitzer collection addendum
Finding aid with links to digital objects

This collection contains professional and personal material of Rachel Wischnitzer and her husband Mark Wischnitzer. Unique to this collection is personal correspondence between the Wischnitzers and their son Leonard J. Wischnitzer (later Winchester).

Rachel Wischnitzer née Bernstein was born in Minsk, Russia, on April 15, 1885. In the years after her graduation from the Gymnasium in Warsaw, she studied art and architecture in Brussels and Paris, where she received her diploma. After university, she returned to Russia as part of the Evreiskaia Entsiklopediia (Russian-language Jewish Encyclopedia) staff. Mark Wischnitzer (also Markus Wischnitzer and Mordko Wisznicer) was born in Rovno, Russia, on May 10, 1882. He attended the K. K. Kronprinz-Rudolf Gymnasium in Brody from 1894 until 1901, then continued his studies at the University of Vienna and Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin, from which he received his doctorate in 1906. On June 5, 1912, Rachel Bernstein married Mark Wischnitzer, who served as one of the editors of the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia.

The Wischnitzers' only child, Leonard James Wischnitzer, was born in Berlin on January 5, 1924. The family immigrated to Paris in 1938. Rachel Wischnitzer earned a master’s degree from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts in 1944. She taught fine arts at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women from 1956 until her retirement in 1968. Mark Wischnitzer died October 15, 1955, in Tel Aviv, Israel. Rachel Wischnitzer died November 20, 1989, in New York.

Writings by Elisabeth Model
Finding aid with links to digital objects

The collection holds two autobiographical writings by the artist Elisabeth Model. One work describes her husband’s persecution by the Nazis in Amsterdam, along with the family’s later escape to and life in the United States. The second work focuses on places and people that impressed her throughout her life.

Elisabeth (Lise) Model was born in Bayreuth into a family of artists in 1897. She studied sculpture in Munich under Professor Thor; in Paris under Moissi Kogan, and at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam under Professor Jurgens. She became a painter and a sculptor in her own right. While studying in Munich, she met her future husband Max Model, born February 3, 1895. Max was a banker for the Dresdner bank in Frankfurt and Mannheim. Elisabeth and Max Model got married on September 5, 1922 and moved to Amsterdam, where they became Dutch citizens. They had two sons, Wolfgang (Wolfe) and Franz. Elisabeth, their two sons, and her sister Mali arrived in New York on June 21, 1941. Max Model died September 11, 1950. Elisabeth Model died in New York City on November 12, 1993.

Erich and Eva Holzer Collection
Finding aid with links to digital objects

This collection contains correspondence, personal papers, and photographs pertaining to Erich and Eva Holzer. Also included are documents regarding their early education, as well as emigration to the United States and their travels between Colombia, Ecuador and the United States.

Erich Paul Holzer was born in Hamburg, Germany on December 5, 1923, to Bernhard and Hedwig Holzer; as Bernhard was Austrian, Erich obtained Austrian citizenship at birth. Erich went to a public school in Hamburg. In 1933, his parents decided to move him and his sister to Jewish schools: Erich went to Talmud Tora, and his sister Lieselotte to Israelitische Töchterschule. In 1938, the family departed for Cali, Colombia, where Erich started studying agricultural engineering in 1941 and later worked as a farmer.

Eva was born in Komárno (Slovakia) on June 10, 1929. In 1940, Eva lived in Quito, Ecuador, where she went to the Colegio Americano (American School). In 1947, she came to Cali, Colombia. Erich got married to Eva Rauchwerger in 1948 in Cali. Erich and Eva had a son, Ricardo Hermann Holzer, and a daughter, Vivian Holzer. The family emigrated to the United States in ca. 1953 and later lived in New Jersey, where Erich died in 1998.

Wimpfheimer Family Collection
Finding aid with links to digital objects

The collection holds the documents and correspondence of the Wimpfheimer family from Karlsruhe. The collection covers the Wimpfheimers’ emigration to Switzerland and later the United States as well as their efforts to regain restitution for the family’s malting factory in Karlsruhe.

Eugen Wimpfheimer was born in Karlsruhe in 1875. His parents, Karl and Fanny Wimpfheimer (née Offenheimer), owned Karlsruhe’s largest malting factory. The Wimpfheimer malting factory supplied malt to the German army during World War I. Eugen Wimpfheimer was married to Clémence Wimpfheimer (née Guggenheim), who was born in the Swiss Kanton Aargau in 1882. Their first daughter Maria (Mia) was born in Heidelberg in 1914.

