Boris Moiseevič Sapir Collection

Period (1873-) 1945-1966
Total size   1.24 m.
ConsultationNot restricted

History

Boris Sapir (1902-1989), archivist and Menshevik historian, was director of the Research Department of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC); this organization served since 1914 as overseas arm of the American Jewish community; first aim was to help needy Jews in Palestine and in war-torn Europe during World War I; JDC helped local Jewish communities establish relief programs and health and child care facilities in Poland and Russia; as Hitler consolidated power between 1933 and 1939, JDC accelerated its aid to German Jewry; it helped 250. 000 Jews flee Germany and 125. 000 to leave Austria; late in 1944, JDC entered Europe’s liberated areas and organized a massive relief effort; JDC funding helped Jewish refugees to leave Europe for South America and Israel; in Western Europe, the JDC helped local organizations assist the devastated communities to restore Jewish life, train new leadership and revive communal institutions; with onset of the Cold War, JDC was expelled from most countries of Eastern Europe.

Content

Historical survey of the activities of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) before and during the Second World War in Europe, Russia and Palestine 1945-1946; minutes of the meetings of the conferences of the country directors of the JDC 1948-1949, 1951-1963; letter of Herbert Katzki to Boris Sapir on the omission of the minutes of the conference in 1964 1966.

Transcriptions of archival documents from Russian archives on the IISH (and elsewhere?), made for source publications by Sapir and Smirnov.

Processing information

Inventory (nos. 1-27) made by Bouwe Hijma in 2001, supplement (nos. 28-65) by Hermien van Veen in 2010

Secondary creator

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

Related material

The papers of Boris Sapir are kept in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of Colombia University, New York