The Relico Collection: Documentation of the Committee for Relief of the War-Stricken Jewish Population, World Jewish Congress, Geneva

The Collection contains documentation regarding the activities of the Committee during the war as well as its post-war activities. In the Collection from the war period, there is correspondence between Committee members and Jews living under the German regime and correspondence with family members living in the free world and trying to help their Jewish relatives living under the German regime. In the letters sent from ghettos and camps there is information regarding the condition of the Jews. Sometimes these were the last letters of the Jews who perished afterwards. Included in the documentation from this period there are also confirmations from Jews that they had received parcels through the Committee. The lists of those who received parcels are the kind of additional material included in the Collection. In the documentation of the Committee created after the war there are lists of survivors, card files containing the names of survivors and correspondence whose main topic is the locating of relatives and requests for help sent to the Committee from all over the Jewish world. The Relico organization, the World Jewish Congress Relief Committee for the War-Stricken Jewish Population, Geneva, was founded in Geneva in 1939 by Dr. Abraham Silberschein, and funded by the World Jewish Congress. The Committee was active until 1947. Its main purpose was to assist the persecuted Jews in the areas occupied by the Nazis. The organization also assisted in locating family members and provided relief to Jews who had lost their homes and/or their property.