Maria (Mia) Fanny Wimpfheimer studied French culture in Paris before studying horticulture in England. She later graduated from Columbia University in New York in international administration. Maria emigrated to Israel where she married Micha Pietrkowski. Maria’s brother Karl Friedrich Wimpfheimer was born in Heidelberg in 1920, followed by their youngest sister Alice Adelheid Wimpfheimer in 1924. By then, the Wimpfheimer family had returned to Karlsruhe. In 1937, Eugen Wimpfheimer had to sell his company. The family had left for Switzerland in early 1937. After successfully emigrating to the United States in 1941 and living in New York, Eugen Wimpfheimer died in 1946 while vacationing in Switzerland.

The Wimpfheimer malting factory was returned to the Wimpfheimer family by 1949. Karl Wimpfheimer became its new head until the factory closed in 1982.

Lederer Family Collection
Finding aid with links to digital objects

The collection holds the correspondence of Emil Lederer to his family and friends in Czechoslovakia. Emil had emigrated to Canada and tried to establish his own farm. The collection also holds manuscripts for a book and several plays written by Emil’s mother Paula Lederer, who published under the name Paul Lederer.

Paula Lederer was originally from Czechoslovakia and married to Otto Lederer. The Lederer family, including their son Emil Lederer with his wife and children, had emigrated to Canada in 1938. Paula was the author of a book and multiple plays, mostly published under the male name Paul Lederer. After their emigration to Canada, the Lederers settled in Nova Scotia and later Ontario.

Inge Worth Estate Collection
Finding aid with links to digital objects

This collection documents the life of Inge (née Josephsohn) Worth (1922-2016), who immigrated to the U.S. in 1938. Correspondence, personal writings, photographs, and other archival materials describe Inge’s early years in Germany, and her experiences as a refugee; as well as her marriages to Manfred Keiler and Peter Worth; and her involvement with cultural activities in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Inge (née Josephsohn) Worth was born in Danzig. They emigrated to New York City in 1938. Upon arrival, her father changed the family name from Josephsohn to Joston. Inge graduated from Rhodes Preparatory School before enrolling at Hunter College. In 1947, Inge married Manfred Keiler, also a German-Jewish refugee living in New York, and together they moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, where Manfred taught art and where Inge worked as an administrator. In 1965, five years after Manfred’s death, Inge married Peter Worth, an art historian at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln. Peter died in 2010 and Inge Worth died in 2016 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Frankl-Kulbach family collection
Finding aid with links to digital objects

The Frankl-Kulbach family collection contains materials documenting the lives of members of the Frankl, Kulbach, and related families, particularly art historian Paul Frankl and his wife Elsa Frankl, and their daughters Johanna Kulbach née Frankl, Susan Wilk née Frankl, and Regula Davis née Frankl. Through family histories, correspondence, diaries, vital documents, writings, and photographs, the collection covers their lives in Germany before World War II, their efforts to immigrate to the United States, and their lives and careers in the United States.

Jean Herta and Jacques Werner Bloch Collection
Finding aid with links to digital objects

This collection documents the lives of Jean Herta (née Dreyfuss) and Jacques Werner Bloch, with a focus on their early lives. In addition, it holds papers of their parents and extended family as well as genealogical research.

Jacques Werner Bloch was born as Werner Jakob Bloch in Baden-Baden, Germany, on June 19, 1920. He grew up in the village of Rheinbischofsheim. From 1933 to 1935 he studied to become a chef in Montbeliard, France. His family left Germany to join him there. In September 1939, he was interned. In January 1940, he joined the French army as a cook. Soon after, in June 1940, following the occupation of Paris, he escaped to Vichy France disguised as a farmer. He was able to leave the country and arrived in New York City on June 13, 1941, later followed by the rest of his family.

In New York, Jacques Werner Bloch worked as a cook in New York hotels, including the Waldorf-Astoria. In February 1943 he was drafted into the United States Army and sent to Europe, deployed near the Battle of the Bulge. On December 19, 1944, the company surrendered, and soldiers were taken to a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany. Jacques Werner Bloch received two bronze medals later. After returning to New York, he met Jean Herta Dreyfuss. In 1949, he began working as the Food Director at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

Jean Herta Dreyfuss was born on November 14, 1924, in Pforzheim Germany. Her father had been arrested on November 9, 1938, and sent to Dachau, where he was detained for six weeks until his wife Ida was able to secure his release. In 1939 the family emigrated to New York City, where Jean Herta Dreyfuss attended high school and took evening courses at Hunter College. She worked as a secretary during and after the war.

In 1949, Jacques Werner Bloch and Jean Herta Dreyfuss married. In 1954, they settled in New York City, where Jacques became Food Director, and later, head of the Nutrition Department, at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. They had two children, born in 1953 and in 1957.

Jacques Werner Bloch died on September 20, 2011. Jean Herta Dreyfuss passed away on August 29, 2017.