Dan Alssid | JDC Archives

Author: Dan Alssid

When a Letter Becomes Art

Currently on loan from the JDC Archives are documents, photographs, and artifacts, all featured in the exhibit 1917: How One Year Changed the World at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. One item of particular interest is a letter of recognition from YeKoPo, the Jewish Committee for the Relief of War Victims, Vilna (c. 1919). Launched in Russia in 1914, YeKoPo established local branches throughout Eastern Europe to aid Jewish victims of pogroms and World War I. JDC supported the relief organizations efforts to transport refugees, supply food, clothing, shelter, and childcare, as well as provide...

An Enduring Personal JDC Connection in Poland

At 86 years old, Emanuel Elbinger (who is better known as Mundek) is an active member of the JDC-supported Jewish Community Centre in Krakow, Poland. What Mundek did not fully realize until recently is how closely his own life has been linked to JDC. On the eve of World War II, eight-year-old Emanuel, together with his parents and two sisters lived in Brzesko Nowe, a town near Krakow. When the Germans created a ghetto and proceeded with their anti-Jewish policies, the Elbingers knew they were in grave danger. Hearing rumors about an impending deportation in fall 1942, they went...