11/20/39
Mr. Giterman and I are agreed that the enclosed project for a study by IVO [sic] (Jewish Scientific Institute) of the effect of the destruction of Poland on Jewish Jewish life has enormous practical and long-range value and should be accepted and approved so that work may begun on it at once. As indicated in a previous memorandum this task has already been undertaken on a partial scale as a work relief project for Jewish journalists in Vilna who are gathering the account of eyewitnesses of the evacuation of Warsaw, the destruction of cities and the flight from Poland and working them up into report form. A first installment of this material was forwarded you last week.
That portion of the proposed study which requires such materials will of course be provided by the journalists committee. The IVO study will in addition attempt to make some estimates, on a statistical basis, of the extent of the destruction, the mature fields which have been hit, the possibilities for reconstruction etc. All of this will be valuable: a. as current campaign material. b. as a permanent historical document. c. in long-range planning for post-war work. d. as indicated in the memorandum, in general international approaches to the Jewish population of Poland during and after the war.
It will be recalled the J.D.C. published a similar document after the last war.
Mr. Giterman and I recommend that the six thousand dollars requested be made available for this project. We have asked the IVO to submit more detailed schedules of the working plan and shall discuss with them in careful specific fashion the particulars of the work in order to ensure its objectivity and accuracy before the job is begun. The extent to which the project can be completely [sic] within six months depends to a large extent on the ability of IVO representatives to get access to some of the information about the occupied territories. We shall therefore see to it that IVO’s working schedule is so arranged as to make possible the completion of certain sections of the report within the six months period specified in the attached memorandum, so that if no further funds are available after the first period, the material gathered up to the point will represent a complete unit.
All rights of publication will of course vest in the J.D.C.
Beckelman
This letter, written by Moses Beckelmann, delegate of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (Joint) in Vilnius, informs the New York headquarters about the decision to fund a documentation and research project of the Yidishn visnshaftlekhn Institut (Jewish Scientific Institute, short: YIVO). The project was meant to be a continuation of the documentation project started by Polish-Jewish refugee writers and journalists with the help of the Joint and which today comprises the archive of the Komitet tsu zamlen materialn vegn yidishn khurbn in Poyln 1939 (Committee for Collecting Material on the Destruction of Jewish Communities in Poland 1939).
JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1945 – 1954, NY_AR45ß54_00195_1234, NY_AR45ß54_00195_1236
Shortly after the German attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, it was decided within the first week of the war that the Polish government was to be withdrawn eastbound as Warsaw was threatened. The Polish press, among them representatives of the Jewish Polish press, was to be rescued as part of the evacuation plans.
On 8 February, 1940, Pese R. entered the office of the "Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry, 1939" in Vilnius, Lithuania in order to give an interview. She was one of many Polish Jewish refugees who had found shelter in Vilnius.
On 21 December, 1939, Chaim-Leyb D. was interviewed by the "Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry, 1939" in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Among the more than 10,000 Jews who were stranded in Vilnius in the fall of 1939 there was the librarian and political activist Herman Kruk from Warsaw. His exceptional diary records and press reports sketch a mosaic of the heterogenous society of refugees in Vilnius since the beginning of the war.
Report compiled by Moses Beckelman, Lithuanian delegate of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, about the “Nobody’s Land” within the Suwałki Triangle, 10 November…
On 24 June 1941, Kruk writes about his discouragement regarding his futile attempts to leave Vilnius for the USA shortly after the German attack…
On the night of September 5-6, 1939, only a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish journalists and writers…
On 21 December 1939, Chaim-Leyb D. was interviewed by the “Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry 1939” about his flight…
In the chaos of war, Moyshe Mandelman (1895-1963) made it to Vilnius in 1940. He was particularly impressed by the local Jewish aid networks…
Benzion Benshalom tells of the harsh winter of 1939/40, which made life even harder for refugees in Vilnius and led to tragedies at the…
Mendel Balberyszski (1894-1966) was born in Vilnius but had been living in Łódź for over a decade at the outbreak of the Second World…
Herman Kruk was a refugee from Warsaw who wrote reports on the refugee situation in Vilnius for the Yiddish magazine Folks-gezunt (Public Health) of…
