O.75: Letters and postcards from the Holocaust period or regarding the Holocaust

O.75: Letters and postcards from the Holocaust period or regarding the Holocaust
 
 In the Record Group are personal letters collected by Yad Vashem since its establishment. The letters were written before, during and after the Holocaust period in the Nazi occupied countries - in ghettos, camps and hiding places, and in the countries to which the Jewish refugees from Europe succeeded in escaping before and during the Holocaust.
 
 The letters were sent to family members, relatives, acquaintances, friends and close friends in European countries and countries overseas. 
 
 In the collection are letters written outside the boundaries of Europe and sent to Jews living in the Nazi occupied countries.
 
 The letters constitute a variegated human mosaic of Jews and non-Jews of different ages, from various countries, who spoke different languages, writing on a wide range of subjects. From the letters and postcards one can learn about the daily life of the Jews in many countries during the period before the war, their lives in the ghettos and camps, their personal feelings, their distress, and the persecutions against them.
 
 Some of the letters have the characteristics of a testimony. In these letters, the writer tells of his/her experiences and those of his/her family, details regarding historical events and people s/he met, and their fate. These letters were written during the war and afterwards by survivors, and in them, the survivors tell of their experiences and those of their family to relatives, friends and fellow townspeople who were not in Europe during the Holocaust. They describe the destruction of their city or town and the murder of the Jews.
 
 A unique group within the Record Group is comprised of letters written on special forms provided by the International Red Cross Organization and sent from the occupied countries. The residents of these countries were unable to maintain normal postal contact with the countries that were at war with Germany (such as Britain). In these letters, the writers were allowed to write a limited number of words, usually in a pre-determined style, such as: "We (listing of the names of the senders) are well; we hope you are, too, and so on". However, sometimes there is also additional information in the letter, such as "We must leave..." which hint at an imminent deportation or other coded information, which only the relatives could understand.
 
 This group of letters points out, among other things, the many hardships faced by family members, relatives and friends who wanted to receive information regarding their dear ones from whom they were forced to part, and to maintain contact with them. More than once these letters, which were sent by the Red Cross, were the final signs of life that were received from the deportees, who were murdered afterwards.
 
 Another group of letters in the Record Group is "Last letters". These are letters by writers who were aware of their imminent death and who wanted to bid farewell to their loved ones. Many times, these letters contain a will, usually a spiritual will with special values.
 
 Due to the censorship imposed during the war years, the writers had to be careful about writing openly regarding the horrible living conditions and the persecutions, and one should therefore also read between the lines. This is true mainly for letters and postcards sent from the camps, when the writers knew that true details would be disqualified by the censor. Sometimes the writers sent coded messages that would be understood only by the recipients.
 
 In "Personal letters", subjects come up that are not mentioned in official documentation sources. These are subjects such as family relations, parenting, motherhood, relations between siblings, separation and longings, information regarding the fate of relatives and friends, concern over the fate of family members and friends, daily problems of existence faced by the Jews living in the Nazi occupied countries, requests for material help and assistance to leave Europe, difficulties in sending and receiving mail and parcels, and attempts to overcome these difficulties.
 
 These subjects are likely to interest the researcher in areas of knowledge such as social history, history of the family or gender, and more. Reading the letters can also be a moving experience for someone interested in knowing the private person who lived during the Holocaust, from the point of view of the writer.
 
 Microfilms:
 4
 1221
 2597
 2689
 2790-2791
 2794 -2795
 2803
 2816
 2951
 2998
 2999
 3668
 10669