Author: JDC Archives

Historical films and videos from the JDC archival collections provide a compelling visual representation of JDC’s global, rescue, relief and rehabilitation activities. Our film collection includes over 150 titles, primarily by and about JDC, produced from the late 1920s through the 1970s. These films are kept in climate-controlled storage via the National Center for Jewish Film. In addition, our JDC-related video collection, covering the 1980s through the 2000s, includes an estimated 2,200 original recordings, among them edited productions and raw footage, which are accessible at the JDC Archives. These films and videos hold significance for filmmakers, curators, scholars, researchers,...

  American historian, Laura Hobson Faure, pens the story of a wartime JDC staff member who recently passed away. Born in Spain in a German-Jewish family in 1917, Lolita Eschborn Goldstein moved to Germany as a young child. After Hilter’s rise to power, at age sixteen, she encouraged her family to flee. They sought refuge in Lisbon, where Lolita helped support her family by tutoring in English, French and German. In 1940, Lolita was encouraged to apply for a position with the newly-opened JDC office. During her interview with Dr. Joseph Schwartz, soon to be head of JDC’s European...

The Summer 2016 issue of Dorot, the journal of the Jewish Genealogical Society, includes three articles about recent lists added to the JDC Archives online Names Index. The first, a news item submitted by Digitization Project Manager Jeff Edelstein, announces the completion of the indexing of names that appear on passenger lists of the SS Serpa Pinto, a ship that sailed numerous times from Lisbon and Casablanca to North and South America during World War II, carrying thousands of refugees to safety. JDC Archives photographs accompanying the piece portray children arriving in Lisbon from Marseilles prior to their ocean...