William A. Grab Jr. collection

The William A. Grab Jr. collection is comprised of papers pertaining to Thaddaus Zalewski and Paul Flohr, both prisoners held by the Nazis during the Holocaust and collected by William A. Grab, a veteran of the United States Army. The Thaddaus Zalewski papers include four letters written by Thaddaus during his incarceration in Dachau between 1943 and 1944. The letters were sent to a family member living in East Prussia. The material pertaining to Paul Flohr includes various identification papers and membership cards. Included among them are membership cards for the Social Democratic Party and Association of Victims of the Nazis. Identification cards include a passport, employee card and proof of employment for Leitz GmbH & Co., and a special pass issued to former Nazi prisoners. Paul Flohr was born in June 1881 near what is present day Riga, Latvia. As an adult, Paul lived in Wetzlar, Germany where he worked as an engineer and department head for Leitz GmbH & Co., a technology manufacturer of machine-driven precision tools. A member of the Social Democratic party, Paul was eventually arrested by the Gestapo and held by the Nazis as a political prisoner for 6 months in Frankfurt, Bamberg, and Straubing. He survived his ordeal and later joined the Association of Victims of the Nazis. Thaddaus Zalewski was born in September 1912 in Nasielsk, Poland. Sometime after the Nazi rise to power, Thaddaus was arrested and sent to Mauthausen as a political prisoner. In April 1940 he was transferred to Dachau and given the identification number 25499. He remained there until he was liberated in 1945.