Author: JDC Archives

The JDC Archives is sad to announce the passing last month of Rose Klepfisz, JDC’s first Director of Archives and Central Files.  Born in 1914, Rose Klepfisz lived to the age of 101. Rose Klepfisz, a Holocaust survivor from Warsaw whose husband was a hero of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, emigrated to the U.S. in 1949. In New York, she first worked on the Guide to Jewish History under Nazi Impact, a project of the Joint Documentary Projects of Yad Vashem and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. In 1962, Klepfisz was recruited by JDC to begin organizing its...

Exciting news for Israeli genealogists and family historians! The JDC Archives has recently initiated a collaboration with the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) to share two sets of information: Jews in Poland who received parcels as per orders via JDC’s Jerusalem office from 1946-1947. Immediately following World War II, JDC created a program through which families and friends could get life-sustaining CARE packages to Holocaust survivors in Poland. Included on this list are names and addresses of beneficiaries in Poland and donors in Mandatory Palestine. (View sample page) The Operation Magic Carpet lists. Following Israel’s independence, JDC organized and...

As part of JDC Archives’ outreach initiatives, JDC Archives staff will present to a variety of audiences in the coming months about what the Archives has to offer both academic researchers and genealogists alike. The Archives’ presence at various academic and professional forums across the globe helps draw attention to its vast holdings and encourage ongoing scholarship using its records. As part of efforts to increase outreach efforts in Israel, in December 2015 Shachar Beer, Director of JDC’s Jerusalem Archives, presented in Tel Aviv at the first conference and official gathering of children born to the Jewish population of...

“Nearly every artifact has a story connected to it, whether it be a hole in a helmet or a belt that a medic carried around with him as he treated the wounded on the beach.” -Stephen Ambrose, American Historian 1936-2002   If a picture is worth a thousand words, as the expression goes, how many words is an object worth? An ordinary item can be elevated to historical heights by where it has been and what it has seen. When curating JDC’s centennial exhibit at the New York Historical Society in 2014, it became evident that the presence of...